curtanddeb
This is one of my favorite movies from the '70's. Peter Boyle steals the show, he is just over-the-top hilarious. Sutherland shows signs that he is becoming a famous actor, even though he doesn't seem to be trying very hard, but then that's Donald. Fonda seems like she is still trying to learn how to act. Then again, maybe it was just because they all may have been stoned during the entire film (although that subject does not come up in this movie). The scene at the demolition derby is one of my favorite scenes ever, even though I'm a car guy and it kills me to see the '50 Stude destroyed. This is probably more of a guy film even though Fonda brings out the "new woman".
tadenmexico
I spent the entire Summer during the making of the film on the set/location of the film, and I would say that being thirteen years of age at the time, it was a heck of ride!!! I learned about racial tension on the streets of Oakland. The local African American population wasn't always crazy about the film crew's presence...lots of discernible anger and tension.I learned about how you try to shoot on location at a real demolition derby with a real live audience. It was organized chaos, and fights were breaking out in the stands and on the track....Peter Boyle was always making everybody crack up with his Marlon Brando imitations.....there was a lot of focus and preoccupation on getting scenes done correctly with pyrotechnics and explosions....hours of debate and preparations...It was the end of the sixties, and the Vietnam War was going on endlessly with no end in sight....Jane Fonda was blackballed by Hollywood and Steelyard Blues was at least a paycheck.A piece of Hollywood history during a very uncertain time....
WILL
my favorite line(s), while eagle is climbing up the hangar wall."how does he do that?" "Have you ever worked in a circus?" "No." "I can't tell you."The story is Cain and Abel. Abel, supported by his friends and Cain, supported by his societal structure are at odds when the Abel brother, Jesse, gets out of jail and tries to avoid thievery, which he had used to support his "habit" of driving demolition derby cars. Frank, the Cain character, happens to be running for public office and doesn't want to be embarrassed by Jesse. Jesse and his friends meld into one wacky , seemingly improv group. Many of the support cast has Second City credit as well as the San Francisco Committee. Alan Myerson was the Committee's director. And Peter Boyle extends his talents beyond even those he later displayed on SNL opposite John Belushi. Jane Fonda unobtrusively adds the new woman movement of the 70's when asked what she could contribute to the group's project of rebuilding a plane for escape to freedom. "I could help with the welding," she says, totally out of the character she has become while Jesse was in jailHoward Hesseman is the perfectly suave villain, Garry Goodrow the perfectly wacky techie.There is so much to say about the music. Bloomfield, maria muldaur, nick gravenites, on and on. just a great uplifting soundtrack, very bluesy and toe tapping.
Dodger-9
After making the cult classic, Klute Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland followed their big screen collaboration with this amusing black comedy about a bunch of oddballs repairing an old plane in the hope of flying away from it all.Some fair moments of high farce, and a good supporting cast, including Peter Boyle.However, the off set stories, such as the alleged fling between producers Julia Phillips and the late Don Simpson, proved to be far more interesting than the movie itself.
AD
