lasttimeisaw
American music producer James William Guercio's one-off dalliance with filmmaking, ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE is made when he is only 28-year-old. It stars Robert Blake as a motorcycle cop Johnny Wintergreen who patrols rural Arizona highways and aspires to be a homicidal officer.The movie opens with a promising panache hardly betrays that Guercio is a greenhorn, conjecturing through its voyeuristic close-ups, audience would soon realize a face-unshown man prepares to kill himself, yet, Guercio's camera also cunningly suggests that he is cooking beef streaks at the same time. Then, boom! He blows himself dead through a shotgun, which unusually aims to his chest rather than the usual easy target, the head, it compellingly sets a paradoxical situation that one immediately knows there is something fishy about the whole act.Also, before the title card, Guercio takes a tongue-in-cheek tack to introduce our unlikely hero, big Johnny, the camera lurks and swirls in the apartment where Johnny expertly gratifies Jolene (Riley) in bed, before revealing that Johnny is small in stature. When a man's masculinity is stunted by his appearances, it gives audience an idea why he is so eager to achieve something, to compensate the ingrained inferiority complex is a shoo-in. So the apparent-suicidal case becomes his stepping stone to be recruited by detective Harve Poole (Ryan) for his astute observation that it is indeed a murder underneath the hatched facade.But the ensuing police procedural dampens Johnny's driving enthusiasm, especially after witnessing Harve hectors physically abuses and a group of hippies to milk information about their prime suspect, a drug dealer Bob Zembo (a cameo of Peter Cetera, one of the four CHICAGO members who take on acting roles here apart from their contribution to the picture's soundtrack), and the final straw is an awkward confrontation between him, Harve and Jolene, the latter turns out to be Harve's lover, and spitefully lambastes Harve's incompetence to make her contented and laments her ill-fated destiny, working in a barrelhouse after a dashed Hollywood dream, Johnny and Harv fall out afterwards.Unambiguously Guercio conducts a half-hearted approach to solve the murder mystery, after trifling with a biker-chasing set piece to keep the action moving, the movie falls back on Johnny's "inner voice" for an expedient epiphany to realize who is the murderer at the end of a MADURA concert, with reasons unexplained, but that is not enough, ultimately there would be another revelation later, to further muddle the water and leave the opening scene ever so ambivalent when one retraces back, before reaching its chilling coda, completely hits viewers like a cold shower, willful but symbolic, overall, it is a loner's world against the canvas of a vast Arizona landscape, everyone in the story is either indolent, disillusioned or corrupt, only the hippies' community stands in as a getaway from the unpleasant reality, but their guarded world is defiant towards the mainstream values, Johnny represents a tragic hero who is doomed because of what he represents, an authority figure, cannot be saved by his amiable personality and all-too-well intentions.Performance-wise, everyone on board is on a par with excellence, Elisha Cook Jr. is heart-rending to watch in his committed lunacy, Mitchell Ryan expertly imbues a certain degree of passing diffidence in his bombast mannerism and Billy Green Bush is so organic as Johnny's shade- hogging partner and nails his big scene with a flourish, so is Jeannine Riley, manages to steal some limelight even with a role riddled with platitudes. And our leading man Robert Blake, ever so self- reliant as a pipsqueak trying rather hard to chase his dream, only to get short-changed by a cynical world.ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE, also bolstered by a symphonic soundtrack produced by Guercio himself and its striking wide-screen landscape sensation shot by DP Conrad L. Hall, is an astonishing debut feature, if it intends to be more of a zeitgeist-capturer than a gripping detective story, then I must give my whole-hearted congratulations to the crew, mission grandly accomplished!
headhunter46
I watched this movie tonight and toward the end I realized I had seen it years ago when I was much younger. I must confess, I didn't realize how good it was back then. There were parts of the movie that were downers, I guess I was looking for a feel good flick years ago.Our main character played by Robert Blake is a straight by-the-rules cop. He has a partner that does not play fair and I suppose that was part of the turn off at the first viewing. Our hero has to deal with all kinds of set backs and surprises, dealing with other police who seem to be too focused on the "job" and less focused on right vs. wrong.There were good, convincing performances all around. Never did I get the feeling they were "acting".There is mystery, surprises, and some incredible scenery of the wild, open Arizona spaces. Even after a second viewing I'm still not certain what the message of the movie was although I did give it a nine rating. Are the majority of cops bad? Are most hippies good? Are most hippies bad? Does the desert make you crazy? I suspect the movie will leave you with similar questions. I don't think it strives to answer any in the first place. I get the impression it simply throws issues at the viewer and leaves you to fill in the blanks.This movie will NOT spoon feed you a clear cut plot, but it will make you think.
innocuous
I first saw EGiB the very first weekend it opened in Boston. Back then, you had very limited access to movie reviews and there wasn't much buzz about movies prior to their release. Because of this, the ending of the movie surprised me a great deal. In fact, I think it overwhelmed my perspective of the movie as a whole.Fast forward to 1989. While I had seen a few clips from the movie here and there, I only had the opportunity to watch the movie again in its entirety after I found that a local video store had a VHS copy for rent. I discovered that EGib has a lot more depth than I originally gave it credit for. I've only watched it a few times since, but it remains a very impressive accomplishment for a first-time director.The cinematography really puts you there in the desert with the cops, investigators, barflys, and low-lifes. Blake is very good in his role, which seemed to be written for him. I only wish that the other actors had done a better job. Ryan is particularly disappointing.Just remember when you're watching that this film was made at a peculiar time in US history. After ten years of anti-war protests, "Summer of Love," rapidly expanding drug use, and all sorts of wild-hippie-crazy-leftist-pinko-commie activity, basically the government and our parents' generation said, "OK...you win. We're out of SE Asia and you can look forward to disco." We were stunned. I think that EGiB is more of a parable of THIS situation than any other. After all, what do you do when you take the thorn out of the lion's paw and he eats you anyway?Definitely worth your time to watch.
travisyoung
A requiem for the death of the American hero. No, this is not the plot—this is what the movie accomplishes. Do not mistake this existential parable for what may otherwise seem like a superficial counter-culture exploitation flick—it is nothing of the sort.Record producer Guercio's first (and last) effort at film-making, captured beautifully by the late cinematographer Conrad Hall, leaves the viewer wondering "where have all the cowboys gone?" John Ford taught us that the hero rode a white horse and did the right thing, even if it killed him—and in this Vietnam-era analogue, Blake is a five-foot four-inch leather-clad motorcycle cop writing speeding tickets along a lonely two-lane road cutting through monument valley. With high hopes and ideals, he aspires not only to do more but to become more...and for a while he succeeds. But the world is different, people are different, and the old heroes he admired are not just obsolete—they are extinct.We are inexorably drawn through his disillusionment and our own to an ending that is sad, tragic, and inevitable.
