Lo spavaldo

When Alex Cox used to present the BBC's cult film strand Moviedrome. He boasted that you will not find films from the likes of Robert Redford here.

Little Fauss and Big Halsy would had been tailor made for Moviedrome. It is a cult obscure film. It was made just as Redford was on the cusp of superstardom.

Redford plays Halsy Knox a braggart. A small time womanising motorbike racer and petty crook always looking for his next buck. Halsy can race but he does not have temperament or the mechanical knowledge to be a winner.

Halsy meets Little Fauss (Michael J Pollard) a mechanic who wants to be a racer. He just cannot stay on his bike when he goes fast. His parents are oafs and Fauss is shy with a child like innocence. He has no friends.

Fauss hooks up with Halsy, he tunes his bikes and Halsy races, they even make some money. Fauss soon sees through Halsy's tall tales and his womanising. Halsy always hooks up with a floozy who hangs around the races.

Fauss is upset when Rita Nebraska (Lauren Hutton) who came across them running totally naked before a race, falls for Halsy even though she is aware that he is shallow and unreliable.

There is an element of the counterculture in this movie. There are several songs from Johnny Cash. There is full frontal nudity. It is an atypical Redford film, he is a chancer with no redeeming features. He appears half naked for most of the movie, shirtless and showing a long scar on his back.

There are hints of homoeroticism. One male photographer at the beginning of the movie is more interested in photographing Halsy's bronzed torso.

Fauss grows up as a person with his time with Halsy. He becomes a better racer and he also gets to have sex with one of Halsy's cast offs. He also tries to leave them in the same way as Halsy by sneaking away early in the morning.

The main difference is Fauss still remains a better person. This comes up when he talks about being drafted to the army, Halsy then reveals how he got his scar on his back.

Little Fauss and Big Halsy is a small scale character piece and part road movie. Robert Redford was interested in flawed people. A year before this he played an Olympic skier in Downhill Racer. His character was selfish who was only interested in winning gold.

In The Great Waldo Pepper made in 1975, Redford played a stunt pilot who told tall tales of his exploits in World War One. The box office failure of that film meant that Redford stuck with mainly heroic parts. Only as director would he examine the darker side of the American dream.

Director Sidney J Furie has made an offbeat and meandering look at Americana. The script is too thin and also predictable. Furie pumps it up with the race scenes.

This was a great movie if you were a kid growing up around motorcycle racing. I was just 14 when this movie came out. I went to the theater to see it because I had heard it was about motorcycle racing. It was great! It captured the eccentric attitude of racers in general and was really very accurate as to the characters one could find in AMA racing. "On Any Sunday"! We would trailer our bikes all over the northeast to any race we could find. Enduros, motocross, flat-track, scrambles... whatever was going on, we'd go! Change tires, fenders, or what ever we needed to do to the bikes and take off. Great movie and great times! when you were involved with the racing scene, you got to know the other regulars that would show up at the various races and there were the personalities found in the movie. Every one knew a Halsey! Most of us were more Fauss, however. we were more interested in riding and tuning than partying and chasing skirts! This movie is one of the only movies I actually searched for and purchased just so I would have it as the years go by.

Saw this in the drive-in back in '71 and thought it was pretty good! Saw it again on Speedvisions "Lost Drive-in" some time ago but some of the scenes were "edited for TV". I don't believe it was ever released on video...too bad!

I just got this movie on Blu ray from Blu ray.com/amazon and it looks fantastic! For a low budget movie in 1970, the transfer is amazing, crystal clear and the audio is great. It's funny because Redford wears sun glasses in about 60% of the film and you can see the reflection of the movie lights and even film crew in a number of scenes. You'd think they would have noticed this when filming. The movie isn't the greatest, but it is a cult classic. It's weird seeing Redford playing such a jerk of a character. He was actually really good at it in this movie. I found it interesting that Redford and Michael Pollard couldn't stand each other while filming this movie. I wonder what caused it?

As a 17 year old Arizona motorcycle racer, I had the privilege of working as an extra/ stuntman on the racing scenes in this movie, so I'm somewhat biased about the quality of this feature. It IS schmaltzy and VERY early 70s in its content and cinematography, but it paints a GREAT picture of what it was like to race motorcycles in the early days of American motor sports (back when no one but the Europeans EVER won anything!). Before Supercross, before motor sport superheroes when us folks that rode motorcycles were known as LESS than desirable, and no one ever called us athletes.

So, from a historical perspective, or just to see ME as a 17 year old tearing around a couple dirt tracks and out on a desert run aboard a hot Yamaha, I feel this movie can't be beat. It'll never take the place of such greats as On Any Sunday or On Any Sunday 2, but it's still a worthwhile 99 minutes of lighthearted flashbacks for anyone that lived through those times, or those that wish they had.

Oh, and Robert Redford wasn't too bad either...

John in AZ