Walking Tall (1973) & Walking Tall Part II (1975) & Final Chapter: Walking Tall (1977)

          Even though the virtues of the first film in the Walking Tallseries are quite humble, the franchise provides an object lesson in diminishing returns—and a crass example of Hollywood shamelessly milking a property for every penny. For instance, critical lashings and meager box-office returns for the second and third films did not derail the creation of a short-lived TV series. Nor did the broadcast of a TV movie from different producers titled A Real American Hero, which depicted the same real-life historical figure as the Walking Tall flicks. Then, years after it seemed Walking Tall was over, a remake of the original film was released in 2004, and the remake begat a number of straight-to-video sequels. Why all the bother? Well, if you believe half the tall tales told about the late Buford Pusser, the subject of all of these stories, he was about as close to a real-life action hero as there ever was. A former wrestler who became the sheriff of Tennessee’s McNairy County, Pusser took on organized crime and won, purging McNairy of moonshiners, prostitutes, racketeers, and so on. Yet justice came at a terrible price. Pusser’s wife was murdered, and he himself died under mysterious circumstances while still serving as sheriff.

          The first movie, simply titled Walking Tall, was based on a nonfiction book about Pusser. At the beginning of the story, Pusser (Joe Don Baker) gives up wrestling for a quiet life in McNairy County, only to discover that the area is overrun with crooks. Idealistic and stubborn, Pusser gets into hassles with the area’s criminal element, so he’s beaten and left for dead. After his recovery, he’s unable to exact justice via the legal system, so Pusser runs for sheriff and becomes a one-man vengeance squad. The title relates to Pusser’s signature weapon, a four-foot wooden club that he uses to beat evildoers (as in, “Walk tall and carry a big stick”). One of the most interesting elements of the movie is Pusser’s gradual education about things like search-and-seizure laws and suspects’ rights; he evolves from recklessly kicking ass to slyly trapping bad guys through their own misdeeds. Meanwhile, he tries to build a stable home life with his wife, Pauline (Elizabeth Hartman), and their two kids—but, of course, the grim ubiquity of danger makes that impossible.

          As directed by competent hack Phil Karlson, Walking Tallmoves along at a good clip even though it’s 125 minutes. In fact, it’s arguably the ultimate epic of brawling-redneck movies. Plus, by the time the movie slides into its final act—during which Pusser metes out bloody justice while his face is masked in bandages following a near-fatal assault—Walking Tall becomes just a little bit deranged. (How deranged? The plaintive theme song is performed by, of all people, Johnny Mathis. Seriously, Johnny Mathis.) Baker is in his natural element here, exuding badass ’tude and cornpone charm, so it doesn’t really matter that the rest of the cast is largely forgettable; only crusty character actor Noah Berry, Jr., as Pusser’s papa, makes an impression.

          Sadly, the real-life Pusser died a year after the first film was released, casting a morbid pall over Walking Tall Part II, in which the statuesque Bo Svenson takes over the lead role. Lacking Baker’s charisma, Svenson struggles through emotional moments and relies on his intimidating physique to sell action scenes. Further, he seems too gentle to believably play a man who’d rather crack skulls than read suspects their rights. It isn’t giving much away to say that the original Walking Tall ends with Pusser killing the men who murdered his wife, and that Walking Tall: Part IIdramatizes his attempts to arrest the gangsters who ordered the hit. The sequel adds swampy flavor, with supporting characters bearing names like “Pinky Dobson” and “Stud Pardee,” and the caliber of the supporting players is a slight improvement on the first film. Reliable actors including Luke Askew and Richard Jaeckel add energy, though leading lady Angel Tompkins is largely decorative as a temptress hired to ensnare Pusser. And while periodic car chases and shootouts keep things lively, there’s too much aimless yakety-yak—not exactly Svenson’s strong suit as a performer. Worse, the way the movie addresses the real Pusser’s death is highly unsatisfying.

          The last of the ’70s Pusser flicks, the oddly titled Final Chapter: Walking Tall, is as interminable as it is unnecessary. Fabricating a thin story to depict what happened to Pusser between the climax of the previous film and his death—while, of course, presenting a wholly unsubstantiated conspiracy theory in order to name Pusser’s killers—Final Chapter: Walking Tall mostly features Pusser (Svenson again) fretting about his troubles. A long scene of Pusser weeping over his wife’s grave represents the nadir of Svenson’s acting in the series; he tries mightily but can’t conjure anything genuine. Weirdly, the makers of Final Chapter: Walking Tall often forget they’re cranking out an exploitation flick, instead trying to generate wholesome family drama. Pusser saves a kid from an abusive father, romances a girl-next-door secretary, and generally tries to set a positive example for his kids—yawn. Literally an hour of screen time elapses before serious action occurs.

          Anyway, one last item for trivia buffs—two performes who appear in all three ’70s Walking Tall movies are teen idol Leif Garrett, as Pusser’s son, and character actor Bruce Glover, as Pusser’s deputy. Best known for playing a gay hit man in the 007 romp Diamonds are Forever(1971), Glover also sired oddball actor/director Crispin Glover.

