Moonrunners (1975)

          A hard-driving product of the mid-’70s craze for movies about moonshine peddlers, Moonrunners has interesting connections to popular culture that preceded and followed the film’s release. Costar James Mitchum, the son of legendary Hollywood actor Robert Mitchum, appeared with his dad in the 1958 moonshine-themed B-movie Thunder Road, so there’s a minor passing-of-the-torch element to Moonrunners. More significant is the picture’s legacy, because Moonrunners writer-producer Gy Waldron recycled many of the film’s elements when he created the hit rednecks-running-wild TV series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985). Although Moonrunners doesn’t have the big-budget polish of The Dukes of Hazzard, the movie epitomizes the good-ole-boys irreverence that made the series popular.

          Set in Georgia, Moonrunners follows the adventures of cousins Bobby Lee Hagg (Kiel Martin) and Grady Hagg (Mitchum). Both drive cars for their uncle, white-lightning manufacturer Jesse Hagg (Arthur Hunnicut). The Hagg boys get into hassles with corrupt cops and with Uncle Jesse’s main competitor, Jake Rainey (George Ellis), a varmint determined to get a monopoly on his county’s illegal-liquor trade. The Hagg boys also enjoy brawling, chasing women, gambling, and participating in stock-car races. While the flick’s plotting is perfunctory at best, the style is fairly appealing. Country singer Waylon Jennings narrates (he served the same role on The Dukes of Hazzard), performing tunes and providing cornpone commentary, though he never appears on camera. Every once in a while, the synthesis between Jennings’ rascally delivery and Waldron’s playful language feels just about perfect, as when Jennings’ narration introduces a certain corrupt sheriff, whose name was repurposed for the series: Roscoe P. Coltrane. “After a career of being honest,” Jennings explains, “Roscoe was gonna retire on a bad case of hemorrhoids and $643 in the Shiloh County Bank.”

          Not everything in the picture is quite that lowbrow. For instance, the best scene involves a police chief explaining to a federal officer the county’s normal procedure for arresting and processing Beauregard, a mule used for hauling materials to and from Uncle Jesse’s still. In vignettes like that one, Waldron conveys a fully imagined subculture. (Similarly, it’s hard to argue with the character names “Cooter” and “Zeebo.”) Looking and sounding very much like a Roger Corman production, Moonrunners is rough around the edges, with inconsistent acting and jumpy editing, though Kiel’s hyped-up persona and Mitchum’s laconic nature complement each other well. Better still, by the time people start shooting dynamite-tipped arrows, Waldron hits the sweet spot for this particular subgenre.

Moonrunners: FUNKY

Trick Baby (1972)

          Although marred by murky storytelling and a mediocre leading performance, Trick Baby offers a unique riff on the blaxploitation genre—one of the two heroes is a white dude whose mother was black, so his lineage allows him to bridge different racial communities. Based on a novel by the colorful Iceberg Slim, a self-proclaimed pimp-turned-novelist, the picture takes place in Philadelphia. Two pals, dark-skinned African-American veteran con man Blue Howard (Mel Stuart) and his light-skinned mixed-race apprentice “White Folks” (Kiel Martin), run scams on unsuspecting citizens, mostly collecting chump change. One day, they score big by ripping off a man whom they later discover is related to gangsters. After the victim suffers a heart attack, underworld enforcers are tasked with identifying the culprits. Meanwhile, Blue and “White Folks” lay the groundwork for their biggest rip-off yet, conniving a group of rich white men into buying ghetto properties that aren’t really for sale. Given this setup, the tension of the picture comes from multiple sources—including friction between Blue, who senses it’s time to leave town before things take a deadly turn, and “White Folks,” who gets so high off winning he can’t recognize real danger.

          The basic story of Trick Baby is interesting, and the street-crime milieu is presented believably. Furthermore, costar Stuart makes a great con man, all pretense and smiles when he’s working a mark and all fuck-you attitude when he’s standing up to a corrupt cop or a Mob enforcer. Had Stuart been matched with a costar of equal skill—and had director/co-writer Larry Yust manifested stronger discipline as a storyteller—Trick Baby could have become a great little crime picture. Alas, leading man Kiel Martin (who later found fame as a flashy plainclothes detective on TV’s Hill Street Blues) has the cockiness and good looks of a movie star, but not the charisma or talent. He’s merely okay in a role that requires dramatic fireworks. Partially as a result of Martin’s underwhelming presence and partially as a result of Yust’s inability to build and sustain narrative momentum, Trick Baby ends up feeling slapdash. Having said that, the picture is refreshing inasmuch as it doesn’t portray urban blacks exclusively as illiterate thugs in tacky polyester outfits. Additionally, the movie spreads the wealth by depicting its African-American hustlers as part of a vast and multiracial criminal universe.

Trick Baby: FUNKY