Main Cast: Jim Brown, George Kennedy, Fredric March, Lynn Carlin, Don Stroud
Release Year: 1970
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
When Jimmy Price (Jim Brown) wins an upset victory for sheriff, he becomes the first black man ever to hold the job (or any elective office) in anyone's memory in his rural southern county. He also sets off an ominous rumblings as the entire county seems split apart by his presence -- Mayor Parks (Fredric March) offers him the support of his office, but many whites aren't prepared to accept a black man as sheriff, while most of the whites that can accept him aren't saying so too loudly; a lot of older black residents, remembering decades of Jim Crow laws that only lately disappeared, are more confused than encouraged by Price's victory, while younger, more radical black citizens like George Harvey (Bernie Casey) have little use for Price's straight-arrow personality; they expect him to show them favoritism, and when he doesn't, they suspect him of being an nothing but a white man in black skin. Even Price's own wife (Janet MacLachlan) wonders if the cost of his being sheriff is too high. He finds himself alone, walking a tightrope between all of the forces pulling at him, and then the whole situation threatens to explode when he arrests the good-for-nothing son (Bob Random) of a wealthy man from the next county, who has killed a child while driving drunk. Soon the local klavern of the Ku Klux Klan is planning a meeting, and a lynch mob seems to be gathering across the county line to break the prisoner loose and take care of the sheriff. Price finally gets some unexpected help from his embittered predecessor, John Little (George Kennedy) -- Little would like nothing more than to sulk over losing his longtime job, but with his wife's coaxing he realizes that he can't let Price fail without the risk of destroying everything he worked for years to build. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
In the wake of the success of Norman Jewison's In The Heat Of The Night (1967), race relations in the contemporary south suddenly became a marketable subject, and led to the making of such films as William Wyler's The Liberation Of L. B. Jones (1970) and James Goldstone's Brother John (1972). Ralph Nelson's Tick, Tick, Tick was MGM's major entry in the field and isn't a bad one, mostly by virtue of a lot of rewarding performances. Jim Brown wouldn't win any Oscars for his work here, which seems rather stiff, though the part calls for this; in George Kennedy's role is underwritten a bit too much to give him quite enough to work with, though he does convincingly convey some of the conflicts that drive his character -- much more effective and subtle is Lynn Carlin as his wife. The rest of the cast, including Fredric March as the mayor of the town at risk from the plot's ticking time-bomb, Clifton James as a local racist who is just smart enough for his own good, and Dan Frazer, Don Stroud, and Richard Elkins as various participants, is uniformly fine. If Tick, Tick, Tick has a flaw, it lies in the movie's overall positive outlook -- characters don't have to be killed for a drama of this kind to be convincing, but there has to be more than a general threat to the hero in order to drive a story of this type, if audiences are going to fully believe in what they're seeing. The action gets wrapped up here just a little too neatly, and there is none of the verisimilitude -- or the complexity of setting or characters that comes with it -- that one got from In The Heat Of The Night. Its good intentions aside, however, Tick, Tick, Tick is one of the better dramas of its kind, and even overcomes the burden of some not-too-subtle songs added to the soundtrack by the studio's record division (itself another legacy of In The Heat Of The Night). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Janet MacLachlan - Mary Price; Richard Elkins - Brad,Wilkes; Clifton James - D.J. Rankin; Bob Random - John Braddock; Bernie Casey - George Harley; Anthony James - H.C. Tolbert; Dub Taylor - Junior; Ernest Anderson - Homer; Barry Cahill - Bob Braddock; George Cisar - Barber; Dan Frazer - Ira Jackson; Roy E. Glenn, Sr. - The Drunk; Paulene Myers - Mrs. Harley; Renny Roker - Shoeshine Boy; Leonard O. Smith - Fred Price; Karl Swenson - Braddock; Bill Walker - John Sawyer; Dino Washington - Randy Harley; Mills Watson - Dep. Joe Warren; Anne Whitfield - Mrs. Dawes; Calvin Brown - Harrison Harley
Credit
George W. Davis - Art Director, William Glasgow - Art Director, Michael S. Glick - First Assistant Director, Ralph Nelson - Director, Alex Beaton - Editor, Jerry Styner - Composer (Music Score), Mike Curb - Musical Direction/Supervision, Jimmy Payne - Songwriter, Jack Clement - Songwriter, John Hartford - Songwriter, Loyal Griggs - Cinematographer, James Lee Barrett - Producer, Ralph Nelson - Producer, Robert R. Benton - Set Designer, Don Greenwood, Jr. - Set Designer, Franklin E. Milton - Sound/Sound Designer, James Lee Barrett - Screenwriter
