Steelyard Blues

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....

"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.

... required.

Escapism grounded in grim reality. You just really want them to get away with it, and then, even when it's all going horribly wrong, they somehow do!!! Excellent early 70s vibes aplenty.

Sadly, Peter Boyle passed away today, so I should point out that his presence lights up the whole film. I can never understand why he never got more character parts.

I include this film with a number of other early 70s films such as Easy Rider, Two Lane Blacktop and The Getaway. Intelligent escapism, with a tinge of cannabis. Cannot understand why it doesn't have a DVD release, especially when many other, lesser, movies are brought into the equation. It deserves the whole extras/commentary/scene setting that Fear and Loathing got, after all!

A film that holds up much better than its original reviews would let on. Although Fonda looks a bit disoriented at moments, there are a couple of scenes between her and Sutherland where the two simply radiate the star power that made them famous. Overall the film has a charm and warmth to it that, despite a little clumsyness at times, still makes it very much worthwhile and displays an interesting idiosyncratic type of humor and counterculture charm we haven't seen much of in recent years.

Not a must-see on a saturday night, but a precious gem for the connoisseur.

Social misfits work to rebuild an old plane to make the ultimate escape from reality. Non-conformists vs. The Establishment--again! Easy targets, unconvincing characters, though not bad with this interesting cast: Donald Sutherland as an ex-con, Jane Fonda (in a funky dark brown wig) as a hooker, Peter Boyle as a thief, and Howard Hesseman as a politician. Fonda--persona non grata at the time due to her involvement with the Vietnam War--gives probably her least-interested performance in a movie (she's just not present). One BAFTA nomination: Sutherland as Best Actor (shared with his work in "Don't Look Now"). ** from ****