I have this original White Lightning one-sheet in my home office, handsomely framed thanks to my lovely bride Robin, but not yet hanging on the wall thanks to my laziness. I don’t have the poster because it’s my favorite movie of all time (although if you haven’t seen it, it’s better than you might think), but because I was obligated to provide images for my first book, Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema. I was able to find a number of stills, lobby cards, and posters on eBay, and this was one of them. I don’t think any image sums up the ethos of hixploitation quite like this one. Cars, guns, a barefoot girl, an angry sheriff, exploding moonshine bottles…what more could you want from a movie? (I guess the inset beefcake shot of shirtless Burt Reynolds was an afterthought in an attempt to get ladies into the theater.)
Many of these elemental building blocks of redneck cinema found their way into Lowdown Road one way or another. Cars and guns, of course, but also a memorable moonshining family and a redneck sheriff. The latter is such a staple of hixploitation, I devoted an entire chapter to the stock character in Hick Flicks. The movies have gifted us with a number of memorable variations, including Rod Steiger’s Oscar-winning turn in In the Heat of the Night and a surprisingly effective performance by James Dickey, who wrote the novel Deliverance, in the movie adaptation of his book.
Some of the most popular variations on the character were played for laughs, such as Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James), a buffoon with a cottonmouth drawl who turned up in the 1973 James Bond movie Live and Let Die. That entry in the 007 series, Roger Moore’s debut, pulled heavily from blaxploition, but evidently ripping off one B-movie trend wasn’t enough, as the film takes a turn into hixploitation territory as well. Pepper proved so inexplicably popular he showed up again in The Man with the Golden Gun for no reason the script could adequately explain.
But the king of comic redneck sheriffs is, of course, Buford T. Justice, Burt’s nemesis in the Smokey and the Bandit movies. As a kid, I thought Jackie Gleason’s characterization was hilarious, because swearing in movies was the height of humor at the time as far as I was concerned. (See The Bad News Bears, which remains a comic classic.) I guess I was over it by the time I wrote Hick Flicks, though:
“As the Coyote to the Bandit’s Road Runner, Justice was required to do little but drive badly and berate his idiot son (doubling as the bumbling deputy character). According to Reynolds, Gleason improvised many of his routines. ‘For instance, it was his idea to have the toilet paper coming out of his pantleg when he left the Bar-B-Q.’ Is it any wonder they called him the Great One?’”
For my money, the most chilling take on the character is Ned Beatty as Sheriff Connors in White Lightning. Again quoting myself from Hick Flicks:
“Connors is slow-moving and slow-talking, but not necessarily slow-witted. He’s more of a throwback—a man out of time…While he’s not above slamming an old man’s hand in a screen door to get information, Connors uses silence as his primary intimidation tactic—long, uncomfortable pauses, arms folded, head cocked disapprovingly. Beatty’s work here is fine-tuned and subtle, far more unsettling than Steiger’s bluster in In the Heat of the Night. Beatty oozes authority and menace (along with no small amount of perspiration) from his pores so convincingly that it’s a bit startling to realize this is the same actor who played Burt Reynolds’ hapless canoe-mate in the previous year’s Deliverance.”
It’s my hope that Sheriff Bud Giddings in Lowdown Road is a memorable villain as well. He has his comical aspects, but he’s no buffoon. He’s relentless and merciless in his pursuit of cousins Chuck and Dean Melville, and his motivation is not what you might guess. Find out for yourself this summer when Lowdown Road hits your favorite bookstore! Speaking of which…
News & Notes
If you’re in the Central Texas area, save July 10 on your calendar for what’s sure to be a rip-roaring book launch event. I can’t reveal the details yet, but I’m excited to be teaming with a top Texas crime fiction author to showcase the full range of Lone Star noir!
Looking forward to "Lowdown". The hick sheriff is also a staple of horror movies. I picture J.T. Walsh! John D. MacDonald has a few choice specimen in the McGee series, in Florida instead of Texas, but it's the same staple. I'll try to catch you in July!
I like the title "Lowdown Road."
You might like: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/the-grim-room-a-novel