Cheap Walking Tall (DVD) (Joe Don Baker, Elizabeth Hartman) (Phil Karlson) Price

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Customer Reviews of Walking Tall

Hollywood vs. Reality
"Walking Tall" is the story of Buford Pusser, the tall, no-nonsense Tennessee sheriff who fought a tremendous up-hill battle to clean up his hometown. The movie is (sometimes loosely) based on several events which happened to the real Sheriff Pusser in his pursuit of justice. The film seeks to describe (sometimes graphically) the personal price that Pusser paid to rid his town of corruption, not just at the gambling house, but in the courtroom as well.

I was surprised how well the film has held up 20+ years later. While definitely not a great film, the story is an exciting, but violent tale of corruption and the man trying to stop it. The film will probably lead a lot of people to find out more about Buford Pusser, especially to learn which parts of the film are true and which are fiction.

I was fortunate enough to hear Pusser speak just months before he died. If you can imagine it, the real Pusser was even tougher looking and larger than the actor (Joe Don Baker) who portrayed him. He looked like he could take apart a pro football player without halfway trying. In his speech, Pusser was quick to point out what was accurate and inaccurate in the film, what he was pleased with and what he was disappointed with. He pretty much stuck to the facts and didn't try to play on the emotions of the crowd. But he had one of those faces that you could look into and tell that he had been through all the hell that you see in the film and more, and was still walking tall. He left me with the feeling that he was still not going to turn away as corruption was taking over his town. He knew the cost and he was willing to do whatever it takes. One reviewer (probably rightfully so) mentioned that Pusser's methods WERE often out of line. His behavior may have been wrong, but his intent was not.

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Big Man, Big Stick!!!
This movie is certainly one of the bloodiest true stories ever filmed. Even though many of the scenes in the film are fictionalized for dramatic effect, there are many scenes in this film that did happen to Buford Pusser in real life and that is what makes so many scenes in the film shocking.

Joe Don Baker gives his best performance as Buford Pusser, a retired wrestler who after being brutally beaten in a local nightclub, exacts revenge on the very same people who did it. Pusser is arrested by the corrupt town sheriff and is taken to court for his actions. Thanks to a sympathetic jury, Pusser is rightly found not guilty and takes up his friend's plan to run for town sheriff against his wife's wishes.

While serving his term as sheriff, he is constantly followed, shot at, lied to, and eventually in one of the bloodiest scenes ever put on film, ambushed while driving with his wife, Pauline (played by Elizabeth Hartman). Pauline is brutally murdered and Buford Pusser is severely wounded when he is shot in the face several times with a machine gun.

Director Phil Karlson managed to make a terrific biographical action film with just one serious flaw. People who love spotting bloopers will find more than their fair share in this film. There are at least seven scenes in this movie where the boom mic comes into the frame or the shadow of the boom mic operator is seen along the wall.

If you can get by that, you will be left with a terrific movie.

Parents: Don't let children younger than 14 watch this film. There are numerous scenes of graphic, extreme violence (eg: Pusser's many beatings and gunfights) and coarse language.

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Good movie; less-than-good sound & pic quality
Whenever I feel the need to catch an action flick that's a change of pace from the usual "lone-wolf-big-city-cop-meting-out-justice-whilst-going-up-against-the-system" kinda movies I watch, the original "Walking Tall" is what I turn to. It's got a nice touch of drama to add to the shootin' and fisticuffs, and the southern rural setting is a refreshing departure from the usual urban fare the other actioners have. I also like that the hero is more of an average Joe kinda guy who isn't portrayed as some kinda unstoppable one-man army... even though he managed to barely survive not one, but two hails of bullets from the baddie minions. And it doesn't hurt that this mo-pic includes one of the most eff'd-up killings I've ever seen in the genre... which I don't wanna divulge to you directly, lest I ruin it for ya. Let's just say this death quite literally drove our pine-staff-wielding sheriff into finishing off the last couple of bad guys once and for all! Well, once and for all until the sequel that is...

All right, time for a little of the downside: although I found "Walking Tall" a more than worthy waste of two hours, Rhino®'s DVD release of the movie is disappointingly subpar. The picture quality isn't that much better than what you'd see on a VHS copy. Of course, this isn't surprising, since (judging from a couple fleeting scan-lines) it's obvious that the source material used for the DVD was not the master film itself, but from a videotape. Then there was the intermittent sound quality: there were some parts that I could hear quite well, and others where I needed to turn the volume up a notch so I could understand what the subject(s) was/(were) saying. This was especially problematic when a subject was speaking in a soft, low tone. Looks like the rumors I've heard about Rhino®'s cheapness have more than a little merit-- especially in this case...

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