Also, I didn't find room to mention it in the piece, but Drive-By Truckers' great album THE DIRTY SOUTH, featuring two songs about Pusser, helped soundtrack my writing. https://open.spotify.com/album/6MaUJWhC6jQJL84AH1MNWy
I came here to comment about the DBT songs, so glad you are already aware of them. I'm sure Noel Murray would be disappointed in you if you were not. Interesting article. I've seen the original Walking Tall many years ago but never the sequels. They strike me as the type of movies that will probably fall through the streaming cracks.
I've not seen any of the Walking Tall films, but the ads and posters for the franchise both fascinated and puzzled me as child during the 70s. They hinted at an incomprehensibly violent adult world beyond my tame suburban upbringing and the images implying a giant man who whupped and killed people with a giant club were simultaneously frightening and intriguing. At the same time, as each sequel would be released and I would see the ads with him carrying his signature fencepost (or whatever the hell that big stick was) and depicting him (so I imagined) as this unstoppable force, all I could think was "why don't they just shoot him?"
As a kid in the seventies, both Walking Tall and Billy Jack seemed to be in a constant state of re-release, both with TV and print ads trumpeting their protagonists as populist heroes. At the time, Billy Jack, with its pro-hippie, pro-Native American attitude, seemed like the left-wing corrective to dozens of reactionary drive-in action pictures, but it has somehow managed to age even worse than Walking Tall. It has a ridiculously paranoid, they're-all-in-it-together conspiracy-based mindset, which combined with Tom Laughlin's real-life persecution complex, makes it feel like proto-Trumpism. At least Walking Tall is honest about its intentions.
BILLY JACK is such a rough sit it’s kind of shocking it was such a huge hit. But it tapped into… something. A truly fascinating, borderline unwatchable film.
Never seen either sequel, but the original "Walking Tall" is incredibly violent -- Baker really knows how to make a stage hit with a 2x4 look all too real. Between this and "Macon County Line" I really wonder who exactly was looking out for the welfare of Leif Garrett in some extremely dicey roles.
I will also recommend the following Baker/Karlson back-to-Tennessee follow-up "Framed" as absolute wild pitch action/revenge fare. It's like a hangout movie frequently punctuated by shockingly brutal passages, and has a car/train crash where the stuntman couldn't have possibly walked away unscathed.
Glad you spotlighted this one in your anniversary post. Relatively new subscriber.
This brought back a fresh whiff of memories though I've never seen any of the original films. They were out at a time when a lot of movies were unreachable due to age and restrictive parents. So I experienced a great many of them strictly through newspaper ads and the occasional TV spot. Which of course meant that every one of them delivered on the promise of the ad. They had to, didn't they? They wouldn't let them promise something the movie doesn't provide. I only wished I could see the actual movie to prove the verity of the ads.
I've seen enough of them (and BILLY JACK for some reason was one my parents took me to) to learn that there's a drop-off between promise and product more often than not.
But WALKING TALL looms large. I remember a roadtrip (at the time that was the only kind of trip the family could manage) where my mom read chapters of Pusser's book out loud during the drive. It was either that or dad's Perry Como tape. It was one of those things that made life seem it was surrounded by danger, evil sharing the road with you and taking action if provoked. Maybe that part is more accurate than the ads, but it created a certain kind of dread you just carried around with you. I'd forgotten a lot of this and reading this brought back just how much these movies pervaded back then. Thanks for this redneck Proustian moment.
Also, I didn't find room to mention it in the piece, but Drive-By Truckers' great album THE DIRTY SOUTH, featuring two songs about Pusser, helped soundtrack my writing. https://open.spotify.com/album/6MaUJWhC6jQJL84AH1MNWy
I came here to comment about the DBT songs, so glad you are already aware of them. I'm sure Noel Murray would be disappointed in you if you were not. Interesting article. I've seen the original Walking Tall many years ago but never the sequels. They strike me as the type of movies that will probably fall through the streaming cracks.
I've not seen any of the Walking Tall films, but the ads and posters for the franchise both fascinated and puzzled me as child during the 70s. They hinted at an incomprehensibly violent adult world beyond my tame suburban upbringing and the images implying a giant man who whupped and killed people with a giant club were simultaneously frightening and intriguing. At the same time, as each sequel would be released and I would see the ads with him carrying his signature fencepost (or whatever the hell that big stick was) and depicting him (so I imagined) as this unstoppable force, all I could think was "why don't they just shoot him?"
As a kid in the seventies, both Walking Tall and Billy Jack seemed to be in a constant state of re-release, both with TV and print ads trumpeting their protagonists as populist heroes. At the time, Billy Jack, with its pro-hippie, pro-Native American attitude, seemed like the left-wing corrective to dozens of reactionary drive-in action pictures, but it has somehow managed to age even worse than Walking Tall. It has a ridiculously paranoid, they're-all-in-it-together conspiracy-based mindset, which combined with Tom Laughlin's real-life persecution complex, makes it feel like proto-Trumpism. At least Walking Tall is honest about its intentions.
BILLY JACK is such a rough sit it’s kind of shocking it was such a huge hit. But it tapped into… something. A truly fascinating, borderline unwatchable film.
And Trial Of Billy Jack was the third-highest-grossing movie of 1974!
Never seen either sequel, but the original "Walking Tall" is incredibly violent -- Baker really knows how to make a stage hit with a 2x4 look all too real. Between this and "Macon County Line" I really wonder who exactly was looking out for the welfare of Leif Garrett in some extremely dicey roles.
I will also recommend the following Baker/Karlson back-to-Tennessee follow-up "Framed" as absolute wild pitch action/revenge fare. It's like a hangout movie frequently punctuated by shockingly brutal passages, and has a car/train crash where the stuntman couldn't have possibly walked away unscathed.
Glad you spotlighted this one in your anniversary post. Relatively new subscriber.
This brought back a fresh whiff of memories though I've never seen any of the original films. They were out at a time when a lot of movies were unreachable due to age and restrictive parents. So I experienced a great many of them strictly through newspaper ads and the occasional TV spot. Which of course meant that every one of them delivered on the promise of the ad. They had to, didn't they? They wouldn't let them promise something the movie doesn't provide. I only wished I could see the actual movie to prove the verity of the ads.
I've seen enough of them (and BILLY JACK for some reason was one my parents took me to) to learn that there's a drop-off between promise and product more often than not.
But WALKING TALL looms large. I remember a roadtrip (at the time that was the only kind of trip the family could manage) where my mom read chapters of Pusser's book out loud during the drive. It was either that or dad's Perry Como tape. It was one of those things that made life seem it was surrounded by danger, evil sharing the road with you and taking action if provoked. Maybe that part is more accurate than the ads, but it created a certain kind of dread you just carried around with you. I'd forgotten a lot of this and reading this brought back just how much these movies pervaded back then. Thanks for this redneck Proustian moment.