dimplet
First of all, Going South is funny. And it is entertaining. So just enjoy the movie and stop analyzing it.This is a bit surprising, given Jack Nicholson's corpus. Look at the list of movies he made, and you will see this is his first comedy; not until Witches of Eastwich, 9 years later, do we see him starring in another comedy. There are comic elements in other movies of his, of course, such as the earlier One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and the bizarre Mars Attacks! But in no other movie does Nicholson play such a purely comedic role, where the movie is dependent on his comedic acting. If you look at his first 10 years of starring roles, from 1969 to 1978, you see an actor demonstrating the ability to handle a wide range of serious roles, who wants to avoid being typecast. Yet he is in some slight danger of typecasting, of playing post-60s hipsters and rather serious characters. Going South broadened his acting palette, and while he did not do much more straight comedy, he employed comic twists to lighten many of his roles, especially in "As Good As It Gets."One of the keys to good comedy that stands the test of time is not going overboard. Nicholson pushes his character to extremes, but avoids crossing the line into shallowness, in part because he gives his character such depth through his fine acting. There is a lot of shallow contemporary comedy out there now, and current actors and directors could learn a lot from watching this movie. Nicholson immersed himself so fully in this role that some viewers seem to assume naively that Nicholson was really like Henry Lloyd Moon, at least at the time. He's an actor! (See The Passenger - 1975.)I'm a bit puzzled by some of the off the mark reviews, which seem to be due in part to judging the 1978 Nicholson by 2008 Nicholson. One "Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine," quite bizarrely complained that in Going South, Nicholson was reusing "faces and attitudes and gestures that we have already seen" ... in later films!Speaking of time travel, Going South is almost a prequel to Back to the Future, Part III, which starred the loony Christopher Lloyd and the lovely Mary Steenburgen in the wild West. Yet Going South was Steenburgen's first movie! Steenburgen delivered her role to perfection. This is interesting given her serious expression opposite Nicholson's antics. I wonder if she had a hard time keeping a straight face? But one of the things that makes this movie work is seeing Nicholson draw Steenburgen in his direction, including sexually and even to taking a drink, and Steenburgen drawing Nicholson toward taking life more seriously. You know this is coming, and in the beginning of the movie you are skeptical, and yet it is done credibly, and with a romantic touch.The scene with the brass bed is one of the most memorable of the movie. Sorry if it offended some women, but there's a lot of truth to that scene, and humor. There's no indication it was done with in a mean spirit or cruelty, which is never appropriate in romance, in or out of marriage. Thankfully, the rest of the scene is all left to the imagination, unlike some of the gratuitous, garbage sex scenes in more recent movies, like Titanic and Cold Mountain. When I watched Rooster Cogburn, I wished John Wayne had tied the eternally chattering Katherine Hepburn to a brass bed, or at least gagged her! Nicholson did a fantastic job of selecting his cast. There are several actors who are still early in their careers, including John Belushi, Danny DeVito, Veronica Cartwright (not so early, given her experience as a child actress) and Ed Begley Jr. The weakness of Going South is that it did not given more of an opportunity for Belushi and DeVito to show their stuff, but this is easily said in hindsight. Lloyd's is the only other major comic role as Nicholson's nemesis. Some rare comedies work every time you see them, and some only work once. Going South is somewhere in between; it works if you watch it every few years, but it is best the first time. It works because of the comedic tension between the key characters, because it doesn't push the comedy too far, and because there is enough serious dramatic acting underlying the performances by Nicholson and Steenburgen. Another reason it works is that not everyone in the movie is a Lloyd or Belushi; there are some normal people, like the sheriff. When everyone in a comedy is a goofball, you've got a problem. I think you need some normal people as a reference point, even in screwball comedies.Going South might have been a little better had there been more amusing lines for some of the secondary characters like DeVito and Belushi. But it is a fun movie to watch, and you get the feeling that Nicholson, Steenburgen and cast had a lot of fun making it. You might want to watch some of the other movies Nicholson made in this 10 year period before seeing Going South to get a perspective on his early work. What you will see is a great actor who has demonstrated versatility throughout his career. Perhaps the one element these performances have in common is the ability of Nicholson to project intense personal energy through the character onto the screen. We see this certainly in later films, but there are few roles where Nicholson invests more energy into his character than in Going South.
bd_gordon
For some mysterious reason, this film failed to delight both critics and the public when it was first released in 1978, probably because it did not match the celluloid and writing quality of Nicholson's previous multi-million dollar funded blockbusters, "Chinatown", and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I first watched "Goin' South" on video back in 1987 when I was 26. I watched it with six other people, and we all laughed hysterically throughout this delightfully funny film (and we don't drink or take drugs). The critics, and sadly, Nicholsen's fans, completely missed the point of this great movie. It was Jack taking a break from the 'biz' to explore his directing gifts (though no Spielberg, he is capable) and due to the low budget, he makes up in performance what the Hollywood trimmings and glitz cannot provide. His co-stars, especially John Belushi in his first major film role, is absolutely hilarious. Every one of his films pale compared to his toothless, Mexican loser of a bandit impersonation. When I watch this movie every now and then, I can see why the critics were so hard on this film. Mary Steenburgen (in her first film role too) was not the right person to play the part of the prissy, virginal, and headstrong maiden who saves Jack from the gallows (some old Civil War law where a woman can save a condemned man by marrying him). She's just too bitchy, and none of us want to see the misguided, but lovable Jack treated this way. You kind of feel sorry for the guy, and this unintentionally brings the viewer down a little here and there (but not much!). Even though things change for the better, by that point in the film, you just don't care. If the film had a larger budget, they would have been able to afford an actress of the caliber of Julie Christie, Sally Fields, or even Goldie Hawn. There are times when Steenburgen just sort of sucks the life out of the scene, and if it weren't for Jack's over-the-top acting, even I might get annoyed. This being said, the film is still one of the best 90 minutes I can spend in front of the boob tube. I love it, and I think you will too.
