It’s hard to believe that there was once a time, when one of your parents would lift their head from the pages of a TV guide and say, excitedly and without irony, “Here y’are son, Convoy’s on tonight!”, but there was. When I was young, a statement like this could change the course of my whole day. All further activates would have to be arranged so that, by the time the United Artists logo appeared, I’d be sat frog-legged glaring at the glowing TV screen waiting for the first sign of the black juggernaut to appear over the ridge and cruise down the snaking blacktop to the funky soundtrack of the C.W. McCall song.
This movie combined two popular crazes of the time, CB radios and trucks. Well, perhaps even three – country music also seemed to permeate the peripheries of popular culture in the late seventies/early eighties. The film was actually inspired by the C.W. McCall song. EMI bought the screenrights to the song and Peckinpah read the script under the influence of coke and booze. He was aware that Smokey and the Bandit had just grossed $61 million the previous year and saw this as a chance to gain a box-office hit. His current cash flow problems made Sam believe that he was in no position to decline any offers (Weddle, 1996).
Well, looking back the plot is ridiculous; a couple of truckers happen to be on the same stretch of road as a living legend trucker (we're not sure why he's a legend), they call Rubber Duck (because it rhymes with luck) and who’s played by Kristofferson. They all end up getting tricked and shaken down by a bent, and obviously racist, cop, who they call Dirty Lyle (Borgnine). He tracks them down again at a filling station, and this time violence erupts, in classic cinema brawl fashion. RD gets called to the fight via the CB while trying to something else that rhymes with “duck”, with a waitress. From them on, he’s on the run with MacGraw’s character as a stowaway. Feeling equally outlawed, his fellow truckers decide to join him, and then others start to join what becomes a convoy of semi trucks that stretches for miles. You can imagine the truckers calling home…”Sorry love, I won’t be in for dinner tonight; I’m joining the convoy! Don’t wait up.” They resist all attempts by the law to stop them; smashing through roadblocks and trashing few cop cars. It's no surprise then, that the film concludes (or does it?) with Dirty Lyle blasting the s**t out of RD’s Mack with an M60 machinegun. As is the way with so many US films, whenever the nation is confronted with something they do not understand – be it a visitor from Mars, a rare creature, a secret city or just one of their own sons trying to live life and be free, they summon the might of the millitary and blow the living crap out of it!
As imbecilic as this plot is, I still have a lot of affection for this flick; probably more out of nostalgia than anything else. Like a lot of movies shot around this time, they still look cool, the colours, the grain of the analogue film and the time taken to compose cinematic shots of the open road. Convoy was part of a genre that was made up of movies and TV serials such as BJ and The Bear, Smokey and the Bandit, the Dukes of Hazzard, Two-lane Blacktop, Vanishing Point and Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry. It could be argued that these offerings convey post-hippie, notions of freedom, symbolised by the road. Nevertheless, they represented a time, unlike any we will see again. It certainly captured the imaginations of moviegoers, because Convoy was a box office hit.
Something I find of interest today is the cameo appearances from Kris Kristofferson’s band members, Donnie Fritts, Sam Creason, Stephen Bruton, Mike Utley and Terry Paul, who play the roles of the Reverend and the Jesus Freaks. Buy the Movie.
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