It Really Will Make You Stand Up and Applaud

Walking Tall (1973) is a film that is a must see if you like films that involve the struggle of the good guy vs. the tons of bad guys and against all odds. This film is based on a true story and the film was remade back in 2004 starting "The Rock". If you have seen the new version or not makes no difference; you will like this film regardless.

PLOT

This film basically involves the Pusser family moving back to their small town Tennessee hometown after Buford Pusser (Joe Don Baker) gives up his professional wrestling career to settle down with his wife Pauline (Elizabeth Hartman) and their two children. The family pulls a trailer into town behind their station wagon with all of their belongings in the world inside. Initially, they take up temporary residence with Buford's parents who have remained in the town for nearly half a century. Buford soon runs across an old friend in town and the two head off to a local watering hole to have a beer and catch up on things. Once inside, Buford is very surprised by the way things have changed in his community. There are prostitutes openly propositioning men at the bar and all sorts of illegal gambling going on in a back room. His friend places a bet with some of Buford's money and a brawl breaks out when Buford catches someone cheating at the game.

Buford winds up on the radar of the local sheriff after this brawl and another one in which he goes back to the bar a second time to get his money back. Buford is nearly beaten to death the first time but the second time results in his kicking rear end and taking names. Infact, he goes on trial for robbery and assault when he goes back to get his money the second time. Soon thereafter, he gets the idea to run for sheriff in the local election after a suggestion by his friend and co-worker Obra Eaker (Felton Perry). Through a series of events Pusser wins the election and decides to rid the entire area of the corruption and crime. He locks horns with the local judge and the criminal element in his town running the alcohol bootlegging in distilleries (called "stills" by Pusser), gambling operation, and sex slavery/prostitution rings. Pusser has a mixes of success and failure in his quest. He is nearly killed many times, faces a judiciary branch in his local government that does not seem to care, and has great stress placed on his family life.

CHARACTERS

Buford Pusser can be best described as a straight shooter who never takes no for an answer. Buford does not go asking for trouble at any point in the story but if trouble finds him or someone crosses the line with him he is sure to make them pay. This guy thinks of the grand scheme of things when it comes to his life because he is not okay with living his life in a right way in private while the rest of the town drowns in corruption. He feels that he must take a stand to right the wrongs he sees because that is his duty as a citizen. You could say he is a bit selfish in not thinking about the well being of his family in this line of thinking. The man never stops to consider his job could result in his wife becoming a widow and his young children having to grow up without a dad. Joe Don Baker was perfectly cast in this film because he fits very well into the themes of the film in that it is about corrupt backwoods southern culture and this guy looks like what you would think of as a southerner. In other words, it is not a story that shows some Hollywood looking star playing the part of a small town Tennessee man. Baker's acting is not Oscar worthy, but he does very well. If you like him in this film you should see him in Charlie Varrick (1973) as a huge thug debt collector; good stuff.

Pauline Pusser is the other half of the ying yang balance in the Pusser household because she is someone who places the most value on the well being of her immediate family. She fears for the life of her husband constantly and for the safety of their children as well. This character does not have a major role in the main plot of the film but she is worth mentioning because Elizabeth Hartman plays Pauline and does a magnificent job at it. I suppose I liked her in this film so much because she looks like a real life person instead of a movie star playing a real life person. This quality is similar to what I mentioned about Joe Don Baker fitting into his role but it is taken up to the next level with Hartman as Pauline. Mrs. Pusser does not always have her hair groomed to perfection, does not always wear makeup, and has a disposition that is very true to real life in that she can go from happy to sad as well as from nice to angry at appropriate times. Elizabeth Hartman's best film will always be her first one; A Patch of Blue (1965). However, we get to see her in color in this one and I think you come to feel an attachment to her character in this film because of how genuinely she plays it. It is a shame that studio executives and producers did not have the vision to put her in more films in the 1970s. She did not have a chance in the 1980s when plastic people were the norm in film but the best dramas were probably never made in the 70s because she was not in them. It is such a tragedy she took her own life in 1987.

