It's going to be double the fun today here at Soulfish Stew. First up there's this flashback to the movies playing on January 10, 1975 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Check back later this evening for another film flashback to a different January 10th. It's the blog equivalent of a double feature!
Burt Reynolds was playing on the big screen at Murfreesboro's one and only rocking chair theatre Cinema One. It was a truly marvelous place to see a movie, but sadly I was too young to see The Longest Yard there. The building that housed Cinema One and later Cinema Twin sits empty these days and my dream is to be given the money to reopen it as a single screen revival house.
While I didn't see The Longest Yard in the theatre I saw it when it ran on television. I think every boy my age saw it on television as we would recite lines from it on the playground. It was actually strange to hear the edited for television "I think I broke his freaking neck" line in its uncensored glory when I finally saw the unedited version on VHS years later. It's a great genre mix up with the sports and prison film smashed into drama and comedy. Burt sparkles as Paul Crew and Eddie Albert is great as the villainous Warden Hazen.
The Martin Twin has a couple of action flicks both centered around Vietnam war veterans. The Trial of Billy Jack is the 3rd in the series of Billy Jack movies starring and directed by Tom Laughlin. I've seen a few of them on television, but they have never done much for me. They were very successful at the box office and I had friends that would imitate Billy Jack's hapkido fighting moves. There's not a good trailer of the movie at YouTube, but the hapkido scene makes me want to give the Billy Jack films another chance. The other offering was of The No Mercy Man which was about a Vietnam vet returning home to fight bikers and carnies. It's a couple of years old by the time it plays here under its original title. It seems like a film more suited to the drive-in circuit and had actually been re-titled Trained To Kill, USA by 1975 and re-released to the drive-in and second run theatre's that year. You can find the whole movie at YouTube under that revised name.
I wonder why the ad for Burt Reynolds in Fuzz actually features the same photo from The Longest Yard one? Were they trying to confuse possible Cinema One customers? Fuzz which was released in 1972, really looks like a fun movie and Raquel Welch is certainly stunning. I got the Blu-ray recently and it was a decent movie albeit very much a copy of the Robert Altman style then popular. Pulp starring Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney is a quirky movie about a pulp writer being asked by a reclusive star to write his biography. It might be worth a viewing. The drive-in liked to pair its movies and two one word named crime comedies with major stars would make for a nice night out, but it was only for one more night back in 1975.
If you didn't want to venture out into the possibly frigid January night air you could always make your own popcorn (my mother would put oil in a big pan and I'd love to hear it as it popped knowing what a great treat it would be) and stay home to watch what was on the four stations available then. I know that I watched Stowaway To The Moon on this particular evening. I was obsessed with NASA and space back then and I actually do remember anticipating this TV movie. It's out there on the net so I rewatched it over the Christmas holiday. It wasn't too bad. It's unbelievable that a kid would have been able to stowaway, but NASA loaned footage to the movie so there are some nice space scenes.
Note: there will be another Film Flashback coming later today at 6:00PM.
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