Steelyard Blues

"I dunno nothing about climbing... except onto broads and motorcycles." --Peter Boyle replies to Donald Sutherland in a Brando voice when asked to climb into someplace to steal something.

"A '50 Studie!" --Donald Sutherland exclaims when he sees a 1950 Studebaker at a demolition derby, the only model he had yet to crash into in his derby driving days before prison.

Most, if not all, of the members of the comedy group The Committee appear in the movie and there's a great bit that defies description involving Hessman, his henchman, a sort of movie-prop housefront with someone pretending to be an out-of-control guard dog barking at the window while one of the others tries to hold him back.

I think Sutherland said in a Playboy interview that it was during the filming of this movie that Jane Fonda raised his consciousness.

Sigh, I never would have seen most of my favorite movies if it weren't for revival houses that brought this and other classic or off-beat movies back from time to time. Sadly, most of those theaters are long gone too these days.

I spent the entire Summer during the making of the film on the set/location of the film, and I would say that being thirteen years of age at the time, it was a heck of ride!!! I learned about racial tension on the streets of Oakland. The local African American population wasn't always crazy about the film crew's presence...lots of discernible anger and tension.I learned about how you try to shoot on location at a real demolition derby with a real live audience. It was organized chaos, and fights were breaking out in the stands and on the track....Peter Boyle was always making everybody crack up with his Marlon Brando imitations.....there was a lot of focus and preoccupation on getting scenes done correctly with pyrotechnics and explosions....hours of debate and preparations...

It was the end of the sixties, and the Vietnam War was going on endlessly with no end in sight....Jane Fonda was blackballed by Hollywood and Steelyard Blues was at least a paycheck.

A piece of Hollywood history during a very uncertain time....

Steelyard blues is a terrific addition to the Woodstock, or anti-establishment, era movies which include Easy Rider, Vanishing Point and Zacharia, to name a few. Peter Boyle is priceless as he does an impression of Marlon Brando and later scales a building without the use of ropes -- also a terrific early performance by KWRP's Howard Hessman. Don't miss this hip, fun farce. They don't make em like this anymore. Fantastic sound track featuring Maria Muldaur -- among others.

Given the people involved, it is hard to see why this movie should be so messed up and dull. The writer, David Ward, wrote the amazing caper film "The Sting" two years later, Jane Fonda had just won an Academy Award for Klute, and Donald Sutherland had just done excellent work in films like "Klute," "Start the Revolution Without Me," and "Kelly's Heroes." Plotwise, the movie is a caper tale, with a small gang of bumbling misfits planning a big heist. At the same time the movie wants to be hip satire, a series of comedy sketches of the type that the NBC television show "Saturday Night" would do so well two years later. The bad result is that the plot makes the comedy bits seem awkward and forced and the disconnected comedy bits destroy any kind of suspense that the heist might have. It is quite literally a movie that keeps smashing into itself, just as the cars in the cars in the demolition scenes run into each other.

The only real interest for me was watching Jane Fonda. Her "Iris Caine" is supposed to be a light hearted version of her dramatic Bree Daniels prostitute character in "Klute" Yet, one doesn't believe her for a moment. It is always Jane Fonda pretending to be a prostitute that we are watching. It is as terrible a performance as her performance in "Klute" was terrific. It would be a good lesson for acting teachers to run the two films together to show how the same actress in the same type of role can be great or pathetic. It suggests that actors are only as good as their writers and directors.

A group of misfits in the Oakland area hang out in a junkyard and an abandoned airstrip. They come up with the harebrained scheme of repairing a PBY Catalina flying boat and escaping their troubles. Donald Sutherland plays the black sheep brother of a district attorney (Howard Hesseman) while Jane Fonda is on hand as a high-priced prostitute sorta romanced by the former. Meanwhile Peter Boyle plays an eccentric bloke who used to work in the circus. John Savage is also on hand.

"Steelyard Blues" was shot in 1971, but not released until 1973. Sutherland & Fonda were an item after the success of "Klute" (1971), but this one understandably failed at the box office and fell into obscurity. It's a drama with amusing touches and not a comedy; although it could be described as a black comedy. It tries to be the early 70's follow-up to iconic counterculture flicks like "Easy Rider" (1969).

In any case, it starts shaky and I was concerned that I had stumbled upon a real dog, but it thankfully finds its footing by the second act as the characters are fleshed out. I suddenly found myself involved in their story. Boyle goes over-the-top to entertain and his Brando scene is a highlight. Another good sequence involves the successful brother (Hesseman) and his 'loser' sibling (Sutherland) having a melee in a cell.

Meanwhile, Fonda's character is a turn-off, but that's just me. The movie was released during the height of the backlash over her 1972 trip to North Vietnam earned her the nickname Hanoi Jane.

The notable soundtrack fittingly features rockin' country blues by variations of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, then known as Better Days; featuring Nick Gravenites and Mike Bloomfield, as well as Maria Muldaur.

The movie runs 1 hour, 33 minutes, and was shot in Oakland, California, & places nearby.

GRADE: C+