Psssst! Sssshhhhhhh! Come over this way! Don't tell Stephen. I'm hopin' to slip this one past his eagle eye. Ol' Metalluk, the foreign-film buff, is doin' a review of an English language film by an American director. Big time encroachment! Don't even have a really good excuse but here's a couple of weak ones. Scarecrow did win a major international prize – the Palme d'Or at Cannes. The American critics and audiences have pretty much forgotten about this little gem. Witness the lack of reviews for the film here at Epinions! Nor has it fared a whole lot better among the professional critics across America. Schatzberg was always better appreciated internationally than among the special-effects-craving American audiences, so he's practically . . . . . No, even I don't have the temerity to claim he's a foreign director.

Historical Background: Jerry Schatzberg was born in the Bronx, in New York City in 1927. After graduating from the University of Miami, he began a career as a freelance photographer for such magazines as Vogue, Glamour, Esquire, Life and McCall's. His first film experience was directing commercials. He made his first feature film, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, in 1970, right after the success of Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider had opened up studio interest in younger directors who could relate to a hipper and younger audience of movie-lovers. Although Schatzberg's debut film went largely unnoticed, he won critical acclaim with his second film, The Panic in Needle Park (1971), which examined heroin addiction and starred a young Al Pacino, fresh out of the box. That film set Pacino up for his career-making second effort, The Godfather (1972). Pacino then returned to work with Schatzberg again on what was to be the third film for each, Scarecrow (1973). This time Pacino costarred with Gene Hackman, who was already a familiar face for American audiences – from Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Downhill Racer (1969), I Never Sang for My Father (1970), and The French Connection (1971). Scarecrow brought Schatzberg to worldwide attention by wining a Palme d'Or at Cannes. Hackman and Pacino went on to become two of the top stars of their generation.

Schatzberg helped to define the film style of the seventies, with its emphasis on alienation. After Scarecrow, he followed with Dandy, the All American Girl (1976) and The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979). After the seventies, Schatzberg began to lose his American following, which was being increasing drawn to the blockbuster films of such directors as Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Lucas. Schatzberg was more stylistically attuned to international cinema, with moody atmosphere, strong characters, but more fractured narratives. By the late eighties, his best films, such as Street Smart (1987) and Reunion (1989), were actually doing better internationally than domestically. The latter film was set in Stuttgart and written by Harold Pinter. Schatzberg's film style was somewhat of an extension of his experience as a photographer of landscapes, street scenes, and portraits. Schatzberg had little interest in special effects. Instead, his emphasis was always on human relationships. His experience as a portrait photographer allowed him to work effectively with his actors and elicit from them their best performances. When asked about his favorite role, Gene Hackman cited Scarecrow, calling it "the only film I've ever made in absolute continuity and I was allowed to take all kinds of chances and really build my character."

The Story: Scarecrow is much more of a character portrayal than a traditional narrative. There's very little plot to the film and I therefore don't want to give away too much of what little there is, but here's a brief sketch. Max (Gene Hackman) and Francis (Al Pacino) are a couple of drifters who meet by chance because they end up hitchhiking from the same spot on a country highway. Max initially wants nothing to do with Francis but, when his cigar lighter fails to work, Max accepts the light that Francis offers him with his last match. For a couple of hobos, the offer of one's last match is a genuine offer of friendship, so the two start traveling together. Each is traveling with a dream in his head, as they set off from California. Max has just gotten out of the slammer after a six-year sentence and has $2600 tucked away in a savings account in Pittsburgh. His dream is to open up a carwash. He also wants to stop off in Denver to visit his sister. Francis, on the other hand, has just finished a stint in the Navy, returning from a long tour at sea, and wants to return to Detroit, where he walked out on a woman, leaving her pregnant. At least he's been sending an allotment to her each month from his service salary. He'd like to meet his kid, not even knowing presently if it's a son or a daughter. Max asks Francis if he wants to be his partner in the carwash business. Francis agrees. Max has one problem though. He doesn't like the name "Francis" and asks if Francis has a middle name. It's "Lionel." From now on that's what Max calls him.

They set off together. The plan is to head first to Denver for Max's visit to his sister, then to Detroit so Lionel can meet his son, then on to Pittsburgh and the glorious new life that awaits them in the carwash business. They are both nearly penniless, so they travel by hopping trains and hitchhiking and perform odd jobs to earn cash along the way. They stop at lunch counters and bars when they can afford it. Max and Lionel are both scarecrows of a sort, keeping people at arm's length. Max is a tough guy with a temper and his method is to snarl at people and fight his way out of jams. His six years in the slammer was the result of one of those fights. Lionel, by contrast, disarms people by making them laugh. He clowns around and tells jokes – whatever it takes to defuse ugly situations.

