Walking Tall ***½ (1973, Joe Don Baker, Elizabeth Hartman, Gene Evans, Noah Beery Jnr, Rosemary Murphy, Leif Garrett, Lurene Tuttle, Dawn Lyn) – Classic Movie Review 4708

Quintessential tough-guy Joe Don Baker gets one of his best roles and gives a sterling performance as real-life Southern sheriff Buford Pusser, who scarily carries a baseball bat and takes the law into his own hands to clean up the Tennessee area.

Director Phil Karlson’s extremely violent 1973 Charles Bronson-style vigilante movie Walking Tall is well made and grittily performed, but is infested with a very dubious morality as the ‘good guy’ resorts to methods indistinguishable from that of the bad guys.

The film’s estimable co-stars Elizabeth Hartman, Gene Evans, Noah Beery Jnr, Leif Garrett, Lurene Tuttle, Dawn Lyn and Rosemary Murphy are a colourful cast and effective, but they all deserve more to do.

Also in the cast are Felton Perry, Brenda Benet, John Brascia, Bruce Glover, Arch Johnson, Richard X Slattery, Lynn Borden, Ed Call, Sidney Clute, Douglas Fowley, Don Keefer, Sam Laws, Pepper Martin, John Myhers, Logan Ramsey, Kenneth Tobey, Wanea Wes, Dominick Mazzie, Russell Thorson, Gil Perkins, Carey Loftin, Warner Venetz, Gene LeBell, Del Monroe, Lloyd Tatum, Vaudie Plunk, Perline Wynn, Ted Jordan, Red West, Andrew J Pirtle and Lloyd Harris.

Walking Tall is directed by Phil Karlson, runs 124 minutes, is produced (surprisingly) by Bing Crosby Productions, released by Cinerama, written by Mort Briskin, Stephen Downing and John Michael Hayes, shot by Jack A Marta, produced by Charles A Pratt, Mort Briskin and Joel Briskin, scored by Walter Scharf and designed by Stan Jolley.

It unfolds in Selmer, a small town in southwest Tennessee, but it was filmed in Jackson, Knoxville and Henderson, Tennessee.

This surprise hit exploitation thriller started up a little industry: two sequels (Walking Tall Part 2, Walking Tall: Final Chapter), the 1978 TV movie titled A Real American Hero: Buford Pusser with Brian Dennehy and a brief TV series followed. And it was remade as Walking Tall in 2004 with Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock. Two sequels to this were released in 2007 – Walking Tall: The Payback and Walking Tall: Lone Justice – both released directly to DVD and starring Kevin Sorbo as Nick Prescott, the son of the town’s sheriff.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4708

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