SCARECROW (1973) (A-minus) - I have been trying to track down this film for years -- unavailable on disc or videotape or streaming, as far as I could tell -- but it finally aired this past weekend on the Movies channel, which is available via antenna or most basic cable systems. It was worth the hunt.
Gene Hackman and Al Pacino go toe-to-toe as a pair of meet-cute hapless drifters -- Hackman's Max a brawling ex-con and Pacino's Lion (short for Lionel, his middle name) a mopey manchild -- bumming rides and riding the rails, headed east to Pittsburgh with plans to open a carwash, a scheme that it almost certainly a pipe dream. Max exploits his magnetism with the ladies (despite wearing the same layers of clothes every day) while Lion pines for the ex he ran out on (off to sea) while she was pregnant. He bears a simple gift for the child he hopes to meet in Detroit.
The writer, Garry Michael White (who never hit it big in TV or movies), thinly sketches out a story and provides sparse, pinpoint dialogue for Hackman and Pacino to riff with. The pairing of the great actors doesn't feel like a natural one, and that gives the film an edge and a little hint of danger -- that this experiment could blow up in director Jerry Schatzberg's face. During the movie's middle third, Dorothy Tristan shows up as Max's sister, Coley, urging him to settle in with her in Denver, and her housemate, the frisky Frenchie (a scrumptious Ann Wedgeworth), who paws at Max like a kitten.
This is a true shaggy-dog tale that rambles like only an early '70s road tale can. Hackman and Pacino give it a Shakespearean gloss at times, and this might make you wonder what would have happened if Beckett's Vladimir and Estragon went off searching for Godot rather than hang around waiting for him.
BONUS TRACK
The trailer:
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