Scarecrow

Another movie that I noticed was about to disappear from the Watch TCM app is another one that I had surprisingly never heard of before: Scarecrow. Thanks to the starpower and the interesting enough synopsis, I decided to give it a watch.

The two stars are Gene Hackman and Al Pacino, both relatively early in their careers. They're a couple of men who seem like they're down on their luck, as they're both on the side of the road trying to hitch a ride. (Fortunately neither of them uses Claudette Colbert's method of getting cars to stop.) They don't know each other yet, although they're about to get to know each other. Pacino plays Francis Delbuchi, but Hackman's character, Max, doesn't care for the name Francis, so asks Francis his middle name and, on finding out it's Lionel, starts calling him Lion. It's the start of a relationship that's an uneasy friendship, in part because of both of the men's personalities.

Max is a convict fresh out of prison having serve several years. He's got a sister in Denver, and is planning to stop and see her along the way, but he's really hoping to get to Pittsburgh. That's because the money that he's earned doing whatever low-paid work the prison has given him as resulted in a four-figure bankroll, which isn't a whole lot, but at least was more back in the early 1970s.

Lion is former merchant marine, having been recently demobbed. He joined the merchant marine becaue some years back he knocked up his wife but couldn't handle being a father and couldn't support her. So he went to sea nd has been sending the money to his wife in Detroit, where she and the now five-year-old kid are supposed to be living. Lion hasn't even seen the kid and doesn't know whether it's a boy or a girl.

The two travel together across the country, making the decision that both of them will go to Pittsburgh together and use Max's money to start a car wash, this still being the era before automatic car washes and franchises. It's a good reason to keep the two characters together over the course of the movie. Things don't always work out for them, however, as the two of them go out for a night on the town with Max's sister in Denver and her friends, which leads to a fight and Max and Lionel having to serve a month in the low-security prison work farm, and threatening to break up the friendship.

As for Lion, well, he does make it to Detroit and finds that his wife is still living at the address he has on file, and even has the same phone number. But he also finds that... well, I'm not really going to give that away, and what happens after Lionel meets his wife.

Scarecrow is, despite its two stars, a relatively little movie. It's also the sort of movie that I can see sharply dividing people's opinions on whether or not they like it. It's a movie that is a bit short of plot, being more about the characters' journey and the people they meet along the way instead. There are movies in that genre that are excellent, such as Harry and Tonto. On the other hand, I really found myself left cold by Scarecrow, as I could really feel the "whole lot of nothing going on" as it was going on. This even though it's not as though the actors do anything wrong in their performances. I guess it's more that the two are plaing characters not particularly likeable, unlike Art Carney in the aforementioned Harry and Tonto. The twist at the end was also maddening and didn't seem like a logical resolution to the plot to me.

But as I said, I can see why there are people who would really like Scarecrow, finding it quirky and enjoying the acting. So it's definitely one you should watch for yourself and draw your own conclusions.