happytrigger-64-390517 In 1955, Phil Karlson directed "The Phenix City Story" about crime corruption just after the real facts happened in the city. After some violent crimes, the situation became under control, some were arrested, and some disappeared. Those who disappeared arrived in McNairy County, Tennessee, and the sad story began again. But Sheriff Buford Pusser was there, and he used the same weapons as the gangsters. And Phil Karlson made this tough movie, "Walking Tall", just after the real facts. Buford Pusser was the technical consultant and the huge Joe Don Baker played realistically his character. I have a picture with both of them, and Joe Don Baker doesn't seem to be so huge compared to the mountain Buford Pusser. I hope one day "Walking Tall" will get released again in theatres, I saw it at the french retrospective of Phil Karlson, and people were puzzled, a lot of people never saw it.

Robert J. Maxwell Joe Don Baker is Buford Pusser, an ex Marine who returns to find his small, peaceful Tennessee town corrupted by an immoral cabal marketing illegal stuff like gambling, white lightning, and trailer hos. He is elected sheriff and cleans it all up.Baker is mulling over the decision to run for County Sheriff. It's a dangerous job in this milieu. He's already seen a friend killed and has himself been horribly tortured. His wife, Elizabeth Hartmann, objects. "Is your pride worth the lives of your wife and children?", she asks. Both Baker's character and the viewer take the sentence to be rhetorical. It's not.But it's the sort of challenge that every wife lays down before her man when he's about to commit himself to some heroic deed. How many times has John Wayne's cinema wives clashed with him and his career as a sheriff or a Marine because they want him safe at home, not out risking his life, wondering if he'll come home in a body bag? Phil Karlson, the director, has made a couple of powerful movies but I'm not sure that he understood the import of Hartmann's question. It may have been that he realized it, but it may also have been an accident, the kind of phrase that slips easily by someone's critical apparatus. That's what I meant when I called the movie ironic.There's another scene that demonstrates the same irony. Baker has just been ambushed, his wife murdered and half his jaw shot away. His face is encased in plaster up to his eyes. He's weak and can barely move. And we see the crowd of friends in the corridor gawk and make a path when Baker's young son solemnly enters the room, carrying the little rifle that Baker gave him for Christmas. The kid is going to kill anyone who tries to hurt his Dad. Do the film makers know what they're saying? Anyone expected a Steven Segal wisecracker or anything resembling the loutish remake with Dwayne ("The Rock") Johnson will be disappointed. This movie is ambiguous in too many respects. It's not a simple revenge movie like "The Punisher," although there is an abundance of violence and blood. After that first mauling and the subsequent humiliations, Baker is rabid with revenge. His face turns into a horrifying Gargoyle mask as he tortures the spies and law breakers.I would guess -- judging from some recent polls and comments from our own politicians -- that about one out of four Americans will see this as the simple triumph of good over evil. (The distribution will be skewed in the direction of boys in their early teens.) It won't occur to them -- though the notion is brought up once or twice by character is the movie -- that Baker is a flawed person, that his pride verges on arrogance, and his anger on enjoyment. He brags about his scars.It's hard to argue with such a black and white view of the sheriff. He only drinks an occasional beer to be friendly, doesn't smoke, doesn't cuss, doesn't approve of see-through blouses, doesn't hold with loose women even if they love him, he's all tenderness with his wife and children, and doesn't gamble. Has there ever been such purity -- outside of the Bible and Arthurian legends? Baker is surprisingly good in the role of the real-life Buford Pusser. You can tell the story is based on actual facts and personalities because where else would you find people with names like Lutie McVey or Ferrin Meaks? As for Buford Pusser, that name would be the first to go. As the heroic central figure, he'd have to have a name like Matt Steel or Bull Durham.But the acting (and the location photography) are fine across the board. Nobody is a dud. Baker himself always sound like he's reciting lines in an acting class, doing his level best, but it's okay in this kind of role. After a while you get used to it and come to believe that this is how he sound off screen. He had a similar role, except as a murderer, in "Charlie Varick," where he was easily the most complex character. Probably the best performer in this film is Rosemary Murphy as the villainous Callie Hacker, head of the Whore Division. She doesn't get a chance to exercise her chops here, but catch her in "Night Moves" if you can.It doesn't really matter how you take the movie. You can either accept it as a shallow revenge story full of blood and sentiment or as the rather deeper and murkier thing I suspect it is. It will still be gripping and emotionally moving. The climax has the law-enforcer breaking the law in search of insurance that the law will prevail. Dirty Harry with a motive. Ironic.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU I saw it when it came out, in Dunn North Carolina, mind you, in the new cinema complex that had just open in the new shopping mall that had started opening in 1970 (I bought a tie there, the tie of Campbell community college next door, in 1970). I thought it was interesting, fascinating, but maybe slightly extreme. I have not changed my mind. But what is it about? A man coming back to his birth place and his family, along with his wife, their two kids and their dog, a birth place they decide to call home, in Tennessee. I have seen that pattern so often like in "Sometimes they come back" by Stephen King. He is at once, on the very second day, face to face with the perversion prohibition can produce. The county, or at least the city, is anti-alcohol, anti-prostitution, anti-gambling, and what had to happen happens. Just beyond the county limits a bar cum bordello cum gambling hall opens and attracts the males of the county who want to be ripped of their money by cheating game masters, of their soberness by moonshine whisky unduly called Daniels and of their kinky dreams by trailer female visitors, go and have a good time. But this business is of course in the hands of hard traffickers, of some organized crime at least at the level of the whole state and anyone who opposes it is dead meat, but after it has been severely tenderized. Our hero decides to run as sheriff against the rotten one who is in place and the rotten racist local judge who is covering the whole business. And then it is the story of how he will learn how to do things, how to integrate a black man in his team, how to inspire courage and fight corruption, how to bust the facade of these traffickers, bust the heads of a couple as soon as they draw a weapon, and finally inspire the people to build a posse and go out for the Lucky Spot of their dreams and burn it down. True of course, but too extreme. Things never happen that way. It takes time, a lot of time, to move public opinion, particularly in a small town. It takes time and finesse to trick and trap mafia criminals. It takes time and patience to trick and trip a judge who has so much power in his hands. But in 1973 it was a sign on the road away from the good old silent majority. The very first step on a very long way that is just coming ripe right now, maybe, and the silent majority might finally get some voice and shout "Yes We can" to their desire for "the change they need". Will that be a landslide or a tottering stumble? The film seems to believe that such radical change is possible once the fruit is ripe. Yet it does not show the ripening of the fruit, just the plucking.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

junky2004 This movie isn't just about history, it is based on the true life events of Sheriff Buford Pusser in McNairy County, Tennessee. You must see part 2 and 3 also to get the whole story. It shows how the Sheriff cleaned out the moonshine, drugs, and prostitution that was going on back in the 1970's. Also you can search the web and you will see other Sheriffs across the USA have paid tribute to the former Sheriff Pusser.Sheriff Pussers daughter has setup a museum for anyone who would like to see the actual home, cars, and property of the former sheriff.All 3 movies are really great. Especially part 3, it shows what happened to make Buford want to have the 1st movie made.I hope this was helpful for everyone who didn't understand.