The Last American Hero **** (1973, Jeff Bridges, Valerie Perrine, Geraldine Fitzgerald) – Classic Movie Review 8255

The young Jeff Bridges is stupendous in director Lamont Johnson’s 1973 The Last American Hero, an entertaining, intelligent and touching biography of real-life top stock car racing driver Junior Johnson.

In this slightly fictionalised version of his early life, Bridges plays Elroy Jackson Junior, who gives up moonshining to become a stock car racing driver in North Carolina when his daddy Elroy Jackson Senior (Art Lund) is jailed. Junior Johnson plans to be the best NASCAR racer in the US South. Valerie Perrine plays Marge, a zany groupie who falls for Junior, but lets him down.

The actors enjoy chewing on William Roberts’s particularly well-written script, based on articles by Tom Wolfe, and talented young director Johnson keeps a beady eye on the performances, atmosphere and pace. The technical adviser was the best they could find – Johnson himself. The Last American Hero proved one of Bridges’s many near-misses at the box office.

Also in the cast are Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ned Beatty, Art Lund, Gary Busey, Ed Lauter, William Smith, Gregory Walcott, Tom Ligon, Ernie Orsatti, Erica Hagen, James Murphy and Lane Smith.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8255

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