Steven Spielberg is a household name today. Film nerds can tell you the director for just about any movie ever released, but even the most casual of theatergoers, who might otherwise fumble when attempting to tell you who Ingmar Bergman or Jim Jarmusch is, knows Spielberg and his work. He’s the man who gave us Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, E.T., Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and the upcoming nostalgia-gasm Ready Player One (and yes, he even gave us Poltergeist). He might be the most name-recognizable director in film history, second only maybe to Alfred Hitchcock (depending on who you ask).
But this wasn’t always the case, of course. In this month’s edition of Underexposed, we’ll take a look at one of Spielberg’s earliest and most understated works. Everyone starts somewhere, and for Spielberg—at least where theatrically-released feature films are concerned—his career began with a “little” picture called The Sugarland Express. This was not his first full-length film: he helmed a now lost film called Firelight which apparently played in one movie theater for one night only, and following that, a TV movie called Duel, a simple and yet complex thriller about a mild-mannered man terrorized by a psychotic semi-truck driver on the open highway. Nor was The Sugarland Express his second film, having directed two other TV films before moving on to Universal Studios, with whom Spielberg would have a longstanding relationship.
Following The Sugarland Express, Spielberg returned to thriller waters quite literally with Jaws, a film that now enjoys permanent pop-culture recognition. Even if you’ve never seen the movie, you know what it’s about, and you definitely know the iconic theme by John Williams, two menacing cello notes that will forever signify looming danger in the public consciousness. And while not as well-known as Jaws, Duel now enjoys the cult following it rightly deserves.
But what of The Sugarland Express? Why doesn’t this film, which features the infinitely popular Goldie Hawn, appear right alongside Duel and Jaws as pillars of Spielberg’s early work? Why is it, in some ways, every bit as “lost” as his very first feature Firelight?
The answer to these questions concern matters that have nothing to do with the film’s merit, but let’s table that discussion for a moment and focus on why, despite its lesser-known status, this is one Spielberg movie you should definitely seek out.
It’s not every day you take a ride like this! — Lou Jean Poplin
The Sugarland Express is a fictionalized account of real-life fugitives Ila Fae and Robert Dent, here renamed Lou Jean and Clovis Poplin (played by the aforementioned Hawn and William Atherton, respectively). After social services temporarily places her son in foster care, deeming her an unfit mother mostly due to her time in prison, Lou Jean helps break her husband Clovis out from a pre-release facility for convicts transitioning from prison to the real world. Clovis only had four months left on his sentence, but the couple are terrified they will lose their boy forever if they do not act immediately. They hitch a ride with the parents of another inmate, but after misconstruing the actions of a Texas highway patrolman named Slide (Michael Sacks), they kidnap the officer and commandeer his vehicle at gunpoint. What follows is a three-day high-speed chase involving damn near every highway patrol officer in the Lone Star state (and even a thrill-seeking pair from Louisiana, as well as a few vigilante, wannabe cops to boot).
The Poplins simply want to make it to Sugarland to retrieve their son and then head to Mexico where they can live free as a “proper family.” For the most part, they are allowed to believe their efforts will be successful by the leader of the manhunt, Captain Tanner (Ben Johnson), and the audience is treated to a tender and often comical road movie about love and parental devotion in the face of cold bureaucratic intervention. The couple even become local celebrities, with people lining the streets and highway to show their support for the scofflaws with moral justice on their side. But Tanner, a mostly sensible man, makes a poor decision that ultimately dooms the pair, casting a dark pall over the mostly lighthearted goings-on. Without giving too much away, the rather downbeat ending wrestles with America’s love affair with guns and the poisonous effects of “good ole boy” culture—themes relevant both to 1974 and 2018, if one has been following the news of late.
From a narrative standpoint, screenwriters Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins—as well as Spielberg, who has a story credit—crafted an engrossing tale. The action sets in almost immediately, a glaringly ludicrous plan executed by two likable people, prompting the audience to simultaneously shake their heads at the characters’ misguidedness and root for them to win despite the overwhelming odds against them. In other words, The Sugarland Express is a classic underdog narrative, in the same vein as the much darker Arthur Penn film Bonnie and Clyde.
