. . . it looks as though this revenge favorite, and not as well known as he should be director Phil Karlson's retirement nest egg, will finally receive a little home video respect when it gets what will probably be a decent DVD release from Paramount on November 20th (I found it listed over on dvdempire) - this will, at long last, be widescreen, as well as enjoy a new 5.1 stereo deal, while retaining the original mono . . . it will be great fun to watch Joe Don Baker get down to business once again in what should look more like his proper aspect ratio . . .

Looks like Paramount is going to be handling the Bing Crosby Productions titles they got from buying out Cox Broadcasting.

Maybe we can expect DVDs of the original WILLARD and BEN to follow?

Now that's good news...

Do the other Walking Tall films fall under the umbrella of Bing Crosby Productions? What are some of the other prominent Crosby films, in addition to the ones you mentioned?

Going his way?

That works. :D

What's the story with Mean Dog Blues? I know it's been mentioned here before. Has there been a DVD?

I also noted The Great Santini up there, but that is an Orion/WB film and I assume that is not one of the titles reverting to Paramount. There has been a DVD available for some time, but it is fullframe, IIRC.

To think that all 3 fine one-sheets were produced for the same film and none are likely to appear on the cover of the DVD. There's another one-sheet with a tamer, rather lame campaign that reflects the film's surprising box-office success, probably a re-release...

And Let's Not Forget....



When I saw this come out I thought, "What's next, Tom Hanks as Martin Luther King?"

Not yet, but the Showtime channels have aired a very nice remastered letterboxed print, so it's ready for DVD whenever somebody wants to release it.

Who's more intimidating - Joe Don Baker (check out that second poster) or that pud The Rock?

I think THIS GUY is.

[QUOTE=Jonathan Hertzberg,Sep 4 2007, 06:02 PM] To think that all 3 fine one-sheets were produced for the same film and none are likely to appear on the cover of the DVD. There's another one-sheet with a tamer, rather lame campaign that reflects the film's surprising box-office success, probably a re-release...

QUOTE]
The original poster that I remember for WALKING TALL when it first came to NYC was not one of those three. It tried to play down the fact that it was an action film and made it sound like an "important drama for our times" or something. I remember it having a photo of Pusser (Walker) with his family. At least this was the one in the newspaper ads. The theater showing the film probably used the third of the three posters you displayed.
Fortunately, some time earlier, Stephen Farber (who could always be depended on for such things) had written a scathing piece about WALKING TALL in The New York Times, taking issue with the film's endorsement of Pusser's approach to law enforcement and linking it to the "fascist" tendencies Farber had previously singled out in FRENCH CONNECTION and DIRTY HARRY. So of course, being big fans of the earlier films, we were all psyched to see WALKING TALL when it finally came out. And it didn't disappoint.

. . . I recently looked up the TIME OUT FILM GUIDE review of WALKING TALL (1973) in which the critic goes on about how "As much as anything, the film is about Nixon's silent majority" . . . and . . . "how a stock Western plot can assume some fairly explicit political ramifications once it is transposed to a modern setting . . . " well, I suppose it is an "eye of the beholder" sort of thing, but, to me, this film seemed to fit right into Phil Karlson's body of work, particularly as a compainion piece to his THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955), as well as THE SCARFACE MOB (1962), pilot film for THE UNTOUCHABLES television show, rather than carrying a torch for any then current political trend . . .

In examining the posters of Joe Don Baker (the first and third) I couldn't help but notice the nice, straight, clean pleat in his slacks...Good thing he ran an iron over his pants before clocking moonshiners with his stick...

Exactly.

Karlson himself did an interview for the Times (long after the Farber piece) where he set the record straight and explicitly linked his experiences making PHENIX CITY STORY and WALKING TALL. I just can't remember if the interview was at the time of WALKING TALL or two years later when FRAMED (also starring Joe Don Baker) came out.

Was it this one?


Pauline Kael wrote an interesting set of reviews for Walking Tall, Dirty Harry, Death Wish, and The French Connection with a continuing dialogue about the new "street Westerns" and the trend of many action films of the time to portray New York as a nightmare city. Her phrase may have been that or "horror city," I can't recall.

Yeah, that looks like it.

. . . so, we watched the new Paramount DVD of Karlson's WALKING TALL (1973) last evening and it is a thing of beauty - excellent anamorphic picture (really, it looks better than I have ever seen it), nice 5.1 sound, as well as the original mono . . . highly recommended to fans who have had to put up with those not so good DVDs of this southern drivein classic that, I am sure, has remained popular way beyond the expectations of anyone involved in its making . . .

I've never seen WALKING TALL without all the boom mikes before, so this new disc should be an interesting adventure.

According to the box art for THE PHENIX CITY STORY and wikipedia the same "machine" (the State Line Mob) responsible for the vice and mayhem in Phenix City, Alabama in the forties and fifties was responsible for the vice and mayhem in McNairy County, Tennessee in the sixties. (They hightailed it once the National Guard AND the U.S. Army declared martial law and shut Sin City, USA down!)

I sure wish someone would release nice DVD of THE PHENIX CITY STORY...

I like most of the Phil Karlson films that I have seen–there is one fascinating peculiarity to his filmmaking technique: his editing style.

I would describe his editing technique as fast and loose. His cuts are sloppy. Hell, the guy hacks at the frames with a machete instead of a splicer- but it works. It seems like he edits in camera while shooting and neglects to provide himself with enough coverage to provide for smooth edits. Maybe he is his own negative cutter/conformer...

This perhaps most evident in the second half of A TIME FOR KILLING (I've heard that Roger Corman was removed from the production after a few days of shooting). Of course, in A TIME FOR KILLING there are sequences where the cuts even sheer the score–which means that someone (it sure feels like Karlson) kept hacking away at the film after the score had been synced to the film!

I don't know why but it still works.

(Also, I am ashamed to say that I have never seen WALKING TALL! Thanks for the heads up on the new release.

I watched the new TALKING WALL...er, WALKING TALL DVD this evening and it is indeed a great thing. I had not seen the film in nearly 20 years and it works for me even more as an "adult." I had never seen pictures of the real Pusser until this thread. I can't believe I am saying this, but they did him a favor by casting Joe Don Baker. Ha!

That picture of Buford Pusser earlier in this thread makes him look like Javier Bardem in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. If they ever do yet another WALKING TALL remake... "What time do you close?" :P

"Sugar" and Pusser do seem to share a similar moral code.