Film Flashback June 19, 1977

June 19, 1977 was a Sunday so it's a perfect afternoon and evening to see some movies. Here is what was playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on that date. The Marbro has a couple of movies that probably wouldn't do much business with the after evening church service crowd....or perhaps they would. 

Girls On The Road from 1972 is about a couple of girls who pick up a Vietnam war veteran on their way to a hippie encounter session. Ralph Waite of The Waltons fame plays the hippie guru. A serial killer begins knocking girls off and it might be the Vietnam veteran played by Michael Ontkean probably most known for Slap Shot and the television show The Rookies. It's quite typical of youth exploitation films of its time. 

The other cinema classic at the Marbro is Satan's Cheerleaders which is about a janitor at a high school kidnapping the cheerleaders to use for a coven's rituals. One thing he didn't count on was one of the girl's is a witch herself and there's this head scratcher too....the coven needs to sacrifice a virgin so I don't know what the janitor was thinking as there were no virginal cheerleaders in Seventies b-movies.  I have never seen this film, but the trailers are definitely enticing. The Munsters Yvonne De Carlo is in the movie. 

Girls On The Road trailer

Satans Cheerleaders trailer for PG version

And another different trailer

Cinema_One's matinee offering The Last Tycoon which is the last movie directed by Elia Kazan. It boasts an all star cast with Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Jeanne Moreau, and Donald Pleasence to name but a few. F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel was about a Hollywood producer working himself to death so it was perfect fodder for a movie. I have not seen this movie, but I have liked most of the film's I've seen directed by Kazan so I may have to view it someday.

The Last Tycoon trailer

I had yet to see Smokey and the Bandit which was in its 4th big week at the Martin Twin, but it would still be playing when I did see it during the 2nd week of July. I've written about this movie before when it played at Cinema_One on January 31, 1978 so you can read my original summary there if you like. Suffice it to say, I love this movie and if not for a little space opera called Star Wars it might have been the top money maker of 1977. 

The Buford Pusser movie franchise's Final Chapter: Walking Tall was also playing and the Walking Tall films always did well at the Martin. Bo Svenson reprises his role as Pusser after taking over in the second film in the series. The real life Buford Pusser used to make personal appearances at car dealerships after the first film was released and was going to play himself in the sequel before dying in a one car accident when his Corvette struck an embankment at high speed in 1974. He was and still is a folk legend here in Tennessee. Final Chapter recounts lots of the events from the first 2 films and then ends with Pusser's death. Somehow it became a television series a few years later. I must admit I enjoyed the TV show and the first movie, but not this one. 

80 thousand dollars

Final Chapter Walking Tall shout factory trailer