Here's a sample of the situations that follow. Max wants to steal a gift from a shop for his sister's birthday and asks Lionel to distract the cashier. Lionel, however, makes such a complete clown out of himself that Max is as distracted as the cashier and forgets to slip the merchandise under his coat. There's an extended interlude at the home of Max's sister, Coley (Dorothy Tristan). Coley has a close friend and partner, Frenchy (Ann Wedgeworth), and Max pairs up with Frenchy and Lionel with Coley as a happy foursome, for a while, dining and dancing and hanging out.

Max is repeatedly getting into fights. One of those fights gets both Max and Lionel assigned to a work camp for a month. Max blames Lionel for their incarceration, but it was actually he who started the brawl. Lionel gets attacked by another prisoner, Jack Riley (Richard Lynch), and is beaten up and sexually assaulted. Max delivers payback to Riley. Fresh out of the work farm, the pair proceed with their journey but, at a lunch counter, Max is just about to get into another brawl. Lionel, who has been trying his best to teach his partner another way of dealing with conflict, finally succeeds, and instead of fighting, Max entertains the crowd in the restaurant with a mock striptease, with a whole lot of good-natured hootin' and hollerin'.

Themes: The primary theme is the contrast between how these two drifters keep others at bay – the tough guy versus the comedian. Max is confrontational while Lionel defuses situations by clowning around. Lionel tells Max a joke about how scarecrows don't actually scare the crows. They make them laugh so hard that the crows go elsewhere out of appreciation.

A second theme is Lionel's obsession with the child and wife he abandoned. This is your basic guilt trip but compounded by his wife Annie's (Penelope Allen) vengeful lie, telling him that the kid had died when she was six months pregnant when she slipped on the ice and he hadn't been there to help her. All the time viewers are watching the five-year-old boy playing quietly beside her. She adds, the poor boy will have to go to limbo because he wasn't baptized. That along with the earlier sexual assault supposedly sends Lionel into catatonia, though it's a pretty far-fetched plot development. It's also misrepresented in the film, since catatonic individuals stare blankly with their eyes open. Lionel appeared to be in a coma instead. Lionel's last desperate act, before flipping out, is to try to "baptize" a little boy that he's playing with in the huge park fountain in the center of Detroit.

Production Values: The script for this film provides very little plot but lots of opportunity for character portrayal. Is that good? Is that bad? That pretty much depends on the individual viewer. If you enjoy watching great actors develop great characters, you're going to love this film, as many viewers apparently have. If you like a strong plot, you're in for a major disappointment. The one point where the script lets its audience down most thoroughly is the murky ending. It's really quite feeble and disappointing. You're left with the sense that the film had no point other than portraying two interesting characters.

The cinematography for this film is quite distinctive. Composition-wise, I have nothing but praise for the photography, but the shooting seems to have been conducted through some kind of filter to give the film a kind of artsy sheen. I didn't find the effect especially pleasing as it detracts a bit from the clarity of the images. I would have liked to see the faces of these two great actors in richer detail. I don't say that it's a huge problem, but, all-in-all, I could have done without the satiny gloss. I imagine that this effect was due to Schatzberg's history as a celebrated photographer. On the other hand, I very much liked the emphasis on long takes that allowed the two talented lead actors to take full control of their parts. This tactic was undoubtedly a major factor in the virtuoso performances that the leads generated. I also give high grades to the realism of the film settings – on the road, at the various lunch counters, sleazy bars, and the prison farm.

The highlight of this film is certainly the performances. It boasts two of the most talented actors of their generation, at the height of their talents, delivering performances that rank among the best that either was to provide during illustrious careers. Pacino's role was a bit atypical for him but he handles it with great skill. After Scarecrow, he was immediately back to his tough guy persona in Serpico (1973) and The Godfather II (1974). Hackman's performance is utterly riveting. Richard Lynch was convincing, as well, in the support role as the bad guy.

Bottom-Line: This film is in the same basic manner as the classics Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Easy Rider (1969) – down-and-out drifter types chasing a dream. Mostly though, it was a film in defiance of the usual Hollywood trends of its time. I'm giving this film four-stars. The performances and character portrayals are five-stars but I've got to dock this film a star for the inadequacy of the story, especially its ending. It's a weak four-stars not a strong four. Scarecrow is in English and has a running time of 112 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age