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As a redheaded stepchild in the restless hamlet of Black Oak, there were few role models and hell, even less heroes. Sweet Conrad of Bain, I tell you the only heroes I could find was that Teutonic David Bowie record, and that’s the last thing I would want defending my town from wily outlaws.
So I took to the local movie house (some used to call it the cinema) to find my father figures. Dad worked on the railroad so we never saw much of him. But I digress. In the mid ‘70s there were plenty of defenders of good to choose from but none reeked of vigilance like one Sheriff Buford Pusser in the classic that gleams forth from my DVD shelf like Loni Anderson, Walking Tall. While you had Eastwood’s Dirty Harry and Bronson’s Death Wish making sure payback was always a bitch, Joe Don Baker’s no- nonsense approach to crackin’ skulls in the name of small town peace was extreme justice served up with a fresh can of Southern-fried whoop-ass. Not even Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack could wield a pool cue with such authority. And how good could you really feel walking out of Magnum Force, knowing it was all a fantasy cooked up by some high-falutin’ Hollywood scribe? With Walking Tall, you get the real deal, a true story of a Tennessee lawman that gives one small town a much-needed enema. You’d have to be dumber than a bag of hammers or be pre-occupied with shotguns and teddy bears not to recognize the crime fightin’ skills of Sheriff Pusser!
Produced by Bing Crosby Productions in 1973 and featuring a pre-cursed Leif Garrett as son Mike and the great Noah Berry Jr. in the role of Grandpa Carl, this is a film that not only single-handedly launched the Hixplotation genre, but opened a certain Video Nutrionist’s eyes to one of America’s true unsung heroes...
See it again and you’ll know why Buford Pusser is up there in the pantheon of Americana alongside baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolet.
Merry Christmas,
Vic La Stu
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