Obra Eaker is a twenty something single black man living in a small town in the south roughly after a decade has passed since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Needless to say, everyone was not in compliance with this federal legislation at the time. You should consider this fact when you see what a risk Pusser takes in just hiring Eaker as a worker in his father's lumber mill let along making him a deputy after he (Pusser) becomes the sheriff. Obra serves as the outsider in this story at many levels. It is he who suggests that Pusser organize and form a plan to clean house in the town rather than go knocking doors down alone. In other words, Eaker provides a different perspective to the problems are present. Felton Perry was rather good in this film and if you do not know who he is well, he was one of the executives working at OCP in the film Robocop (1987) and the two sequels that followed. It is just fun to see people who are in many films but are not that famous in earlier work they did.

You will see many stars of TV and film in this production that have appeared in many things but are not famous enough to have had instant name recognition. I would say they are all cast very well and seem to mesh together finely with the exception of Brenda Benet who plays a prostitute with a heart of gold. After she helps Buford in his mission he emancipates her by driving her to the edge of town and giving her a lump sum of money to start a new life in a new town with. I felt this was a bit beyond the scope of the film for some reason. Also, Brenda Benet was too cute and innocent looking to play a prostitute. I just did not buy it. Sadly, Benet also took her own life in the 1980s after a tragedy in her family.

FILMING AND EDITING

You will be able to tell from the start that this is a low budget film. None of the filming is done with mega buck special effects or recorded with premium high resolution cameras. However, for this film this sort of thing plays in favor of the storyline since it is set in a very economically disadvantaged part of the nation. The editing is rather good in that they spend just enough time with scenes such as Buford with his family or the local organized crime bosses making plans to supplements the main scenes of the film. What I was most impressed with is how this film is edited in a way to hold your attention from the moment the first brawl breaks out at the bar shortly after Buford's homecoming. The film is simply riveting after that moment and has many great fighting and action sequences. They did use red paint to represent blood in more than one shoot out scene but it was the 70s and money was tight so you will just have to learn to live with it.

SOCIAL STATEMENTS

This film is briliant in this catagory if you put a bit of a historical perspective to where it is set and what year it is. The 1970s are known in popular culture as the "me" decade of self indulgence and over the top fashion in all aspects of life. Another much less bright view of this time in history is one of stagnation and poverty for many Americans who were left behind; gone was the post war prosperity and the progressive era of the 1960s. Some have argued that this decade was a hangover from the sexual revolution of the 1960s fueled by a thriving drug culture and the decay of our society from the inside out. Many people were unhappy at least and angry at most when it came to the way the nation had changed. The small town setting of the film in the state of Tennessee represents a sort of insulation from the changes the United States was undergoing in the aggregate but as with many things in life the town was operating on its very own microcosm of changes. In other words, the people were rather full of **** for lack of a better term.

Another point I enjoyed in the film was the depiction of the social status of Black people in small town America during that era. There is a sense of a separate but equal method at work in this town since the colored people have their own watering hole and communities. Buford makes big gamble when he deputizes Eaker and gives him the authority to police White men. Eaker takes more of a gamble when he does it. There is a very powerful scene when he attempts of arrest a few drunk and disorderly men with the race issue involved. Movies that create moments of tension and dissonance are difficult to view at times but this is what makes them great.

The portrayal of rural southern culture is classic in that it stereotypes most of the population as dumb hillbillies who just want to drink and have a good time as a few clever individuals profit from it. This has been shown time and time again in film along with the element of a corrupt law enforcement/judiciary arm of the community. In this film we get a sense of this being not such a bad thing because the people are content in their lives as is. The crime and corruption are the only undesirable things that are around and it is the hero of the story that sets out to get rid of this. Think of this film as Patrick Swayze's Road House (1989) with less brute force and more of a story.

OVERALL

I highly recommend this film to anyone who likes movies like Rocky (1976) where the main character faces a struggle that has almost impossible odds yet takes on the challenge no matter what the cost. This is a very inspiring film in this way. There are quite a bit of violent scenes where people are beaten, bloody, and killed. I would not recommend this for anyone under 13 even though there are more explicit things on broadcast television these days. The end of the film is a mixed bag because you do feel good enough to stand up and applaud the screen as the tagline of the film suggested when it was new but there is a great tragedy that comes with this. I would say you need to be checked for a pulse if you do not get a big lump in your throat as they show the final few minutes before Johnny Mathis sings the title track in a very somber tone of voice. In my opinion no remake needed to be done but if that 2004 film leads to people discovering this one then it is a great thing.