HOLLYWOOD – SpielBlog is a soup to nuts film by film rundown of Steven Spielberg’s film career.
Goldie Hawn was the star attraction as Lou Jean Poplin, or single mother, petty criminal who decides to break her husband Clovis (William Atherton) out from a low security prison in order to rescue their baby who has been placed in foster care. Lou Jean and Clovis have no grand plan and their witless progress is only facilitated by the overkill of the response moderated by the restraint of Captain Tanner (a fantastic Ben Johnson).
Having stolen one car and totalled it, they then steal the car of the policeman Patrolman Slide (Michael Sacks) who was pursuing them, and taking him hostage head for Sugarland where Baby Brandon is feeding steak to the family dog. They’re pursued by an increasing convoy of police cars, as well as a TV news team and ultimately crowds of well-wishers.
The photography is superb, celebrated cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond can take some credit, but Spielberg’s shot choice is already there. His ability to tell a story visually, to marshal background detail and juxtapose different elements, to find beauty and grime in the same location is truly stunning and goes someway to justifying Kael’s enthusiasm.
Ironically, the film would pick up Best Screenplay at Cannes, whereas this is probably the weakest element. The characters aren’t well drawn and at crucial moments make staggeringly dumb decisions. Whereas Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek imbue their leads with an edge of sociopathic charisma in Badlands, here Hawn and Atherton come over as doomed lovers via Dumb and Dumber. To be fair, Atherton seems the most knowing of the two, occasionally his expression betratying that he knows how this is going to end but he’ll go for it anyway. But just when the possibility of pathos scratches the corner of your eye, he’ll prove himself as dumb as a brick in the next scene. (He would later reappear as the eminently hateable asshole in Die Hard and Ghostbusters.) Goldie Hawn, meanwhile, was reaching for a more dramatic role, but the character is underwritten and – crucially – irritating. Her squealing when delighted and hollering when angry are equally annoying and it is ultimately Lou Jean who is the motivating force for the dumbest decisions.
And then there’s the police cars. The excessive demolition derby of police cars seems to be an obsession in Seventies American Cinema. John Landis in The Blues Brothers for instance goes all the way. It’s the mad cap chase that would lead to such capers as Smokey and The Bandit, Convoy and The Cannonball Run. I can’t help but suspects Spielberg likes the look of the flashing strobes on the roofs of the cars and the different angles he can get them from. When Captain Tanner wants to show his contempt for a pair of duck hunting vigilantes, he smashes the strobe light on their car like a general ripping the epaulettes from a disgraced officer.
As with Duel, I get the feeling Spielberg is consciously making as big a film as he can out of fairly slim material. With Duel however the simplicity worked int he film’s favour. Here, there is more ambition but paradoxically The Sugarland Express ends up as a smaller film overblown. A superficially embossed calling card which isn’t funny enough to be a comedy or thoughtful enough to have something to say. There are glimpses of darkness on the edge of town. The two snipers brought in to assassinate the outlaws provide a brief glimpse of workmanlike malevolence, with the bullets stuck in their ears to protect them from the noise.
As a calling card it of course worked. Getting him the next job of his breakout Jaws. It also significantly provided him with John Williams, the composer and collaborator who would contribute significantly to his future success.