Main Cast: Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, Michael Sacks, William Atherton, Gregory Walcott
Release Year: 1974
Country: US
Run Time: 109 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Based on an actual incident, Steven Spielberg's first theatrical feature follows the adventures of a Texas outlaw couple striving to keep their family together by any means necessary. Determined not to lose her child to the authorities, Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn) gets her obedient convict husband Clovis (William Atherton) to break out of jail and help her kidnap their baby from its foster parents. With hostage Officer Slide (Michael Sacks) in tow, the fugitives head across the plains to Sugarland, Texas, pursued by a flotilla of cop cars. Even though Slide becomes the couple's friend, the Law is bent on capturing its criminal quarry. Even though it was greeted with strong reviews, and Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Spielberg won the screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival, The Sugarland Express flopped. The young audience that had embraced the challenging tonal shifts of Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider in the late 1960s was no longer so reliably drawn to narrative uncertainties in 1974. The massive success of Spielberg's next picture, the popcorn thriller Jaws (1975), would confirm his suspicion that downbeat films were no longer the way to popular approval. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Review
More influential than even the director's fans are willing to give it credit, Steven Spielberg's first theatrical feature exhibits many of the traits that would later become his signatures: a majestic sense of scope; a fleet-footed sense of technique with even the most mundane action sequences; a childlike, naïve sense of wonder; and, yes, an occasionally cloying sentimentality. The Sugarland Express merges the men-in-cars dynamics of Spielberg's breakthrough TV movie Duel with a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of two holy fools (played impressively but with just a little too much gusto by Goldie Hawn and William Atherton) who will stop at nothing to get their child back. Although the story verges on the melodramatic, what saves the film is Spielberg's sense of space, place, and mood. He's so completely tuned in with his characters' hopes and fears that he's able to convey their every feeling through the visuals, which -- as shot by master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond -- are a mix of documentary-style observational shots, sweeping vistas, and absurdist car chases. With the notable exception of the film's de rigueur, early-'70s unhappy ending, many of Sugarland's story arcs, character quirks, and even camera placements can be traced through every subsequent Spielberg feature, from something as epic as Raiders of the Lost Ark to -- most obviously -- his 2002 fraud-on-the-run hit Catch Me if You Can. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Harrison Zanuck - Baby Langston; A.L. Camp - Mr. Nocker; Merrill Connally - Looby; Buster Denials - Drunk; Jessie Lee Fulton - Mrs. Nocker; Ted Grossman - Dietz; Big John Hamilton - Big John; James Harrell - Mark Fenno; Kenneth Hudgins - Standby; Gordon Hurst - Eddie Becker; Steve Kanaly - Jessup; Guich Koock - Hot Jock No. 2; Louise Latham - Mrs. Looby; Dean Smith - Russ Berry; Bill Thurman - Hunter; Robert Golden; Gene Rader - Gas Jockey; William Scott - Station Man
Credit
Joseph Alves, Jr. - Art Director, James Fargo - First Assistant Director, Steven Spielberg - Director, Verna Fields - Editor, Edward M. Abroms - Editor, John Williams - Composer (Music Score), Vilmos Zsigmond - Cinematographer, David Brown - Producer, Richard D. Zanuck - Producer, Frank Brendel - Special Effects, John R. Carter - Sound/Sound Designer, Robert L. Hoyt - Sound/Sound Designer, Carey Loftin - Stunts, Hal Barwood - Screenwriter, Matthew Robbins - Screenwriter
In May 1969, Ila Fae Dent assisted her husband Robert Dent escape from the Beauford H. Jester prison farm in Texas, because she feared their son will be placed in the care of her mother. During their flight, they overpowered and kidnapped Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Kenneth Crone, holding him hostage in a slow-moving caravan, along with reporters in news vans and helicopters. The Dents and Crone travelled through Port Arthur, Houston, Navasota, and finally Wheelock, Texas. In contrast to the film the events took only several hours.
The Dents brought Crone to the home of Ila Fae's mother, where they encountered numerous officers. An FBI agent and county sheriff shot and killed Robert Dent, and later arrested Ila Fae. Trooper Crone was unharmed. Ila Fae spent five months in a women's correctional facility, and later died in 1992. Crone was an advisor on the film and had a small role as a deputy sheriff.
The promoters of the film played up the grassroots support that existed for a mother trying to claim custody of her child. Some posters used the tagline:
A girl with a great following
Every cop in the state was after her.
Everybody else was behind her.
The pre-release facility is located in the Jester III Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Institutional Division, in present-day northwestern part of Sugar Land, Texas and no where near the Mexican Border as depicted in the movie.
The female dispatcher's voice in the movie saying "2311 Houston...2311 Houston...Houston Pierce", was an actual employee of the DPS.
Patrolman Slide's DPS cruiser is a 1973 Dodge Polara. After filming was completed, Spielberg purchased the vehicle, and drove it as his daily driver for a short period of time - bullet holes and all.
