Deadhead Miles

I caught this movie on A&E over ten years ago between classes while in college. I'd seen Catch-22, so I knew Alan Arkin and liked his work.

It's hard to describe this movie beyond a trucker movie. Very seriously, it's like an episode of Seinfeld... a lot of random stuff happens, most of it disconnected, a lot of it odd, but the vast majority is really funny once you sink into it. Honestly, I forget a very large portion of the movie, but the impression of how interesting it was has stuck with me for over a decade... that has to say something.

Arkin is perfect in it as a pill-popping, cantankerous driver trying to stay awake while driving a load cross country. Paul Benedict (Bentley from the Jeffersons) plays a tramp. Looking over the cast, Richard Kiel (Jaws from the Bond films), Loretta Swit (M*A*S*H), John Milius (writer of Apocalypse Now, etc), Hector Elizondo, Charles Durning... this had a great cast of character actors. I would love to see this film again, but I seriously doubt it will ever get a DVD release unless someone famous sponsors it like Tarantino has the martial arts films released under his Rolling Thunder company.

As far as I can tell, this film is auteur Terrence Malick's little joke on Hollywood. Malick fans won't find any of Malick's signature directing style--he didn't direct it, and there is no style to speak of in the direction by Vernon Zimmerman. But the Malick script is full of quirky, goofy witticisms and scenes that are more smirk than laugh producing. I picture Malick musing to himself as he typed the final draft: "I wonder if someone will film this part" and then deciding, "Yes. This is America. Someone will."

Alan Arkin's character, Cooper, drives a yellow Peterbilt down America's highways and byways, tells us he's an "engine man," tries to hustle a load, finds humor where he can in a frankly eighth-grade-boy way: after throwing, one-by-one, a case of full Pepsi bottles at signs as he's driving, he turns to his hitchhiker passenger (the lantern-jawed Mr. Bentley from *The Jeffersons*!) and asks "Wasn't that fun? I had fun. That was my idea of a good time" (dialogue approximate). In another memorable scene Cooper sticks it to the trucker's nemesis--cops--in a way that reminds me of Kit Carruther's passive aggression in Malick's directorial debut, *Badlands* (1972) when he throws a set of the boss's keys into a barrel of oil after being told he's fired.

Interestingly, Arkin's character never talks on the CB, which is the first thing you'd expect a trucker to do in a trucker movie. Just shows how Malick is a great left turner.

If Arkin is not doing an impression of Terrence Malick's voice and accent in this film, I'll eat my hat. Arkin's "Texan meets Kermit the Frog" inflection (the way one interviewer described an imitator of Malick's voice) makes me wonder if Arkin met with Malick before filming began and picked up his vocal mannerisms. Hearing so many gregarious lines come out of Arkin's mouth is an eye-opener for Malick fans--I was thinking to myself as I watched and listened "I wonder what happened to Malick after this script to make him decide to be terse?"

Since there's no plot to speak of, the trucker-talk flavor of the film becomes its reason for being. By the end, I realized Malick simply strings together all the witty-to-a-redneck trucker talk he's heard, creates a sometimes realistic, sometimes surrealistic atmosphere around the world of trucking, and asks the audience, in a pugnaciously droll way, to take it or leave it.

Item of interest: the title *Deadhead Miles*, which I originally thought referred to a slacker named Miles, actually refers to the trucker's term for driving a semi with no load in the trailer. Ironically, Arkin's character carries a "load" in the trailer during the entire film. You'll understand why I put that word in quotes if you see the film.

DEADHEAD MILES, never released theatrically, showed up a few times on cable in the 1980s, then vanished again. One has to wonder why? The fact is, despite being virtually plot less, this is a very entertaining film, and the fact that it is so scarce seems to add to its mystique. It is just a series of vignettes with Alan Arkin traveling across country in his semi-truck, but it works.

Not mentioned in most of the IMDb write-ups is Bruce Bennett, who scores in a bit as a truck-driving ghost, a literalization of an old truck-driving legend. The fact that it is Bennett (of all people) adds to the film's eccentricities. By all means, see DEADHEAD MILES if you can find it. I would love to see it get more exposure again.

I saw this movies in the early 1980s at the Toronto Festival of Festivals (as the Toronto International Film Festival was known then) at like 10 A.M. while I was waiting for the "important film" to roll. Nearly 30 years on, I can't remember what the important film was but I still have warm feelings for the road weirdness of Deadhead Miles. Partly that's because I've been a fan of Arkin's since Wait Until Dark, one of the greatest thrillers of all time. He plays one of the creepiest villains ever. At on point he explains what happened to his cohorts. He says they had plans to kill him but then: "Topsy-turvy. Me Topsy, them Turvy." It's delicious when he says it. As for Deadhead Miles and other films of legend you can't see legally or easily (A New Leaf, 1971), these are the things internet downloads were invented to deliver. We're getting closer, but we're still a few years away from a time when you'll be able to go online and download any movie or TV show their owners want to rent or sell. There are still economic and ego issues to deal with, but the promised land for film geeks is almost at hand. Next year in Hollywood.

Distinct lack of plot to this movie.

Its the story of a truck driver who is the worst imaginable and his sane passenger and a truck. There is not much else in there. Did I mention the truck? A lovely Peterbilt and reefer trailer combination with lots of that grunty Cummins Diesel sound.

The real star of this movie is Alan Arkin. He gives a hilarious performance in one of my favourite B movies ever.

I have never seen the end of this movie. I taped it off TV several years ago and about 4/5 in to the movie there was a power cut so I never got the end of the movie. Can't buy it anywhere and never know when its going to be shown on TV again.

Cameo appearances by Ida Lupino and George Raft who had appeared in a trucking movie called They Drive by Night also starring a young H Bogart.