DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
It's summer, and the flicker of the drive-in is seen across the land-. Time to stock up on Boy Howdy, stash the girls in the trunk, and head for the Dusk To Dawn, because Burt Reynolds is playing. Laugh all you want at the Burt Reynolds of late night television, (I generally switch over to Call To Prayer myself.) but over the past few years, he's been offsetting those Las Vegas obeisances by starring in the kind of cheerfully mindless trash that makes drive-in movie-going one of the joys of life, right up there with sex and chewy candy.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
Spend Your Summer With Burt!
DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
It's summer, and the flicker of the drive-in is seen across the land-. Time to stock up on Boy Howdy, stash the girls in the trunk, and head for the Dusk To Dawn, because Burt Reynolds is playing. Laugh all you want at the Burt Reynolds of late night television, (I generally switch over to Call To Prayer myself.) but over the past few years, he's been offsetting those Las Vegas obeisances by starring in the kind of cheerfully mindless trash that makes drive-in movie-going one of the joys of life, right up there with sex and chewy candy.
In three pictures, Burt has carved out an authentic screen persona, that of a likeable backwoods smartass who takes his whiskey hard and his women any way he can get 'em. He set the pattern in White Lightning, the best moonshine picture since Mitchum's Thunder Road. He .polished it in W. W. And The Dixie Dancekings, which got to the country music scene ahead of that punk Altman, and which remains the funniest and most devastating look at the world of Grand Old Opry.
Now we have Gator, the sequel to White Lightning, and it's as strong and pungent as a shot glass full of CH30H. Reynolds directed it too, his debut 'behind the camera,' and it's got plenty of quirky surprises, especially in the casting. Television's Mike Douglas plays a corrupt Southern governor (a non-singingrole); Lauren Hutton appears as a Radcliffe-educated news commentator and, in case you're interested , she still hasn't fixed that unsightly gap between her front teeth.
Which brings us to Jerry Reed. Remember 'Amos Moses?' Remember 'When You're Hot, You're Hot?' Of course you don't. But you'll remember his portrayal of Bama McCall, the stylish redneck who runs Dunston County. Bama has his grubby fingers in every pie — gambling, prostitution, drugs, Metal Machine Music pirate tapes — you name it. He also packs a double-barreled pistol that frequently does the talking for him. The high point of the film comes when he pumps both barrels into a barroom jukebox arid sets all the records on fire. My only complaint was that they should have had a Patti Smith disk playing at the time.
Drive-in audiences suck up violence like a dobra eats breakfast. Gator gives us a good assortment of assaults, cuttings, stabbings, shootings, beatings, sluggings, floggings, eye gouging and brutal kicking — but it's all done with an appreciation for the humor of the situation. I particularly enjoyed a sequence in which Burt rolls a car window up on some weasel's head and then proceeds to drive around Savannah as the hapless victim wishes to God that the nostalgia craze had brought back running boards. Next time you're stopped for one of those 'routine checks' by the highway patrol, you might think about giving that little stunt . a try.
The finale features a colorful hotel explosion, reportedly filmed during the last Who tour, followed by a savage fist ‡ fight between Reynolds and Reed, which takes place in an abandoned penny arcade. At one point, Burt slams a concession stand door on Jerry's y neck, which goes to show that some people will do anything to win a kewpie doll. See Gator and bring along the sex and chewy candy .
Switchblade Sisters is a sleazy, vicious rip-off of a movie about teenage girl gangs and I loved it. For these reasons:
1) The girls are really young. In some cases, their voices haven't changed yet. Tantalizing.
2) They never cut without provocation . A tub of lard landlord, who likes to take out the back rent in trade, winds up on the business end of a dozen switchblades. These girls could teach Nixon's goons a few things about shredding machines.
3) They're almost cute, b,ut with just enough zits and pimples to make you want to give 'em a big, smeary Noxema hug. u «
4) They get to teach the boys a lesson. When a gang showdown at a roller rink results in a pregnant Switchblade Sister getting kicked in the head , with a skate, the girls get mad, kick the boys out of the clubhouse and wreak a bloody revenge. How they do it is what , makes this film a grunge classic, giving it a Drive-In Saturday rating of four scars.
P.S. The Sisters all drink Coors and Olympia, 'cause there wasn't any Girl Howdy.
Edouard Dauphin
