The Moonshine War (1970).....takes us back to 1932 Depression-Era Kentucky, so we assume any of the dumb-as-a-rock hillbilly characters in this movie who'd be still alive would rush to vote for a double talking slimeball like their Senator Mitch McConnell.......
It was only a few days ago that we fondly reminisced about all the exiting and daring new films that came out of 1970's cinema......
Then again, watching "The Moonshine War", we also recalled it was an era when floundering studios like MGM lost their ability to effectively track ever shifting audience tastes amid a turmoil ridden nation.
The result were movies that tried to have it every which way in their genres, tones and purpose. These movies crawled into theaters as complete head scratchers. What the hell were they about, really? Whoever wanted to make them....or see them....and why? Who were they for? Were they comedies? Dramas? Who in God's name thought this movies would find an audience?
All those questions could apply to "The Moonshine War", scripted by prolific crime-western writer Elmore Leonard from his own novel.....
We'll now take a wild guess here and assume that the idea was to make a freewheeling, careening, violent action-comedy in the style of 1967's runaway hit "Bonnie And Clyde"
This would have required a director with the particular skill set to pull that off......a Sam Peckinpah, an Arthur Penn, a Robert Aldrich, a Robert Altman......or even one of the new kids on the block like John Milius or Martin Scorcese.
What they got was Richard Quine, a long time veteran journeyman director of slick romantic comedies and musicals ("Bell Book And Candle", "Paris When It Sizzles") and every so often, pulpy melodramas ("Hotel", "The World Of Suzie Wong", "Strangers When We Meet")
Quine obviously had no idea how to put together a bizarre genre bending thing like this movie.......and oh boy does it show in his flat direction of it. Devoid of any style or imagination, Quine makes the movie look like a rogue prequel to "The Beverly Hillbillies" TV show.
There is some fun though in the ridiculous miscasting of the two lead roles.......with Patrick McGoohan, of all people, as a corrupt Federal agent and Alan Alda as a country boy moonshiner hiding a huge secret stash of highly illegal corn liquor.
They're both waiting for the imminent election of Franklin Roosevelt and the repeal of Prohibition, once again legalizing booze. McGoohan tries putting pressure on Alda to sell him that treasure trove of hooch so he can market it himself, but Alda says nothin' doin'......
To further put the screws to Alda, McGoohan calls in a vicious gangster (and former dentist!) (Richard Widmark) who arrives with a cute dumb blonde and his own pet psycho henchman played by songwriter Lee Hazelwood (yes, the "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" guy)
As you would expect, gunfights erupt and explosions detonate.
Here's a few startling moments we didn't expect........the movie's complete detachment to the one and only black man in the cast played by Joe Williams. McGoohan, Widmark and Hazelwood regularly sneer the n-word at him, which the movie makes nothing of. And later in the film, Hazelwood tortures him with a noose, half-hanging him to extract information.
As chilling at this scene plays now in the context of today's events and culture, Quine and his direction of this sequence make no comment on it one way or the other........as if nobody involved was aware of the implications......
In the midst of the bland filmmaking on display, there exists at least one scene that's pure Elmore Leonard.....( and probably the only thing anyone who saw this film remembers.....)
We speak of a cringe-worthy episode where Hazelwood threatens and intimidates an innocent young couple into stripping off their clothes for him. It plays out as lengthy and ugly as it sounds.......
The only other asset this film provides: its large cast of instantly familiar character actors, including Will Geer, Max Showalter, Harry Carey Jr., Bo Hopkins, John Schuck, Charles Tyner, Teri Garr and Tom Skerrit.
Richard Widmark has a fine old time as the avuncular, yet lecherous kingpin, while Alda blandly wanders through the movie as if wondering how he got there. We felt the most sorry for McGoohan, whose character seems to start off as a dangerous man to be reckoned with. But as the film progresses, he's gradually reduced to a sputtering, ineffectual and fairly spineless figure.
By the film's end, poor Pat's reduced to wearily sitting down, dejected and defeated......
And we're not entirely sure if that was him still playing the part or expressing how he felt about his casting.......for this oddball confluence of performers and the great supporting cast, we'll hoist a 2 star (**) jar 'o hard likker for "The Moonshine War"...
(If you'd like to see what a movie like this would look like in the hands of an absolute master of such material, check out Robert Aldrich's 1971 "The Grissom Gang" and read our take on it, posted on 5/30/19)
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