Convoy (1978)

I guess you could say I have enjoyed similar “trucker and smokey” 70s on-the-road-again across-the-country hybrid comedy-dramas involving a chase, roadblocks, a following of locals in every city and state rooting for the “common man” and a law enforcement that is less than honorable and often framed as incompetent and comical. Kris Kristofferson is CB named Rubber Duck, driving nitro in Arizona, eventually coming across Ali MacGraw, in her convertible Jaguar, as the two “race” while she shoots pics of him (sort of indicating she’s a photographer or some journalist), eventually encountering a deputy who tries to ticket the trucker then decides on her when he’s told she isn’t wearing any pants (RD sure pulled that one of the mind and it worked!). Their encounter isn’t the last, eventually meeting up at a diner. But RD eventually gets into a “road chat” with other truckers such as “pig hauler”, “Love Machine” (Burt Young) and Spider Mike (Franklyn Ajaye), all three told by another so-called trucker that the coast was clear to speed up (the speed limit of 55 a bone of contention for truckers as it places time constraints on them), but it was a trap set up by Sheriff Lyle Wallace (Ernest Borgnine) to extort some money from them. This sort of plays into the treachery of law enforcement in order to make some extra on the side through chicanery, as Wallace takes advantage of CB truckers who communicate with each other while on the road. While LM and Spider take umbrage with Wallace’s deception, RD knows this comes with the job of a trucker, trying to keep things civil, until Wallace later causes trouble in an Arizona diner where his wife, Violet (Cassie Yates), works. Spider Mike is just eating when Wallace threatens to site him for vagrancy, with RD trying to circumvent any further conflict but eventually other deputies arrive and a bar fight breaks out as tables, dishes, windows, bottles, and such shatter (and are shattered by) bodies. When the deputies are eventually subdued, RD kicks Wallace unconscious and handcuffs him to a stool (the seat comes right off so Wallace’s troubles with it are quickly silenced thanks to Violet), setting off a chain of events that has the public in neighboring states rooting for the truckers, as more begin to follow RD, soon forming a convoy the police hope to quell.

The film does indeed go on long. It eventually features a governor (Seymour Cassel) in New Mexico realizing he can exploit this trucker cause for political gain, while RD just wants his trucker family always on the road to get a fair shake, with emphasis on the speed limit and less shakedowns by police. Wallace is on a mission to stop the convoy and arrest RD, willing to do whatever it takes within the boundaries of the law (although his willingness to accept Spider Mike’s beating at a Texas prison is troubling), stretching that as much as possible, to stop him. I read back story on the troubled production due to Peckinpah’s worsening addictions, alcoholism, and out-of-sorts misbehavior on set, that the shoot was long, difficult, with a ballooning budget complete with Coburn arriving to help finish the film, including Kristofferson leaving to go on a country music tour! I read there was a lot of footage cut from the film which might explain why it feels rather tampered with and uneven. I’m not sure even if the film had went three hours long (I can’t imagine watching this for over three hours), included more “fleshing out” that it would have necessarily contributed to a better film, but I do consider “Convoy” a curio well worth checking out if you enjoy 70s road films where truckers, engagingly friendly and spirited with each other, connect as a unit to make life miserable for law enforcement, often known for making life miserable for motorists trying to get from one point to another. Kristofferson sort of has one acting style and that is laconic and stoic, his piercing eyes and serious tone seemingly right for a lead trucker not interested in bullshit and sort of the kind of guy that would like to get to the point instead of waste time. He’s breezy, though, and not without a sense of humor, but understandable that there is a cause behind what RD is committed to. It was Wallace that pushed the conflict into violence, choosing to pick on Spider Mike seemingly for the spite of it. I just always felt there was probably footage cut that might have explained Wallace a bit more, gave him more depth because his escalating matters with the truckers, particularly Spider Mike and RD seemed borne from something that never quite feels satisfying. I mean, maybe that was the intention, but he focuses on the very truckers responsible for paying him exhorted “fees”. It does seem like there was more to MacGraw’s Melissa that isn’t quite developed, such as why she is so fascinated with RD and the truckers, willing to even die at the end inside the truck with him. What about this cause truly interests Melissa beyond a story and pictures she can sell? There is a romanticism to “life on the road”, across the states of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, with the desert and patches of cloud-and-blue-sky laid-out backdrop. The dirt, dust, and gravel kicked up, the dead houses on each side of the road, the busy stops and diners along the way. I think of “Duel” (1971), or even “The Car” (1977), the road quite open, the cacti out there, a landscape of hot burning sun and cool nights. It seems to be when the convoy enters a town where that road isn’t so open that difficulty arrives with its people and traffic, especially at the end when a school bus and ice cream truck separates RD from his posse. If you like cop cars crushed like sardine cans between trucks, desert dirt pelting windshields, intense stares ahead as cops form roadblocks hoping trucks just stop, as truckers make their stand while smokeys contemplate their own next strategy and move; “Convoy” does seem to give that to you. I didn’t quite feel the existential and political subject matter that tries to work its way into the film lands but that could very well be because a lot of what Peckinpah (or whoever was sober during the making of the film) intended to say was cut down to a sizable running time that the producers felt would bring the most audience. At the end, as the governor tries to use “RD’s death” as a cause to gain political persuasion, the truckers just abandoning this because enough was enough, it did seem Peckinpah was once again looking to get the common man public to laugh at the expense of those in power. If you know Peckinpah, the slow motion of a machine-gunned truck careening off a bride and bodies in a bar crashing across bars and through tables mixed with fast moving action will not be a surprise…it is to be expected. And the diner fight between truckers and police (three actually) goes on ridiculously long, to a hilarious degree. 2.5/5

*I did fail to add that RD and Violet, Wallace's wife, have an affair, seemingly active when RD is available. Violet looks forward to when he stops by and has a "gift for him to unwrap" when they get away for a bit. She seems quite sad, her face and eyes disappointed in how things are.
**I did also want to mention the film gives time to different personalities as truckers on the convoy, such as hippy Christians, two buddies who allow a woman trucker to hitch after her truck tips over, and others quite taken with RD and his cause