Main Cast: Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Keith, Miriam Colon, Michael Vincente Gazzo
Release Year: 1981
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
Plot
For his follow-up to 1979's Academy Award-winning Norma Rae, director Martin Ritt re-teams with that film's star, Sally Field, for this gritty romantic road comedy. Reportedly Ritt's homage to Frank Capra's films of the 1930s, Back Roads stars Field as Amy Post, a no-nonsense prostitute in the deep South struggling with the fact that she gave up her only child for adoption. When Amy first encounters the recently unemployed Elmore Pratt (Tommy Lee Jones), she is anything but fond of the drifter. But after taking to the road together with dreams of California, the two societal misfits find themselves falling for each other. Ritt and Field would team together once again four years later in another romantic comedy set in the South, Murphy's Romance. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
Dan Shor - Spivey; M. Emmet Walsh - Arthur; Barbara Babcock - Rickey's Mom; Nell Carter - Waitress; Alex Colon - Enrique; Royce D. Applegate - Father; Jim Bailey - Billy; Don "Red" Barry - Pete; Lee de Broux - Red; Bruce M. Fischer - Ezra; Tony Ganios - Bartini; John M. Jackson - Merle; John Dennis Johnston - Gilly; Eliott Keener - Willis; Lee Mc Laughlin - Deputy; David Powladge - Fight Announcer; Ralph Seymour - Gosler; Henry Slate - Grover; Diane Summerfield - Liz; Woody Watson - Larry; John Wilmot - Ed; Richard Boyle - Ernest; Eric Laneuville - Pinball Wizard; Bill Holliday - Isaac; Fred Baldwin - Gordy; David Dahlgren - Mel; Brian Frishman - Bleitz; Billy Jayne - The Boy Thief
Credit
Ron Wright - First Assistant Director, Martin Ritt - Director, Sid Levin - Editor, Henry Mancini - Composer (Music Score), Alan Bergman - Songwriter, Marilyn Bergman - Songwriter, Walter Scott Herndon - Production Designer, John A. Alonzo - Cinematographer, Ronald Shedlo - Producer, Gregory Garrison - Set Designer, Barry Thomas - Sound/Sound Designer, Gary de Vore - Screenwriter
Back Roads is a 1981 film starring Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones. It is directed by Martin Ritt. It got middling reviews and grossed $11 million at the box office.
Amy Post (played by Field) is a $20-a-trick hooker in Mobile, Alabama. One night she entertains Elmore Pratt (Jones), an ex-boxer who has just been fired from his job at a car wash. He cannot pay her for services rendered.
Pratt punches a plainclothes police officer. He and the prostitute hit the road together, intending to head for California, bickering along the way.
It has been reported that Field and Jones disliked one another intensely. Director Ritt reportedly said later that he regretted not being able to make this film work, blaming its failure on both the script and the stars' inability to get along.
Nevertheless, in his March 13, 1981 New York Times review, critic Vincent Canby wrote that there "seems to be a real rapport" between the two actors. Canby described the film as "extremely appealing and occasionally gutsy and very funny."
Other reviewers were less kind. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars on a scale of four, although he did comment that Field "gives a performance that cannot be faulted."
