| The Sugarland Express | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Steven Spielberg |
| Screenplay by | |
| Story by |
|
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| Edited by | |
| Music by | John Williams |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 110 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3 million |
| Box office | $12 million[2] |
The Sugarland Express is a 1974 Americancrimecomedy-drama film directed bySteven Spielberg in histheatrical film directing debut, following the television filmDuel (1971).[3] The film follows a woman (Goldie Hawn) and her husband (William Atherton) as they take a police officer (Michael Sacks) hostage and flee across Texas while they try to get to their child before he is placed in foster care. The event partially took place and the film was partially shot inSugar Land, Texas.[4] Other scenes were filmed inSan Antonio,Live Oak,Floresville,Pleasanton,Converse andDel Rio, Texas.[5]
The Sugarland Express marks the first collaboration between Spielberg and composerJohn Williams, who has scored all but five of Spielberg's films since. Although Williams re-recorded the main theme withToots Thielemans and theBoston Pops Orchestra for 1991'sThe Spielberg/Williams Collaboration,[6] the score was not released as an album until June 15, 2024, coinciding with the film's 50th anniversary.[7]
The film premiered at theNew Directors/New Films Festival on March 29, 1974, and was released theatrically inNew York City on March 31, 1974, followed by a year-long worldwide theatrical rollout. The film bombed at the box office; however, it received positive reviews from critics, who praised Hawn's performance, Spielberg's direction and the cinematography.[8]
Lou Jean Poplin visits her incarcerated husband, Clovis Michael Poplin, to tell him that their son will soon be placed in the care of foster parents. Even though he is four months away from being released fromprison, she convinces him to escape to assist her in retrieving their child. They hitch a ride from the prison with a couple, but whenTexas Department of Public Safety Patrolman Maxwell Slide stops the car, they take the car and run.
When the car crashes, the two felons overpower and kidnap Slide, holding himhostage at the head of a slow-moving and growing caravan, initially of police cars but eventually including news vans, private citizens' vehicles, and helicopters. The Poplins and Slide travel through Beaumont, Dayton, Houston, Cleveland, Conroe, and finallyWheelock, Texas. By holding Slide hostage, the pair are able to continually gas up their car, as well as obtaining food and supplies, some of which are provided by locals. During the lengthy pursuit, Slide and the pair bond and develop mutual respect for one another.
The trio attempts to commandeer an RV from a used car lot, but local vigilantes try to inflict justice on the Poplins. They make contact with Captain Tanner, who allows them to depart after further bargaining with Clovis. The Poplins make it to Sugarland, Captain Tanner attempts to have Clovis turn himself in and he refuses. Slide and then Clovis recognize that something is amiss at the home of the foster parents, but Lou Jean insists that Clovis retrieve their son. A pair of Texas Rangers shoot and fatally wound Clovis, and after another car chase, the Texas Department of Public Safety arrests Lou Jean. Patrolman Slide is found unharmed.
An epilogue preceding the closing credits explains that Lou Jean subsequently spent fifteen months of a five-year prison term in a women's correctional facility. Upon getting out, she obtained the right to live with her son, convincing authorities that she was able to do so.
The film's Lou Jean Poplin and Clovis Michael Poplin are based on the lives of then-21-year-old Ila Fae Holiday/Dent and 22-year-old Robert "Bobby" Dent, respectively.[9] The character ofTexas Highway Patrolman Slide is based on then-27-year-old TrooperJ. Kenneth Crone. The character of Captain Tanner is based on Texas Highway Patrol Captain Jerry Miller.[9]
In real life, Ila Fae did not break Bobby out of prison – he had been released from prison in April 1969, two weeks before the slow-motion car chase began. Unlike in the film, when Bobby was shot at Ila Fae's parents' house he was captured, and died about an hour later in a Bryan hospital.[10] The shooting took place nearWheelock, Texas[11] where they had gone to visit Ila Fae's two children (from a previous marriage).[9] Ila Fae was sentenced to five years in prison, serving only five months.[citation needed]
After working as atelevision director, Steven Spielberg made his first stand alone feature film-length production with the TV movieDuel, released in November 1971. After that he persuaded co-producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown to let him make his big-screen directorial debut withThe Sugarland Express, which was based on a true story. Shortly after it was released in March 1974, Spielberg began his next project for Zanuck and Brown in 1975's blockbuster hitJaws.
A clip from theWile E. Coyote/Road Runner cartoonWhoa, Be-Gone! is shown in silence during a scene at a drive-in theater.
