Buster and Billie **** (1974, Jan-Michael Vincent, Pamela Sue Martin, Joan Goodfellow, Clifton James, Robert Englund) – Classic Movie Review 1,602

The 1974 coming-of-age drama film Buster and Billie focuses on a 1940s romance in a small town in the Georgia countryside, and is lit up with an appealing performance by the young Jan-Michael Vincent as a high-school rebel.

Director Daniel Petrie’s 1974 Columbia Pictures tragi-comic period coming-of-age drama film Buster and Billie, unfolding in rural Georgia circa 1948, is an extremely attractive movie. Into the mix are elements of the neo noir crime movie, the tragic romance genre and the revenge film.

It focuses on a 1940s romance in a small town in the Georgia countryside, and is lit up with an appealing performance by the young Jan-Michael Vincent (10 years before he lifted off in TV’s Airwolf) as Buster Lane, a successful but essentially shy high-school rebel.

Buster decides that he is going to dump his nice girlfriend, high-school sweetheart Margie Hooks (Pamela Sue Martin, a decade before her 86-episode run as Fallon on Dynasty) and instead wed the town’s much-despised girl of easy virtue, bad girl Billie-Jo Truluck (Joan Goodfellow).

The film is slightly marred by the violent ending, but otherwise it is a very sweet, appealing movie with an affecting portrait of young people and small-town America in the era. There’s an excellent screenplay by Ron Turbeville, as well as outstanding cinematography by Mario Tosi, and it is very capably handled by director Petrie.

Also in the cast are Clifton James (Sheriff J W Pepper in Live and Let Die), Jessie Lee Fulton and J B Joiner (as Buster’s parents, Mrs and Mr Lane) as well as Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street series) in his film debut as Buster’s friend, the albino Whitey.

Maybe there are no great surprises, but it is all ground freshly re-hoed to beautiful effect. Some innocent nudity helped to gain it an 18 certificate, with Vincent in a then surprising full frontal as he swings across a river.

The film was shot in Metter and Register, Georgia, and Statesboro (the largest city and county seat of Bulloch County), Georgia, and in surrounding rural areas.

The title song ‘Billie’s Theme’ is sung over the opening and closing credits by Hoyt Axton.

The cast are Jan-Michael Vincent as Buster Lane, Pamela Sue Martin as Margie Hooks, Clifton James as Jake, Robert Englund as Whitey, Joan Goodfellow as Billie-Jo Truluck, Jessie Lee Fulton as Mrs Lane, J B Joiner as Mr Lane, Dell C. Payne as Warren, Mark Pendergraft as Mole, David Paul Dean as Phil, David Little as Smitty, Vernon Beatty as Arland, Doris Pearce as Mrs. Hooks, Carl Reddick as Mr Hooks, Dale Pearce as Sally, Lewell Akins as Photographer, Mentoria Sills as Hat Lady, Bruce Atkins as Sheriff, John Chappell as Deputy, Bob Hannah [Robert E Hannah] as Bus Driver, Aaron Swain as Principal, Quincy O Waters as Minister, Joyce Woodrum as Mrs Trulove, Jim Shirah as Mr Trulove, Slim Mims as Himself, Claude Casey as Himself, and The Sagedusters as Themselves.

When shooting took place in Metter, Register and Statesboro, Georgia, and in surrounding rural areas, the locals were excited that the movie was being filmed but were unaware of the movie’s risqué plot or nudity. It is one of the earliest American mainstream movies with male frontal nudity. Asked about his nude scene, he replied: ‘The scene was in good taste, and I don’t think I sprang any surprises on anyone. Just standard equipment.’

Ron Turbeville loosely bases his screenplay and story (with Ron Bartron) on real-life events in his hometown of Florence, South Carolina, in 1948.

Zephinam Films released the film in 2021 on a Blu-ray restored from the original film elements.

Canadian film director Daniel Petrie (November 26, 1920 – August 22, 2004) also directed the 1961 film of A Raisin in the Sun and Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981).

Buster and Billie is directed by Daniel Petrie, runs 100 minutes, is made by Black Creek Billie, is distributed by Columbia Pictures, is written by Ron Turbeville, based on a story by Ron Turbeville and Ron Bartron, is shot by Mario Tosi, is produced by Ron Silverman, and is scored by Al De Lory.

Release date: August 23, 1974.

Vincent turned 70 on July 15 2014 and had made no films since White Boy in 2002. He is best known as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the US TV show Airwolf (1984–1986) and as the star of John Milius’s 1978 surfing epic Big Wednesday, as well as for The Mechanic (1972), The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973), and Bite the Bullet (1975). He was the highest paid actor in American television for Airwolf, rumoured to be $200,000 per episode. A notable exception to the sharp downward trend in Vincent’s post-Airwolf career is his small role in the acclaimed independent film Buffalo ’66 in 1998.

Jan-Michael Vincent died of cardiac arrest on February 10, 2019, aged 74 in Asheville, North Carolina.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,602

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