Buford Pusser

Another of the stars who died in 2025 who got a one-movie salute on that night at the end of the year when TCM runs a salute to various people who weren't quite as prominent is consistent 1970s supporting actor Joe Don Baker. The movie that TCM selected for him was one of his starring roles in Walking Tall. So I watched it before it expired from my DVR, and wrote up this post to schedule for a suitable later date.

Baker stars as Buford Pusser, a real person who, as the movie opens, is giving up his career as a pro wrestler. He'd been criss-crossing the country in a trailer with his wife Pauline (Elizabeth Hartman) and two children. Pauline had been pushing him to retire, so he's returning to his roots in Tennessee to be close to his parents (Lurene Tuttle and Noah Beery Jr.) in rural Tennessee not far from the border with Mississippi.

Buford was known enough in town that his return is news, and showing up the next day is old friend Lutie McVeigh. Lutie wants to take Buford for drinks as well as show him the "entertainment" places that have sprung up in recent years, meaning the gambling joint the Lucky Spot outside of town along with the brothel that's sprung up to service the drunks. Buford isn't exactly pleased with this, and calls out the cheating that he sees going on at the casino. This causes the propietor's henchmen to beat the crap out of Lutie and Buford, as well as give Buford cuts that require hundreds of stitches.

Buford responds by showing up at the Lucky Spot after he recovers and holding up the cashier at gunpoint, which obviously leads to a trial but one that Buford wins by ripping off his shirt and showing off his wounds. The jury acquits, which makes him a hero to some as well as an enemy of the current sheriff, Al Thurman (Gene Evans), who is on the take from all the vice house owners in the county.

Seeing that nothing is being done about the rampant immorality occurring in his county, Buford decides that you can indeed fight city hall, which he plans to do by running for sheriff. He is, of course, going up against some powerful entrenched interests. The sheriff tries to get dirt on Buford in any way possible, and when he chases Buford to catch him speeding, it's the sheriff that drives off the road, getting in a fatal car crash.

Buford gets elected sheriff, and he now has to worry about the corrupt vice owners as well as the fact that the deputies are on the take. He also hasn't worked in law enforcement, so he doesn't know any of the niceties about things like constitutional rights that people under arrest have or how to properly draw up a request for a search warrant. Buford is unfazed and continues to go after crime in his community, even though it puts him in increasing danger.

It's easy to see why Walking Tall became a cult hit when it was originally released. Rural southern whites had been at the bottom of Hollywood's pecking order since the days of films that led Variety to write the "Stix Nix Hick Pix" headline all the way back in 1935. Just like blacks had the blaxploitation movies of the 1970s, here the southerners get what can easily be called for lack of a better term a "hixploitation" film. It's campily violent and gives people the thrill of being able to get revenge in a way they wouldn't have been able to in real life. This, especially because Buford Pusser was a real person. It's also fun, if a bit slow clocking in at over two hours. Walking Tall should really have been plotted to run 90-100 minutes.

Not mentioned in the movie, since nobody could have known it at the time (at least, not the people involved in making the movie), is that the real-life Buford Pusser's life was not quite as it was portrayed here, with later investigations (long after Pusser's death) revealing something darker that I don't want to mention since it would contain major spoilers. But Walking Tall is still worth watching, just like other Hollywood biopics that might be even more inaccurate.