Sonic Cinema

Sounds, Visions and Insights by Brian Skutle

The Sugarland Express

Grade : A- Year : 1974 Director : Steven Spielberg Running Time : 1hr 50min Genre : ,
Movie review score
A-

“The Sugarland Express” feels like a movie that, after playing Sundance, is a calling card for a filmmaker to have Hollywood come get him for bigger films. In a way, it was that way for Steven Spielberg, who made his theatrical narrative debut with the 1974 film after his TV movie, “Duel,” turned heads, before he changed the box-office landscape with “Jaws”; the only difference is that all three were made by Universal. Watching it on the other side of one of the most significant film careers in movie history, it’s more low-key than most anything else he made in the preceding 48 years- save for probably “Always” and “The Terminal”- but you can see the natural storytelling the director has operated with for his entire career. If you aren’t a fan of Spielberg’s bigger films, or more important films, I think this could win you over.

Inspired by a true story, the film begins with Lou Jean (Goldie Hawn) going to see her husband, Clovis (William Atherton), in prison. She has a couple of bags with him that are checked; it’s family day, so they can only go so far with the displays of affection. Lou Jean has other ideas, though; their son, Baby Langston, is about to be placed with foster parents. She comes with a plan to get him out so they can go get their son. They hitch a ride with a couple who was visiting a loved one, but when Patrolman Slide (Michael Sacks) pulls over the car, Lou Jean takes the car and runs.

The screenplay by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins is pretty straightforward. Not long after the couple runs, a crash occurs, and Lou Jean and Clovis take Slide hostage and get him to take them to Sugarland to get Langston. Eventually, the trio is being followed by a caravan of police cars, news vans and then private citizens wishing the couple well. One of the things that stands out about the film is how the dynamic between the three shifts as the “chase” progresses. Slide is as integral to the film succeeding as Lou Jean and Clovis are, and eventually, he has some empathy for the couple, who just want to be a family. We see him with his superiors throughout; he’s learning as he goes, and yes, he gets himself into some scrapes, but he ultimately wants to do what’s right. He just starts to see that differently as the story goes along.

As the couple, Hawn and Atherton are very much lovebirds in over their heads, but we understand why they feel the need to do this. In his first film out for the big screen, Spielberg has already begun exploring the broken family themes he’ll come back to over the years, but this time, it’s in the structure of a “Bonnie and Clyde”-esque criminals-on-the-run story. If it’s not as hard-nosed as “Bonnie and Clyde” or Terrence Malick’s “Badlands,” it’s because that’s Spielberg in a nutshell- he’s ultimately an optimist, hoping for the best for his characters. This is a good showcase for Hawn, whose sweetness makes her character’s action more empathetic, and a surprising performance by Atherton is most of what you’re familiar with from him are the pricks he played in “Ghostbusters” and “Die Hard.” Ultimately, you want them to put their family back, even if they have to resort to desperate measures to do it.

This marks the first collaboration with John Williams for Spielberg, and hearing his score, it’s fascinating to see how much of the motifs and ideas he would return to are in place even in 1974, but with his use of the harmonica and guitars, you get a small-town, folk tale feel to the film that makes it seem even more intimate, even when Spielberg and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond are shooting the spectacle following Lou Jean and Clovis. The way they make that feel intrusive, while also letting the couple get enveloped in the mania, makes for an interesting thematic note- should the public be celebrating this couple who took a cop hostage? Spielberg is not so sure, but he’s also not going to chastise these two, but we understand why he may not feel comfortable thinking the public looking on should be idolizing Lou Jean and Clovis. That’s a slippery slope.

For his debut film in theatres, I like how “The Sugarland Express” gives us an idea of what was to come for the filmmaker in the way he balances spectacle and character, and keeps things sentimental but not entirely cheesy. Spielberg was a born storyteller, and it’s nice to be reminded how delicately he could spin a yarn so early in his career.

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