La grande traque

I want this movie so bad. This was the best movie that I have ever seen and I've seen a lot of good movies. I saw it for the first time while my husband and I were stationed in Germany, the same year it came out. I've never seen it again. Not even as a classic on TV. Can't buy it on VHS or DVD, and believe me, I've been trying to track this movie down for over 25 years. I tried to order it recently, but it was not the same movie, different characters, different plot, but the same title. The performance of Anne Archer, Erik Estrada, not to mention James Mitchem was magnificent. I fell in love with Anne Archer, not only was she classy as prostitute, she befriended the young girl, and tried to help her as much as she could. My sister saw this movie in 1999 on TV, while visiting Aurora, CO. It was on the Turner Classics Network I believe.

Please find this movie. A movie this good should have been put on video immediately.

United Artist seems to have ignored this 1976 classic for it's not even on video! Karen Lamm runs away from her Montana home to go to the city and gets raped by mexican gang and sold to a high class beverly Hills pimp Johnny Dee (well played by Vince Cannon). Jim Mitchum plays her brother who goes to Los Angeles looking for her with a help from Cathy Lee Crosby and Erik Estarda. Great finale, Good action, like a suspenseful action sequence on the roof of and in the elevator at Johnny dee's building, to the finale, which involves a high speed car vs a rifle (which also had some "distance" bloopers)! Great cast (with early performance as Ray Sharkey), and Hollywood later sort of remade it with "THE COWBOY WAY" with Woody Harreson 14 years later. Intresting note is Ivan Nagy is credit was "story by", when he is the director that was boyfriend of Heidi Fleiss in real life.

I think the film is not on video because of musical copyright problem (Kenny Rogers sings the end credit song). The Late Vince Cannon could've been good villian actor, it's too bad he never did much films. The film was re-released by the producers (not United Artist) in 1980 with Estadra on the cover holding a knife with Cathy Lee Crosby also on the poster. The new poster said something like "He's a killer, He's lover, and only Cathy Lee Crosby can tame him". False advertisement, but the film is worth a good release back then as it still stood up to the action films of 1980. And it is still a great exciting action film with a important message!

Trackdown is another of those well made flicks of the Seventies. The film, though dry in parts, pulls you in with a story, with not such a happy ending, tragic and shocking. The film with it's good intentions, does turn nasty, yet is violently effective, one could say. It's not what you foresee in the early part of this film, especially if judging it, against the country song in the opening. The scenario here has been done, many times, but the nasty turn of incident here, ups the film's merit. We have a bored, young and beautiful girl, (Karen Lamm, who in real life, died quite young, I believe) who's 'spose to be 17. She sets out for Hollywood, leaving her farm and Mumsie behind, who we never see, where we apparently learn from the small informing dialogue, things aren't quite particularly great between the two. Big ox of a brother (Jim Mitcham- Yes Robert's son) returns and sets out to save her. Lamm quickly ends up in a slick sex slavery operation as a high priced call girl, run by a notorious older pimp, Johnny D, who fronts a topless dancer and entertainment agency. An older woman, also in the rackets, and is obviously doing Jonhny D (a younger Ann Archer, at her sexiest) befriends her, while stubborn and determined Mitchum, kicks down doors, and causes a ruckus, trying to find Sis, almost passing her in one scene. What are the chances? He teams up with a young hustler (Chip's Erik Estrada) who was bedding her, while also working with a pretty social worker (Cathy Lee Crosby) who tells the stubborn headed Mitchum, in a heated moment, "The kids run away, cause the parents are such idiots". Mitchum, who's never really been to Hollywood before, as we can gather, later tells Crosby "I've been a hunter all my life. A hunter survives on instinct, and right now my instinct's telling me, it's not good". He couldn't be more right. Sadly, the last thirty minutes of Trackdown is the strongest, starting with that one brutal scene in the bedroom, and in how Mitchum and company use their smarts to gain revenge. Mitchum's character, a man with a plan, you do root for, but too you can't help get angry at him, to how he's ended up in this position, as you don't believe for two secs, he wants to take a step back, and think how this could of been prevented. In this secret context, Mitchum's character is used as an illustration. We need to focus on the problem, for every runaway, so we can prevent kids taking off, with some not so happy fates ensuing. Trackdown isn't the best movie of this kind, but it's a well worth insight into how these sort of things go down, and how the these scumbags operate in a not half bad movie, considering it's era. Trying to Trackdown Trackdown on VHS, etc, well all I can say, is, I wish the best of luck. See what little of Mitchum's face muscles move, or is it, a play down on his character. You decide.

This movie is now available on DVD though Warner Home Video. It's a good action movie that makes up in creativity and strong performances what it lacks in budget. There is an action sequence involving an elevator shaft that is particularly good. It was made in the 1970s and really feels like that era in terms of styles, settings, and attitudes. I thought the weakest part of the film was the beginning. We're told the teenage girl is not getting along with her mother but we never see any conflict or even see the mother, then there is a long shot of Jim Mitchum herding horses before he arrives in LA to track her down. It all seemed rather clumsy. When Jim gets to LA, the story finds a groove that plays out at a good pace with a nice mix of action and character development. All of the actors do a nice job. Jim Mitchum and Erik Estrada play well off of each other. It's too bad they didn't make another movie together. It's great to see the always beautiful, always classy Ann Archer in an early role.

James Mitchum plays a Montana rancher who goes to the big city to find his runaway sister, who's fallen into the seedy LA underworld. He then takes his down-home style of justice to the big city sleaze peddlers! Mitchum is helped by a local who encountered his sister, Chucho (Erik Estrada), and a local social worker (Cathy Lee Crosby), but it's the evil pimp and sleazy madam, Anne Archer (in what was her breakout role), who Mitchum needs to face down himself. TRACKDOWN's plot is remarkably similar to Paul Schrader's HARDCORE (which came out three years later), where George C. Scott looks for his missing daughter, tracking her down to LA, going down a rabbit hole of the illicit subculture of pornography and snuff films. TRACKDOWN is not as erudite or as disturbing as HARDCORE, but it does deliver the DEATH WISH-like payback you wish Scott was allowed to dish out, and at the same time, does not shy away from the ugliness of prostitution. At the same time, the film might have been stronger if it had a director with more panache, say a J. Lee Thompson or Don Siegel, though TV director Richard T. Heffron does an adequate job. Interestingly, the film is based on a story by Ivan Nagy, who would later become famous as the ex-boyfriend of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, whose Anne Archer's character seems eerily similar to. Nagy's firsthand knowledge of the prostitution racket and sex trafficking likely gave the film its uncomfortable realism. Overall, while TRACKDOWN is certainly not high art, it does deliver the exploitation film goods and a gritty realism that I wasn't expecting.

AI CAPSUL REVIEW: Trackdown is a gritty, exploitation-flavored take on Hardcore, with James Mitchum dishing out cowboy justice in the sleazy underbelly of 1970s L. A. While rough around the edges, it delivers raw thrills and unexpected realism, bolstered by early performances from Erik Estrada and Anne Archer.