One of the cool and unpredictable aspects of film-going in the 1970’s were those films that weren’t out of big studios and didn’t have large promotional backing, i.e. TV and radio ads. These particular movies could or could not have big names starring in them, the production values could vary in precision. Only being One year’s old when it was released, I easily project that “Easy Rider” from 1969 to be one of those films that I am referring to. “Billy Jack” from 1971 and “92 in the Shade” from 1975 are a couple of other examples of this brand of 70’s movie-making, movies that appeared harmless to the institutional conformity of the Nixonian mindset and were made away from the watchful eyes of the big conglomerates. These types of movies, however, had a message for the intellectual underground, they were power to the people movies. People went to see some of these types of movies in huge numbers, which more than substantiated small studios’ meager investments in making them. If movie making were a cheap gamble, nobody was going broke making 70’s counter culture flicks.
These films existed in sort of a categorical limbo, their subsequent following is based in part on cult status, although well-made and thought-out films like Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider” or John Casavettes’ “A Woman Under the Influence” from 1974 received support from critics as well. “Jackson County Jail” was released in 1976, and it received a myriad of strange praise and weird positive run from the art crowd, that praise made weirder because on the surface it appeared that the picture was just a hillbilly action movie. With Yvette Mimieux? Also starring a soon-to-be-famous Tommy Lee Jones, “Jackson County Jail” has a couple of bit players from more famous movies, it was directed by Michael Miller and looks a bit like a TV movie at times.
Despite these flaws, it has quickly become one of my favorite angry 70’s movies in principle, the film contains unexpected depth. The movie plums for big ticket American Elephants in the room, such as the chasm of understanding that has developed between Urbane and Rural Americans. That to some, America is not a quirky, folksy triptych, but provincial countryside that is potentially menacing and deadly, not from wild life but from the people that live there. Finally, the film declares that there is a vein of ruthless and open misogyny in America, bundled with racism and sado-masochism, and that people (predominately Men) are willing to incarcerate, rape and kill to uphold it’s tenets. This film was a pleasant and malevolent surprise, I was expecting an exploitative action film, I got a physical diatribe on the isolatory condition that the thinking American finds them self in at this stage of societal development. Oddly enough, one of the first films I thought of when watching this was George Lucas’ thought-provoking sci-fi film, “THX-1138”, a film also about free-thinkers trapped and cornered in a totalitarian structured society, where living under the radar and not standing out could save or at least lengthen your life, but are you really alive in this state?
Beginning with “Jackson County Jail” ‘s most prominent character, Dinah Hunter, played by Mimieux, a “modern” Woman who lives in Los Angeles and drives a Gremlin, the antithesis of a socially projecting macho car, a sign of passivity to the paper tough guy mentality of Rural America. She’s an ad executive, but also a Woman with 1970’s sensibilities; shares a pad with her unfaithful Boyfriend, (played briefly with style by snarky Howard Hesseman), she smokes, probably has a Cat, a pet rock, a vibrator, all those comforts that Women who were now living beyond the gaze and influence of controlling Men were allowed to have. The film shows us a commercial her ad executive character has created, a tampon commercial showing a seemingly free Woman riding a Horse through the forest. The Woman appears to be experiencing a bond with nature as she rides in a measured fashion through the woods in a flimsy, comfy dress, the Woman in the commercial appears lost in a sensation of independence, buoyed by her ability to find her own way through the cooperation of nature, she is in short, empowered.
When the viewing of the commercial is complete, her immediate supervisor, (Played by Cliff Emmich, he’s the rotund Hospital Cop from “Halloween II” who Michael Myers offs in the basement) blasts the commercial, claiming it’s too Feminist in tone and too erotic-leaning for him personally. His lambasting criticism sparks her indignant outrage, she feels that since he is a stubborn Man, the commercial is not meant for him. This is the initial juncture in the movie where the film hammers on one of it’s main bones of contention. No matter where you go in 1970’s America, the film surmises, (and I would argue, in the present day, 50 years later)much of American persuasion and identity is rooted in the insecurities of Men who feel the need to control others so said Men may feel the illusion and stature of optimum authority, that if at the end of the day there is something in the air that does not capitulate to the worldview of these Men, therein those things, peoples, places or ideas should be eradicated.