This was the first movie to use thePanavision Panaflex camera.
The film premiered at theNew Directors/New Films Festival on March 29, 1974, and was released theatrically inNew York City on March 31, 1974, followed by a year-long worldwide theatrical rollout. The film later held its French premiere in competition at the1974 Cannes Film Festival. A 50th anniversary retrospective screening of the film, which was followed by a Q&A with Spielberg andVariety exclusive editor Brent Lang, took place at the 2024Tribeca Festival on June 15, 2024, which also included a surprise video greeting from Goldie Hawn. This screening marked, according to Spielberg, the first time since its initial release that the film had ever been screened publicly in a theater in front of a live audience.[8]
The film grossed $6.5 million in the United States and Canada and $5.5 million overseas for a worldwide gross of $12 million, making it the lowest-grossing film of Spielberg's career. This resulted in Universal declaring the film abox office failure and pulling it from theaters after just two weeks into its initial theatrical release.[2][12][13]
The Sugarland Express received positive reviews from critics. It holds an 87% rating onRotten Tomatoes with an average score of 7.2 out of 10 from 52 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Its plot may ape the countercultural road movies of its era, but Steven Spielberg's feature debut displays many of the crowd-pleasing elements he'd refine in subsequent films."[14]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[15]
Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "If the movie finally doesn’t succeed, that’s because Spielberg has paid too much attention to all those police cars (and all the crashes they get into), and not enough to the personalities of his characters. We get to know these three people just enough to want to know them better."[16]Gene Siskel of theChicago Tribune awarded the same two-and-a-half star grade and wrote that "whereasBonnie and Clyde prompted our sympathy for its heroes because of their winning style,The Sugarland Express asks us to care for Clovis and Lou Jean because they are thick-skulled and because, presumably, every mother has an inherent right to raise her own baby. It doesn't work."[17]
Arthur D. Murphy ofVariety called Hawn's performance "generally delightful" but found that "something happens to the picture" toward the end as "the story opts for an abrupt series of production number shootouts, as though this was the real purpose in making the film, and all that preceded was introductory filler and vamp. Too bad, for two-thirds of the film is artful, the rest strident."[18]Tom Milne ofThe Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that it "seems peculiarly contrived ... it may have happened this way in real life, but in the film the fugitives are so unequivocally presented as poor, harmless innocents that the veritable army of police cars absurdly queuing up to be in at the kill looks very much as though both they and the film were taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut."[19]
Other reviews were much more positive.Kevin Thomas of theLos Angeles Times called it "a dazzling, funny, exciting and finally poignant film," and called it "astonishing" what Spielberg, Barwood and Robbins "have managed to accomplish within a simple trek plot. Starting out as a comedy that gradually darkens, 'The Sugarland Express,' which is based on an actual incident, becomes an increasingly disenchanted portrait of contemporary America."[20]Nora Sayre ofThe New York Times wrote, "Spielberg, the 26-year old director, has built up Texas as a major character in his movie. As the herd of cars races and heaves and crashes through the landscape, the state's personality surfaces like a sperm whale. Mr. Spielberg has also made marvelous use of many Texans, some of whom haven't acted before."[21] Gary Arnold ofThe Washington Post called it "an exciting new American film—a funny, tense and ultimately touching chase melodrama ... It's an odyssey you may never forget, and you might as well memorize the names of the young filmmakers responsible for it, the 26-year old director, Steven Spielberg, and the 30-year old screenwriters (and no doubt prospective directors), Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, because they've made one of the most stunning debuts in Hollywood history."[22]
Pauline Kael wrote that "In terms of the pleasure that technical assurance gives an audience, this is one of the most phenomenal début films in the history of movies."[23]David Thomson sees the film as a natural followup toDuel: "Sugarland Express is another epic of the road—raucous, feverish, and based on an actual incident. What makes its quest and journey so touching is the treatment of the central characters. They are not self-aware, enlightened or stereotyped, and the movie never patronizes them. Goldie Hawn's wife is an untidy, vibrant woman, a robust departure from the social gentility that usually encloses Hollywood women. She is genuinely vulgar, but is never mocked because of it."[24]
The film won the award forBest Screenplay at the1974 Cannes Film Festival. It also competed for the covetedGrand Prix du Festival International du Film (later known as the Palme d'Or) at the festival, but lost toFrancis Ford Coppola'sThe Conversation.[25]
The chase ended in Wheelock, outside Bryan, at a farm home where Ila Faye Dent's parents and two children resided.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |