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Scarecrow

Catalog Number
11098
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Scarecrow (1973)

Additional Information

Additional Information
The road leads itself to somewhere.


An ex-con learns the value of friendship in Jerry Schatzberg's picaresque road movie. Trying to hitch a ride on a desolate California road, fresh-out-of-prison Max (Gene Hackman) meets ex-sailor Lion (Al Pacino). They are both headed east, as Max dreams of opening a deluxe car wash in Pittsburgh and Lion believes that the wife and child he left behind will still welcome him home. The two decide to journey together, forging an increasingly deep yet uncertain friendship, as Lion teaches Max how not to be so pugnacious and Max senses Lion's fragility. When the pair hits Detroit, Lion finally gets in touch with his wife and discovers how she really feels. When Lion is shattered by the revelation, Max must decide if he should forge on alone or sacrifice his carefully guarded savings to help his friend. One of a cycle of late 1960s-early 1970s buddy movies that included Midnight Cowboy (1969) and California Split (1974), Scarecrow suggests how alienated men had become from such traditional institutions as marriage and family. Max's and Lion's salvation comes from being on the road with each other, rather than settling down with jobs and families. Pacino's first film after his triumph in The Godfather (1972), and Hackman's follow-up to The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and his Oscar for The French Connection (1971), Scarecrow won the 1973 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but the two stars were not enough to make it a hit. Even so, their nuanced performances enhance this moody study of contemporary dislocation.

The story revolves around the odd relationship between two vagabonds: Max Millan (Gene Hackman), a short-tempered ex-convict, and Francis Lionel "Lion" Delbuchi (Al Pacino), a childlike ex-sailor. They meet on the road in California and agree to become partners in a business, once they reach Pittsburgh.

Lion is on his way to Detroit to see the child he has never met and make amends with his wife Annie, to whom he has been sending all the money he made while at sea. Max agrees to make a detour on his way to Pittsburgh, where the bank that Max has been sending all his seed money is located. His plans are to open a car wash, with Lionel as a partner.

While visiting Max's sister in Denver, the two's antics land them in a prison farm for a month. Max blames Lion for being sent back to jail and shuns him. Lion is befriended, then assaulted by an inmate named Riley (Richard Lynch). Max proceeds to teach Riley a lesson, rekindling his friendship with Lion.

The two have a profound effect on each other, with Lion becoming more of an adult and Max loosening up his high-strung aggression (at one point doing a tongue-in-cheek striptease to defuse a fight at a bar). When they do finally make it to Detroit, Max has to take care of Lion, who becomes catatonic after hearing of the passing of his unborn child (a lie made up by Annie to make Lion feel guilty for leaving them).

The film shared the Grand Prix at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival with The Hireling directed by Alan Bridges.[2][3]

In a review of the film from the time of its 2013 re-release, Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian described the film as "a freewheeling masterpiece", describing Hackman and Pacino as giving "the performances of their lives".

Peter Biskind, on the other hand, described the film as being of "secondary" significance in his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.

Release Date: April 12, 1973

Distrib: Warner Brothers

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