Semiquincentennial Movie Project #15: The Moonshine War

  

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

Week #15: Kentucky 

 

The state of Kentucky was established on June 1, 1792

Details about Kentucky:

State bird: Kentucky cardinal

State flower: goldenrod

State tree: tulip poplar

Additional historical trivia:

The state is the only one south of Ohio to have erected a memorial to Union soldiers. It is in the city of Vanceburg.

The city of Richmond, KY was considered as a place to establish the country's capitol, but lost out to the eventual winner, Washington, D.C.

(This one hurts...) The first oilwell in the country was not dug in Texas. It was dug in McCreary County.

"Happy birthday to you!" The familiar song was written by Kentucky natives.

Mother's Day originated through the efforts of a Kentuckian.

Of course you know that most of the country's gold reserve is in Fort Knox. 

Famous people born in Kentucky: Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Billy Ray Cyrus, Muhammed Ali, Edgar Cayce and Civil War presidents Jefferson Davis (Confederacy) and Abraham Lincoln (Union).

 

 

The Moonshine War (1970): 

Memory is such a transient and fleeting thing. When I was a young boy of about 15 I remember catching this movie on TV. In those days, before cable, we only had the three major networks, CBS, ABC and NBC, plus, if the weather was right, one or two independent UHF stations. The UHF stations would play syndicated reruns of older shows and most nights would run an older movie. So, about 1976, the local UHF station played The Moonshine War. As usual my tastes ran counter to whatever the rest of the family wanted to watch. (I may be wrong, but it was probably my sister's turn to pick the shows we had on the family room TV. They probably were watching The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie, neither of which I ever wanted to watch.)

So I migrated to the black and white Tv we kept in another room. And I remember watching this movie. I didn't remember a heck of a lot about it until I watched it again this week. Of course, I remember Alan Alda as a country bumpkin moonshiner butting heads with a corrupt Federal Agent played by Patrick McGoohan and his cohort, a less than reputable dentist turned gangster, played by Richard Widmark. Really, I could only recall the ending clearly (and I won't give it away here, but it was an unexpected and extremely satisfying ending).

The fleeting memory that I had, and remember I was very young at the time, was that it was a pretty decent movie.  The thing is, that was almost 50 years ago. And, truth be told, it didn't take a whole lot to impress me. But with 50 years under my belt, and the experience of having watched quite a number of movies since then, I can't say that the whole second experience with the film was all that satisfying.

For one thing, Alda was just getting started in his film career. This was only his third or fourth starring role, and he was still a couple of years away from his iconic role in the TV series, M*A*S*H*.  I have to say that I was not all that impressed with his performance. Some reviewers echo the same sentiments that I had, that he was entirely miscast. I never really could believe that he was some backwoods hillbilly.

In the supporting cast, too, there was some issue. Patrick McGoohan has been much better, especially in one of my favorite roles of his, as The Prisoner. Only Richard Widmark, as the evil dentist, really shines, for me. (And some of the reviews I read even took issue with his performance...) 

Will Geer is essentially Grandpa Walton here, as the local sheriff, but he is a welcome addition to the otherwise lacking cast. There are a couple of interesting cameos here, including Teri Garr in a brief role as part of a husband/wife team who are robbed of their clothes by Widmark's character's second hand man.

The premise is fairly straightforward, although some of the actual motivations of the main characters take a little while to come out. Initially it appears that Frank Long (Patrick McGoohan) is a straight arrow Federal agent seeking a stash of bootleg moonshine held by local moonshiner Son Martin (Alan Alda).  There is some motivation, however, behind his quest.  You see, it's a foregone conclusion that a) Franklin Delano Roosevelt is going to win the upcoming election (which he did), and that b) he is going to repeal Prohibition (which he also did). 

That stash of moonshine that Son has hidden becomes the MacGuffin of the story. It turns out that Long's motivations are not entirely above board. He is not seeking the moonshine to destroy it, he is looking to make a huge bundle of money off of it because it will represent a head start over the upcoming legal distributors that will come to the fore after the repeal. Added to this intrigue is that Son and Frank were fellow soldiers in World War I.  It doesn't appear at the outset that they were compadres during that conflict, however. Either that or their friendship deteriorated after Frank became an enemy due to his now being a Federal agent.

When his tactics don't seem to be making any progress Long calls in a former "associate", a dentist turned gangster, Emmett Taulbee (Richard Widmark).  Taulbee brings with him his right hand man, Dual Metters (Lee Hazlewood).  

Dual shows his stripes early on when he tries to buy a suit that strikes his fancy from a fellow diner at a restaurant. When the diner is not forthcoming with selling the suit Dual forces him and his girl (Claude Johnson and Teri Garr) to strip naked under threat of a gun.

When Son turns down Frank and Emmett's pittance offer to buy his stash (only $1 a gallon, when the fair market price would seem to be $5 a gallon), Emmett calls in some reinforcements. And there is going to be Hell to pay. These hillbillies are not about to go gentle into that good night, but they underestimate the ruthlessness that the other side is willing to go to to achieve their goal.  What happens is that Martin ends up facing off the gangsters alone because Emmett and company raid Son's neighbors and bust up their stills. (Is everyone in town running an illegal moonshine operation? It would seem that might flood the market a bit, but maybe I don't know how much effort the public was willing to go to get the contraband alcohol...) 

Emmett, when his efforts to turn the neighbors against Son don't get Son to cough up his stash, resorts to some of the same tactics that a fellow bootlegger in Chicago became famous for, that of eliminating anyone who might have some influence on Son's reluctance. Emmett's ruthlessness eventually leads to Frank starting to have second thoughts about the whole operation.

As I said earlier, the denouement of the film is one of the better parts. Son has alienated most of his neighbors by this time, since he steadfastly refuses to give up his stash, despite the unorthodox tactics that Emmett and Frank have been using against said neighbors. So, instead of helping defend Son from the authorities, they instead watch the last action play out from the surrounding hills as it seems that Emmett will finally achieve his objective.

Rotten Tomatoes rates this movie only at 36%. I'm not sure how well it did at the box office, but IMDb only has it standing at just slightly under a 6.0 rating, which means it probably didn't get well received by the public. Wikipedia only notes that the film went over budget on production, but doesn't give me any financial stats other than that.

As I said earlier, it is not entirely all that well acted, although there are several faces that will trigger recognition. Harry Carey, Jr., Bo Hopkins, Tom Skerritt and John Schuck are familiar, and if you like my series of "Hey! I Know That Guy!", you will be interested to know that I had another one of those memories crop up. One of the neighbors of Son is Bill Durham (also sometimes credited by his real name, Charles Tyner). Durham had a significant role in The Outlaw Josey Wales as the trading post operator where Josey acquired the young Indian girl, and as Gus the hotelier in Planes Trains and Automobiles.

So the verdict on this movie; is it worth watching? Well, I'd say it's interesting enough for one time, but as far as that factor of "re-watch-ability", I'd have to give it a "no".  Widmark is the only actor who really makes the movie watchable, but even he is not on his best mark. Given a chance to recast the film I would definitely find someone a bit more believable as a hillbilly than Alda. It had Bo Hopkins in it, and he could have probably essayed the role a bit better. And McGoohan is McGoohan. When he is playing British guys he is pretty much a good actor, but as an American he leaves something to be desired. 

Well, folks, until next time... drive safely.

Quiggy