The Poplins are far more sympathetic figures than that infamous duo, however: as Officer Slide himself hauntingly insists at the end of the film, “He [Clovis] took my gun but he wasn’t going to use it.” As we take this journey with the couple, we know deep down they are good people merely acting irrationally out of desperation. This innate quality about the characters is due in large part to the performances of the lead actors. Hawn is at her absolute best here, proving once again she is far more than a pretty blonde go-go dancing on Laugh-In. And if you only know William Atherton as the asshole from Ghostbusters and Die Hard, you have no idea what a masterful actor he truly is; his talents are on full display here.
The aforementioned Officer Slide at first appears to be a bit of a bumbling policeman, but Sacks takes what could be a “simple-minded” character to the next level, weaving in Slide’s local boy charm with a keen eye for human nature and psychology and at times a heart-aching desire to steer the Poplins away from the doomed fate he knows awaits them. He is hands-down the most sympathetic authority figure in the film, with Captain Tanner coming in a close second. The beleaguered lawman shares Slide’s desire to save the couple—as he states, they are “just kids,” good at heart but misguided in their efforts to reunite their family—but when push comes to shove he ultimately gives up the fight for their lives. And yet, the viewer can clearly see how difficult a decision this is for Tanner, as he appears almost sick to his stomach by the end of the film. If one needed further proof of Ben Johnson’s significantly underrated gift as an actor, his performance here is that proof.
The film is also technical wonder that will make any cinematography buff swoon. It marks the very first use of the Panaflex, a compact camera that allowed Spielberg to accomplish long takes and 360° spins within a moving car. It also features the photographic genius of Vilmos Zsigmond, who relied almost exclusively on natural lighting to accomplish a documentary feel, while at the same time never sacrificing the sumptuous colors and artistry seen in his other films. One of his deep focus shots in the film should appear in every cinematography textbook ever written, if it doesn’t already.
Last but not least, The Sugarland Express features another first: Spielberg’s collaboration with composer John Williams, a relationship that continues to this day. (Since this initial pairing, Williams has only been absent from the director’s work a total of three times.) However, you will not find a decidedly Williams-esque score here; the music is far more subdued than the duo’s next project, Jaws, featuring only a high-pitched yet somehow also dulcet harmonica over a low, somber string composition, a juxtaposition that speaks to the film’s light-hearted veneer masking a dark undercurrent. It may not be anywhere near as catchy as Williams’s later work, but it does show his genius at creating a score that perfectly fits the mood of a film.
Now, having said all this, we must circle back to the initial question posed in this essay: if The Sugarland Express is so great, why doesn’t anyone ever talk about it?
The answer is twofold:
One, test audiences were reportedly displeased with the gloomy ending, and as a result, the studio more or less buried the picture upon its release—in other words, virtually no one saw it, and in the days before streaming and video-on-demand services, Blu-Rays and DVDs, even VHS and Betamax tapes, it was quite easy for a film to simply be forgotten;
And two, this relatively “simple” movie was overshadowed by its younger sibling, Jaws, which was a juggernaut of a film that brought in millions of viewers during the summer of its 1975 release, effectively making it the very first blockbuster, a subgenre with which Spielberg’s household name is also synonymous. We would not have Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and every other mega-spectacle he has made since were it not for the success of this little shark movie that could.
After the home video boom of the 1980s, Spielberg’s celebrity director status ensured the availability of The Sugarland Express, but it seems as the decades have gone on, only the most hardcore of Spielberg fans seek it out, while everyone else gravitates toward the bigger titles time and again. And admittedly, it is a more difficult film to watch regularly—as dark as Jaws or even Jurassic Park can be at times, they’re still uplifting and wholly entertaining films. But even casual movie watchers should view this one at least once. From its compelling story, beautiful camera work and photography, its stellar performances, and its simple, haunting score, The Sugarland Express is truly a remarkable entry in the career of the most famous film director of all time.
