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The critical reception is anticipated, the bluestocking writing a thesis on "the country-western mentality" finds dentures in her clam chowder. The trucker (Clint Eastwood) is lean, easygoing, not exactly overburdened with intelligence, the kind who crushes peanuts in his fist to signal a bar scuffle. He falls for the honky-tonk songbird (Sondra Locke) but his deepest relationship is with the orangutan in the shed, Verne's Jup if it jumped its master like Cato greeting Clouseau. "How many times have I told you? I don't want him drinking beer except Saturdays." Bare-knuckle fights fund the journey from San Fernando Valley to Denver in search of the capricious girlfriend, the mechanic brother (Geoffrey Lewis) tags along and is rewarded with his own blonde wanderer (Beverly D'Angelo). Meanwhile, Ma (Ruth Gordon) litters the lawn with burning motorcycles after welcoming a flabby Nazi gang with shotgun in hand. "Hospitable? Horseshit!" James Fargo pretends to be the director while Eastwood relishes his macho sendup, a generous dose of homegrown surrealism. Fordian brawls are the norm, barrelhouse bands smash guitars on patrons while meat carcasses surround makeshift gladiators. The Leone showdown and the Tarzan yell are grist to the satirical mill, Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop is recomposed with a broad smile. The calm center is the bond between all-American lunkhead and simian alter ego, strip-club commiseration and campfire confession and all. "I'm not afraid of any man, but sharing my feelings with a woman... my stomach just turns to royal gelatin." The bittersweet coda is a roadside curtain call. "I like all his films, even the jokey family films with that ridiculous monkey, the ones that everyone is trying to forget—they're part of his oeuvre, too" (Rivette). With Gregory Walcott, John Quade, Bill McKinney, Roy Jenson, William O'Connell, James McEachin, Walter Barnes, George Chandler, and Hank Worden.
--- Fernando F. Croce |