CONVOY C+
USA Great
Britain (110 mi) 1978
‘Scope d: Sam Peckinpah
After a couple of box office failures, Peckinpah was in no
position to haggle with the Hollywood executives, taking a barebones script about
runaway truckers armed with CB radios, inspired by the 1975 popular hit song by
C.W. McCall, Convoy 1978 movie Theme Song YouTube
(4:02). So in effect, Hollywood was
attempting to use Peckinpah to cash in on a recent American CB radio craze
which was a precursor to the Internet, as anyone within range could listen in
on conversations or get the word out in a hurry warning other truckers of speed
traps, police sightings, blocked road construction, or cheap places to eat or
buy gas. After the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo
where OPEC producing nations effectively boycotted the United States, the price
of oil rose substantially from $3 dollars to $12 dollars per barrel, effectively
doubling the real price of crude oil at the refinery level, causing massive
shortages in the United States while also generating high inflation rates that
persisted until the early 1980’s, with oil prices continuing to rise until the
mid 80’s. In response to this, the U.S.
government imposed a nationwide 55 mph speed limit to help reduce fuel
shortages, which especially had an impact on independent truckers who were
often paid by the mile, so their productivity and potential earnings took a
hit, where CB radios were crucial in helping alleviate some of the other
unforeseen obstacles, like the presence of corrupt police who typically shake
down truckers, threatening to impound their trucks unless a fine is paid. This opened the door for fast car action comedy
hits like SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, the 4th top grossing film of 1977, and The Dukes of Hazzard on TV in 1979, and
this film, 12th highest grossing film of the year, making $45 million dollars,
contributing to the CB radio craze that took on a life of its own, since it
requires no registration fee, where all you need is the equipment to be hooked
up. While there was a small licensing
fee, during the height of its popularity in the late 70’s this was routinely
ignored, as people used anonymous nicknames called “handles.” Due to lax enforcement, there was widespread
disregard for regulations, allowing people to chat mindlessly with one another,
often engaged in tedious exchanges, which also included highly aggressive
racist and sexist views, like chat room conversations, often resulting in highly
descriptive masturbation fantasies.
Sure enough, in the opening few minutes of the film, Kris
Kristofferson as 18-wheel truck driver “Rubber Duck” is involved in a cat and
mouse game of leap frog with a convertible sports car driven by Ali MacGraw, a
photojournalist, each passing one another until a policeman stops him for
speeding. Very cleverly, he gives the
cop a story about how that female driver up ahead was driving without any
panties, which certainly diverts the cop’s attention, as he heads off to arrest
the woman. A word about each of the
stars, as both had worked with Peckinpah before, but this time Kristofferson
had gotten himself clean and was totally sober, making it harder for the
director to work with him, as without the booze and drugs there was little
rapport between them, and as for MacGraw, heavily tanned and wearing what
appears to be a short afro, one of her worst looks ever, this film really
points out her acting deficiencies, where an exasperated Peckinpah wasted
valuable time just running the camera, hoping later to find something of value. The shoot was chaotic anyway, mostly in New
Mexico, where half the time the CB radios didn’t even work, with MacGraw’s jealous
husband Steve McQueen often intruding, thinking MacGraw was having an affair with
someone on the set and making wild death threats, as his marriage was on the
rocks, with many days where the raving and near psychotic director was so coked
up that he never came out of his trailer, where the assistant director James
Coburn actually shot some of the main shooting, with the film going overbudget,
largely due to the difficulty lining up such massive vehicles for a second or
third shot, which required substantial time and effort, where the script called
for using a hundred 18-wheel trucks for a good portion of the film, doubling
the initial $6 million dollars and the film went over schedule. They actually shut down the entire production
to allow Kristofferson and his band, seen in the film as the “eleven
long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus,” as described in the
song, to complete a previously scheduled 30-day tour before resuming filming,
where many of the crew simply never returned. Even worse, the director was so disgusted with
the film, shooting nearly three times the footage as The Wild
Bunch (1969), where he was known to utter “I haven't done one good day’s
work on this whole picture,” that he eventually abandoned the project
completely, never able to get the film under three and a half hours, putting
the final cut in the hands of the studios to finally complete. Irrespective of all these problems, it was
the highest grossing film in Peckinpah’s career.
Despite the troubles on the set and the overwhelmingly
negative reviews, Peckinpah immersed himself in a love affair with trucks,
where more than any movie stars, they were the real stars of this show, where
the film excels at glorified stunt driving sequences, including a handful of
highly choreographed crashes, where often the thrill is to put the audience
into the driver’s seat. So as a purely
adrenaline laced, entertainment venture featuring plenty of trucks and even
muscle cars flying through the air, crashing through billboards, the film is a
success. Where it fails is in the human
element, as Peckinpah’s idea was to explore the mystique of truck drivers as
modern-day cowboys, as if they were the last bastion of freedom on the highways
in the American West before the government all but put them out of
business. While the film attempts to
build into something of a protest movement, it can never figure out what it’s
trying to protest, linking independence and true freedom as outside any
collaboration with politicians or a trucker’s union. While it does present the
idea that a man alone is not as strong as someone with the force of 100 trucks
behind him, this idea degenerates into the mass chaos of an extended wrecking
sequence, where trucks simply destroy much of the local property, where instead
of a hail of bullets and explosions from a prolonged gunfight, trucks annihilate
everything in their path. It certainly
continues Peckinpah’s nihilist themes, but without the poetry behind it. Only Ernest Borgnine stands out as the indefatigable,
trucker-hating sheriff, as his contempt for these lawbreaking “modern cowboys”
couldn’t be more devious, pulling out all stops to find a way to stop them in
their tracks, where he’s really playing the constantly thwarted coyote in the
Roadrunner cartoons, literally rising from the dead on multiple occasions only
to pull out more dirty tricks to try and trap them again, always with that
gleeful look of anticipation on his face, where the audience, unfortunately for
him, continually roots against him. This
kind of cartoon generates a few laughs, offers up some good ol’ boy trucker
lore, sounding off on just about everything from Viet Nam to the proposed
“double nickel” nationwide speed limit, where giant trucks barreling down the
road are seen as an expression of rebellion and defiance of “The Law,” as
represented by Borgnine, a guy who routinely shakes down truckers. It’s a modern American parable of unnecessary
government intrusion, where Uncle Sam is seen as dipping into the trucker’s
pocketbooks and affecting their livelihood, or so goes the myth, as it was
always more about inflation and the unstoppable price of oil from OPEC than
anything having to do with the truckers.
