Scarecrow

This overlooked film features Gene Hackman's best performance as an introverted ex-con. Al Pacino gives one of his best performances. Director Jerry Schatzberg and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond capture both the squalor and the grandeur of the American landscape. Garry Michael White's screenplay is filled with richly nuanced characters, religious symbolism and a deep sense of humanity. One of the best of the 70's.

The highlights of this movie are the expected standout performances by a young Al Pacino and a young, well younger, Gene Hackman. Their range of facial expressions and absoulutely convincing characterizations are a joy to behold. Also since Hollywood usually deals in glamour, it's a nice change to see characters with more modest aspirations. A very good road movie, a genre I usually don't gravitate to, 7/10.

Starring AL PACINO and GENE HACKMAN, these are very different kinds of roles for both of them. I rate these performances as good as any other by either star. Plus they work fantastically well with one another. Why haven't we seen more Hackman/Pacino pairings?

They play down-and-outters, nearly on the level of bums... but they have a goal: To start a business with some money saved up by Hackman's roughneck character. The Ultimate Loner, he only accepts the good-natured Pacino as a partner because... well, you should see it for yourself. I'll just say that they meet on opposite sides of a country road while trying to hitch-hike. The surly Hackman views the flaky Pacino as competition for a ride and silently rejects him. After all his hyper-active attempts at friendliness are rebuffed, Pacino makes one simple gracious gesture that wins over Hackman.

The title has to do with an attitude, an approach towards life. Pacino states that a Scarecrow is successful in its life's mission, not by using fear and intimidation against the crows, but because it is humorous, and the crow's respond graciously for the good laugh by leaving alone his crop of corn.

And our two main characters represent these two opposing approaches to life. It's amazing to see them transform and morph into one another, to adopt the other's philosophy. The pessimist begins to soften up, and the optimist loses his most precious dream. Pacino even LOOKS like a Scarecrow by the last Act of the film.

Pacino's final scene is heart-wrenching. The closing images of Hackman in a bus station are perfect. He has to scrounge up a couple more bucks for a ticket but comes up short. While the impatient teller tries to shuffle him aside to help other people in line, Hackman digs out the last few beans... I won't give away the details, but his victorious expression in the end is priceless.

I think this is one of the most overlooked/under-rated films of the 70's. But I include it as one of my favorite films of the 70's on its own merits (not just to somehow "correct" an oversight of the rest of the fans). It possesses a greater depth of psychology/allegory/symbolism than most people give it credit for. Beware any edited-for-tv version. The language is salty but essential. Also, the wide-screen cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond (aspect ratio of 2.35 : 1) might suffer in pan-and-scan.

I saw Scarecrow when it originally came out in 1973. Like so many movies of that era (late 60's - early 70's) it didn't have the requisite "happy ending" that Hollywood force feeds us today. Instead, we're presented with the desolate lives of two drifters searching for redemption at their respective destinations of Pittsburgh and Detroit. Hackman and Pacino are at their best here, providing the same type of brilliant acting and on-screen presence that Voight and Hoffman gave us in Midnight Cowboy (1969). In fact I've always thought these two movies would make for a great "compare and contrast" assignment in a Theatre Arts class.

Hackman has been quoted as saying that this was his favorite role. No argument here, it's my favorite too. Thanks Gene. You too Al.

Max and Lionel, two ordinary guys, meet by chance on a lonely country road while hitchhiking and strike up a friendship. Max (Gene Hackman) is a hot-tempered ex-con who dreams of owning his own business, a car wash. Lionel (Al Pacino) is a seaman who abandoned his pregnant girlfriend some years prior but who, despite this character flaw, is so mild-mannered and sweet you really just want to give him a big hug.

Hackman is great as the hard-edged Max, yet despite his gruff exterior you know there is a man of deep feeling and caring underneath. Pacino never fails to disappoint in whatever he does and he doesn't in this tour-de-force performance. Famous for playing loud, larger than life character's with extreme zeal -- Colonel Frank Slade from SCENT OF A WOMAN and Tony Montana from SCARFACE for instance -- here his performance is like a whisper -- quietly calm yet powerfully effective.

A nice surprise in the cast is Richard Lynch (in his screen debut) as Riley, the man who befriends Lionel while he and Max are briefly incarcerated for a bar fight. Lynch is only in the movie for approximately 20 minutes, but what a 20 minutes! His ability to convey the sleazy yet somehow likable Riley let's the audience know that this is a talent to watch for in the coming years. With such great method acting from all three actors, it's no wonder this movie won the prestigious Golden Palm Award at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival!