Tracks *** (1976, Dennis Hopper, Taryn Power, Dean Stockwell) – Classic Movie Review 9018

Writer-director Henry Jaglom’s 1976 drama Tracks stars Dennis Hopper as Vietnam veteran sergeant Jack Falen, who accompanies the funeral casket of a dead comrade in arms on an epic train journey across the US to California.

When the trauma proves too much, his experiences in Nam start to lead to increasingly strong hallucinations. Taryn Power plays sweet, kind college student Stephanie, who helps him out of his dark depressions. But there is still an avalanche of anguish to wade through with his flashbacks to combat.

Tracks is an early independent feature from Jaglom (A Safe Place, Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? and New Year’s Day), which only just manages to survive the weight of its own ambitions. Tracks is a sort of cut-price Apocalypse Now, with an Amtrak passenger train replacing the boat on a voyage deep into the psyche of post-Nam USA.

As the film progresses, so the narrative becomes increasingly fractured and subjective, and it takes a bravura performance by Hopper as the increasingly psychotic soldier to maintain the credibility and intelligibility of the narrative.

Nevertheless, Tracks is still an excellent, distinguished film that is powerful and moving.

Also in the cast are Dean Stockwell, Topo Swope, Michael Emil, Zack Norman and Alfred Ryder.

Tracks is directed by Henry Jaglom, runs 92 minutes, is made by Major Studio Partners and The Rainbow Film Company, is released by Trio (1977) (US), is written by Henry Jaglom, is shot by Paul Glickman, and is produced by Howard Zuker, Irving Cohen and Ted Shapiro.

It was shot on Amtrak trains without permission, so the cast and the crew were regularly ejected.

The last 10 minutes were filmed in Paso Robles, California.

Jaglom said the story could be taking place in Jack Falen’s mind as he is sitting on a bench.

Falen was intended for Jack Nicholson.

It is Jaglom’s second film, following A Safe Place, which did star Nicholson.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9018

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