Framed

Joe Don Baker in Framed (dir. Phil Karlson, 1975).

It was made in 1975, but it looks like it was made in 1972. Isn't it weird that it's possible to make that distinction?

Phil Karlson's follow-up to Walking Tall, and his last movie ever. Not his best, but pretty damn good. You have to love it when Brock Peters introduces himself as "Sam--without the bo."

Just look at Joe Don Baker. What the hell is he? He's not your typical tough guy, exactly--he's got too much dandy in him, too much deep-rooted moral weakness, about as much deep-rooted moral weakness as you can have and still be the hero. Who else is like him? OK, Burt Reynolds, I guess.

That's what Joe Don Baker is: the white Burt Reynolds.

Speaking of Burt Reynolds, the third issue of Abraham Lincoln will be out very soon, and it contains a groundbreaking poem about Burt Reynolds by Jennifer Knox.

Walking Tall

Leif Garrett and Joe Don Baker in Walking Tall (dir. Phil Karlson, 1973).

Like much low-budget shock horror from the same period (e.g., Last House on the Left, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), this southern-fried revenge drama is one of those movies that takes on a strange resonance as a result of its shoestring production value and un-self-consciously awkward deployment of an out-of-date filmic grammar. The film's images insert the current events of the day into a generically constrained narrative context that re-translates them as heroic pathos (a pathos that increases as it approaches, but does not quite embrace, an anti-heroic conclusion). Civil rights, Vietnam, and economic recession are interpreted as occasions of private violence and mourning--and their climactic manifestation takes the form of a distorted life/death mask (Buford Pusser's plaster facial cast) very much like Leatherface's in Chain Saw. The visual shock of bloodied expressionlessness becomes a symbol for national trauma. Johnny Mathis' melancholy ballad intones its elegaic equation over the end credits: "when too long becomes too late."

Kansas City Confidential

Jack Elam in Kansas City Confidential (dir. Phil Karlson, 1952).

Heist-o-rific hard-boiled noir action. Tough fall guy hero John Payne, crooked ex-cop Preston Foster, ethereal nice girl Coleen Gray, slinky senorita Dona Drake, two-bit hood Jack Elam, womanizing hood Lee Van Cleef, and gum-chewing hood Neville Brand.... This is the stuff.