What we have here is a buried gem of low-budget 1970s realist filmmaking. And man, does it tell a story obsessed with the 1970s. Even its poster, a dimly lit diner milieu with the leather-clad back of a long-haired figure turned, and the title seemingly asking a question, emitting a smoke signal to Red Ryder, the popular Western B movie cowboy of the 1940s and '50s, a hero in the classic, oversimplified sense. Teddy, Red Ryder's would-be enemy, coerces the bucolic characters under his control to enact the obligatory final scene of a Red Ryder picture, with the hero, the girl and the horse riding off into the sunset. And the more he strains them with perfectionist direction, the more we realize their dream, that someone or some idea will save them from the predicament in which Teddy holds them captive, is only but a dream.
No one is more suited than Teddy to impel the rude awakening of the petrified America that is least prepared for the onslaught of the new generation. He emerges into the ideal backdrop of a dying New Mexico town with tell-tale signs of having been part of the counterculture that had aimed to liberate themselves from social limitations, decide their own paths, discover new significance in life. One articulation of this is seen in his criterion of dress and grooming, making him immediately identifiable to the simple townsfolk, but Teddy loves it that way, not so much for the visual emblem of his individual rights but for its shock value, which he relishes inciting in any and everyone he meets.
Is this character meant to represent the hippie movement? Yes and no. He does in the insulated WWII minds of the people who here become trapped in his cage. In this world, he is an attacking force that won't leave them alone. From what we discover of their personal lives, that the people in this town are unhappily self-limited to doing and being what society has forever told them about themselves, it is the post-Vietnam doubt cast on authority that feels alien and threatening. They are the straights and squares hippies have always detached themselves from.
The setting is Foster's Diner, a rest stop that lost most of its trade when a new highway bypass came about. That's right; the world's passing them by. Staff include mousy waitress Angel, down-to-earth boss Clark, and a fidgety cook nicknamed after the eponymous hero. Lyle, owner of the neighboring gas station, stops by now and again to sever the tedium with his jolly chitchat. The dreary custom of the everyday slog is interrupted with the entrance of two couples, the fashionable Richard and Clarisse, and finally, the younger and stormier Teddy, the unhinged 'Nam vet, and Cheryl, his hippie girlfriend. Difficulties develop when drug dealing and guns cross the threshold both as foreshadowing and upon Teddy and Cheryl's conspicuous arrival, and Teddy turns to brute psychological torment when he holds everyone captive.
In the era of this plot, not only did America barely know or even comprehend Vietnam and our intervention there, we didn't know ourselves. But it is Teddy who passionately cuts off every layer of each character's shell till we cannot help but know them to a sometimes quite disconcerting extent. But what is Teddy, really? Does he have post-traumatic stress, or is he just a sociopath? It's natural to speculate as to the similarities between Marjoe Gortner and the character he plays. Both are defined by their flair for imitation and general audacity toward strangers and open venues, Marjoe having been exploited by his own parents which grew to warp him into something of an exhibitionist sociopath, much like the war might've done to Teddy. Not to mention, his submissive, frightened girlfriend Cheryl is played by Marjoe's real-life wife at the time, Candy Clark.
This is not a unilateral subversive slamming of traditional American life and the progressive new age. The thrill of the movie is in the tension created by the vulnerable humanity of each of Teddy's victims. Most memorably, Stephanie Faracy as Angel is not exactly a classic beauty, but she dreams of marriage to a Prince Charming and a happy home in a better world, as if she were a little girl, which pitifully bespeaks her complete romantic inexperience and lifelong feeling of loneliness. Life has not prepared her for the crushing blow Teddy will give her with a small handful of simple words. Pat Hingle fits right into another more pathetic character, Lyle, whose ritual diner visit seems more like a desperate latch onto something that doesn't resemble waiting alone to die. Then there are Lee Grant and Hal Linden as Richard and Clarisse, building a complex relationship with more cultivated urban characters, a well-heeled marriage whom you'd probably see at a swinging party, maybe two, but find it nearly impossible to communicate with each other and nearly unbearable know they'll never be able to.