Walking Tall: GROOVY

Walking Tall Part II: FUNKY

Final Chapter: Walking Tall: LAME

The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

          Director George Roy Hill was such a fervent airplane enthusiast that he persuaded two of his most acclaimed collaborators, screenwriter William Goldman and star Robert Redford, to join him in making this passion project celebrating the daredevils who flew biplanes at exhibitions across the country during the barnstorming era. (The trio’s previous joint venture, released in 1969, was a little something called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.) Set in the 1920s, the picture focuses on Waldo Pepper (Redford), a World War I veteran whose military service was unspectacular. Driven to prove he’s a world-class flyer, Pepper becomes a barnstormer, performing wild stunts for spectacle-hungry crowds that are equally thrilled by crashes and triumphs.

          During this early stretch of the film, when Pepper builds a friendship with fellow flyer Axel Olsson (Bo Svenson) and struggles through a fraught romance with Maude (Margot Kidder)—who hates the risks Waldo takes—Hill achieves two impressive storytelling feats. First and most obviously, he captures the joy of flight with terrific aerial photography. Secondly and more subtly, he captures the lonely quality of men who follow an inner call toward personal achievement. Redford is the perfect actor for communicating this notion; an iconoclast who has spent decades cultivating personal mystique, Redford understands self-definition.

          Considering that Hill could easily have translated his fascination with barnstorming into a lightweight adventure film—in addition to Butch Cassidy, he and Redford made the endearing 1973 romp The Sting (which was not written by Goldman), so frothy entertainment is undoubtedly what audiences expected from this particular paring of actor and star—it’s impressive that Hill elected to go so dark. In fact, some might argue he went too dark. Goldman has often told the story of how a preview audience turned on the movie during a shocking scene involving Pepper and a terrified, wing-walking stuntwoman (Susan Sarandon). Yet viewed beyond the context of its initial release, when audiences wanted Redford to play only golden gods, The Great Waldo Pepper is a nuanced and thoughtful film that unflinchingly depicts the costs of individualism.

          As the story progresses, for instance, Pepper endures a string of accidents that cost him his pilot’s license and force him to pursue work as a movie stuntman under an alias. Goldman’s writing excels in this last movement of the picture, since Goldman has often said the theme that touches him most is “stupid courage”—boldness in the face of certain doom. The Great Waldo Pepper isn’t a perfect picture, with some of its episodes connecting more strongly than others, but it’s a unique celebration of one filmmaker’s romantic visions, seen through the prism of a star and a writer who were eager to help their friend realize his dreams of soaring through the sky, cinematically speaking.

The Great Waldo Pepper: RIGHT ON

Snowbeast (1977)

          Bigfoot was so ubiquitous in mid-’70s pop culture, you can’t blame the guy for wanting to take a vacation. So instead of thumping around the forests of the Pacific Northwest, as he did in countless movies and TV shows during this period, the Artist Sometimes Known as Sasquatch spends Snowbeast chilling at a ski resort. Made for TV and running a brisk 86 minutes, this low-budget thriller boasts a coherent script by Joseph Stefano (who, in better times, wrote Psycho for Alfred Hitchcock), and features a handful of competent actors who keep things lively. Robert Logan, star of the Wilderness Family movies, plays Tony, the manager of a Colorado ski resort owned by his tough grandmother, Carrie (Sylvia Sidney). When a terrified skier reports an attack by a mysterious creature on a ski slope, Carrie (in true Jaws rip-off fashion) demands the incident be kept quiet so panic doesn’t derail the resort’s upcoming winter carnival. Tony starts to investigate the attack, but he’s distracted by the arrival of one-time Olympic skiing champ Gar (Bo Svenson) and Gar’s wife, investigative reporter Ellen (Yvette Mimieux). Cue the psychodrama!

          It turns out Tony once dated Ellen, and Gar has been gun-shy about skiing since his Olympic success. So, in addition to the usual business of a monster attack every 10 minutes or so and semi-suspenseful scenes of Our Heroes snowmobiling around the woods and looking for Bigfoot, Snowbeast features the type of contrived character interplay one usually finds in Irwin Allen disaster movies. The sheer number or events in Stefano’s script sorta makes up for the film’s lack of genuine terror, and even though Snowbeastfeels padded—a sequence of Mimieux snooping around the woods goes on far too long—Snowbeast basically delivers the B-movie goods by introducing archetypal characters and then keeping the audience guessing about who will survive. The monster stuff is disappointing, of course, but director Herb Wallerstein wisely limits our glimpses of the titular critter to flashes of claws and feet, plus one or two split-second peeks at the creature’s hairy face. This is cheesy stuff, without question, but by the low standards of ’70s Bigfoot cinema, Snowbeast is fairly entertaining.

Snowbeast: FUNKY