REVISITING SPIELBERG #2 - Jumping to the Big Screen with "The Sugerland Express" (1974)

Welcome back to my "Revisiting Spielberg" series! In this essay, I take a look back at Steven Spielberg's first film made for theatrical distribution. I hope you enjoy the read!

Steven Spielberg finally made the jump from the small to the big screen in 1974 with “The Sugarland Express”. It was produced by Richard Zanuck and David Brown, producing partners who had wanted to work with Spielberg.

The movie is a highly fictionalized film inspired by a true slow chase across Texas that occurred in 1969. The story was developed by Spielberg along with Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, the duo that would go on to write the screenplay. In the movie, Goldie Hawn plays Lou Jean, a struggling mother who has just been released from a correctional facility.

She then meets her husband, Clovis (William Atherton), who is incarcerated with four months left on his sentence, and informs him that their son is about to be put into foster care in Sugarland, Texas. Clovis agrees to break out and, after hitching a ride with a couple, they steal the car when stopped by Patrolman Maxwell Slide (Michael Sacks).

Goldie Hawn and William Atherton are on the run in "The Sugarland Express".

Soon, though, they crash that car and take Slide hostage when he attempts to arrest them. A slow-speed pursuit begins involving several police cars and headed up by Captain Tanner (Ben Johnson) as the young, naive couple makes their way to their son.

The movie is surprisingly heartfelt given the premise and the fact that you know there are only a few limited ways the story could logically play out. A genuine camaraderie begins to develop between Lou Jean, Clovis, and Slide while on their odd journey. Clovis and Lou Jean actually do respect Slide while Slide understands why they are doing what they’re doing and he knows that they don't really want to hurt him.

Another great aspect that this film doesn’t fall victim to is trying to make anyone look like the bad guy. Captain Tanner, for example, is a cool headed man who also understands that Lou Jean and Clovis aren’t really trying to hurt his man, but he simply can’t take that chance but also can’t let them go.

Panavision created its first Panaflex cameras which allowed for 360 degree control within the car.

There are times when other patrolmen and even vigilantes try to get involved and Captain Tanner has to deal with them more than he has to deal with Clovis and Lou Jean. Everything about the story does feel right, though I wish there could have been even more scenes between Lou Jean, Clovis, and Slide as I liked following them throughout the picture.

The performances are also great. While Hawn gives an authentic performance and is top-billed for the movie, she’s really more a part of an ensemble. Atherton is great as Clovis, a man who is roped into this craziness and there are times where you can see his doubt in what they are doing, with one scene showing just how scared he is of what’s to come down the road.

Johnson is also another standout as Captain Tanner. He has a tough persona and wants to capture Lou Jean and Clovis, but he also has sympathy for them that doesn’t undercut his stern presence. Again, in other car chase movies, Tanner could have easily been turned into the bad guy against these two antiheroes who are just trying to get back to their kid.

Unfortunately, for the movie, it sort of came and went at the box office. It only made $13 million against a $3 million budget. However, a few important things did emerge from the movie. The first, on a technical level, is that Panavision developed its first Panaflex camera, a smaller camera that allowed Spielberg to film within the car and give him full 360 degree control.

Another important thing that emerged was a long-running relationship between Spielberg and legendary composer John Williams, a man who has gone on to score all but five of Spielberg’s films. Finally, I mentioned that the movie was produced by Zanuck and Brown.

Zanuck and Brown eventually got the rights to a certain book by Peter Benchley. After losing their original director for the project, they hired Spielberg to adapt “Jaws” into a major motion picture, but more on that saga later.

In the meantime, if you haven’t given “The Sugarland Express” a chance, I say give it a go. It’s a pretty solid big screen debut for a director that would soon be one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, directors of all time.