But the key to the film is Peter Firth as Red Ryder. Imagine a parallel story where Superman were just a bus boy in Nowhereville, having no idea of his capabilities, and even less so did anyone else, and you may understand the implied significance of his underdog counterpoint to Teddy. But also there's simply his consumption with a wholly different subculture than Teddy, which is what defines all of his inadequacies and nearly insufferable humiliations at Teddy's hands, but also, ultimately, his dark-horse qualities.
No one is more suited than Teddy to impel the rude awakening of the petrified America that is least prepared for the onslaught of the new generation. He emerges into the ideal backdrop of a dying New Mexico town with tell-tale signs of having been part of the counterculture that had aimed to liberate themselves from social limitations, decide their own paths, discover new significance in life. One articulation of this is seen in his criterion of dress and grooming, making him immediately identifiable to the simple townsfolk, but Teddy loves it that way, not so much for the visual emblem of his individual rights but for its shock value, which he relishes inciting in any and everyone he meets.
Is this character meant to represent the hippie movement? Yes and no. He does in the insulated WWII minds of the people who here become trapped in his cage. In this world, he is an attacking force that won't leave them alone. From what we discover of their personal lives, that the people in this town are unhappily self-limited to doing and being what society has forever told them about themselves, it is the post-Vietnam doubt cast on authority that feels alien and threatening. They are the straights and squares hippies have always detached themselves from.
The setting is Foster's Diner, a rest stop that lost most of its trade when a new highway bypass came about. That's right; the world's passing them by. Staff include mousy waitress Angel, down-to-earth boss Clark, and a fidgety cook nicknamed after the eponymous hero. Lyle, owner of the neighboring gas station, stops by now and again to sever the tedium with his jolly chitchat. The dreary custom of the everyday slog is interrupted with the entrance of two couples, the fashionable Richard and Clarisse, and finally, the younger and stormier Teddy, the unhinged 'Nam vet, and Cheryl, his hippie girlfriend. Difficulties develop when drug dealing and guns cross the threshold both as foreshadowing and upon Teddy and Cheryl's conspicuous arrival, and Teddy turns to brute psychological torment when he holds everyone captive.
In the era of this plot, not only did America barely know or even comprehend Vietnam and our intervention there, we didn't know ourselves. But it is Teddy who passionately cuts off every layer of each character's shell till we cannot help but know them to a sometimes quite disconcerting extent. But what is Teddy, really? Does he have post-traumatic stress, or is he just a sociopath? It's natural to speculate as to the similarities between Marjoe Gortner and the character he plays. Both are defined by their flair for imitation and general audacity toward strangers and open venues, Marjoe having been exploited by his own parents which grew to warp him into something of an exhibitionist sociopath, much like the war might've done to Teddy. Not to mention, his submissive, frightened girlfriend Cheryl is played by Marjoe's real-life wife at the time, Candy Clark.
This is not a unilateral subversive slamming of traditional American life and the progressive new age. The thrill of the movie is in the tension created by the vulnerable humanity of each of Teddy's victims. Most memorably, Stephanie Faracy as Angel is not exactly a classic beauty, but she dreams of marriage to a Prince Charming and a happy home in a better world, as if she were a little girl, which pitifully bespeaks her complete romantic inexperience and lifelong feeling of loneliness. Life has not prepared her for the crushing blow Teddy will give her with a small handful of simple words. Pat Hingle fits right into another more pathetic character, Lyle, whose ritual diner visit seems more like a desperate latch onto something that doesn't resemble waiting alone to die. Then there are Lee Grant and Hal Linden as Richard and Clarisse, building a complex relationship with more cultivated urban characters, a well-heeled marriage whom you'd probably see at a swinging party, maybe two, but find it nearly impossible to communicate with each other and nearly unbearable know they'll never be able to.
But the key to the film is Peter Firth as Red Ryder. Imagine a parallel story where Superman were just a bus boy in Nowhereville, having no idea of his capabilities, and even less so did anyone else, and you may understand the implied significance of his underdog counterpoint to Teddy. But also there's simply his consumption with a wholly different subculture than Teddy, which is what defines all of his inadequacies and nearly insufferable humiliations at Teddy's hands, but also, ultimately, his dark-horse qualities.