After sensing both personal disappointment at home with Hesseman, and professional disappointment with her job, Dinah decides to hit the road, back to New York City where she originated from, to get her old job back with a Female acolyte who is part of Dinah’s unspoken community of Professional sisterhood. The movie makes unmistakable gestures in the direction of an unspoken bond that exists between sensitive beings and more specifically between Women. A non-verbal agreement between like-minded souls, it seems based on a vibration of emotional intelligence, that Women still dependent on short-sighted Men cannot be trusted, those latter Women still trust in the old ways of following small-minded Men to a point of mental compliance and exhaustion. Along with this tone of liberation is coupled a spate of kindness which can be used as a vulnerability if one is not aware and rugged enough to insulate and protect oneself.
Our heroine Dinah misguidedly picks up a pair of sketchy young hitch-hikers, led by character actor Robert Carradine. The hitch-hikers at first appear fun and breezy and a temporary good time but are essentially no more than highwaymen who steal Dinah’s car and abandon her, I was thinking by this point in her cross-country trip she would have been in Oklahoma or Arkansas, I couldn’t make out the local license plates on the blurry copy of this flick that I watched on Tubi. Now’s she’s in the middle of nowhere without a car, a wallet, anything besides a comfy dress on and she’s wandering the backroads of the American mid-Southwest late at night, when bars are closing, what could possibly go wrong? She chances upon a local bar that’s closing and wonders if she can use the phone to call for help, she’s been robbed and lost everything.
From this point on in the film until she can ally herself with a career chronic jailbird played by Tommy Lee Jones, Dinah is at the mercy of the local system of Men which includes the Bar owner and several levels of local Law Enforcement, all of whom either disrespect her, solicit her, incarcerate her, torture, beat, assault and rape her, this movie has elements of a cinematic fever dream nightmare, akin to “Get Out” or “Midnight Express”, movies where a protagonist is trapped in a world that is hell-bent on exploiting and violating them in the name of traditional authority. That to be physically violated is a rite of passage in a secretly controlled society. That the visibly free must be physically and emotionally chastised serves as not only a warning to others but a reminder to the individual of where their place is expected to be. Mimieux as Dinah is a reminder to lonely hick Men in the film of what they can’t have or pursue from a liberated society that is progressing by leaps and bounds without their approval. It angers these Men and causes them fits of emotional rage and feelings of Masculine inadequacy. So what’s a girl to do?
The script, written by Donald E Stewart, sends Dinah into the lair of counterculture sheerly through necessity and happenstance. She partners with Jones as Coley Blake, a wild and hardened criminal who supposedly killed someone in Texas, although it could be a few someones for all we know. They steal a cop’s personal car and head out on the run, there are cheap explosions and spectacular ancillary car crashes along the way until the next pivotal scene, this film does not give the viewer too much time to brood once the action gets going, our pair of anti-establishment outlaws spend much of the film driving like maniacs and/or fighting, running from and shooting it out with the Authoritarian and purely reactionary Police. This flick seems like it was aimed as well at the Southern and Rural Drive-In audience, there’s deadly car collisions featuring buffoonish Hillbilly drunkards, there’s Tommy Lee Jones fighting for his life against a farmer who attacks our protagonists after they break onto his property and attempt to snuggle for the night on his rickety bed. The film features action in a Southern town parade celebrating America’s Bicentennial. It was 1976, after all.
Though the look of the film, shot by cinematographer Bruce Logan, is not necessarily extraordinary, the staging of the action scenes by Director Miller and staff is at times effective and creative. In one particular sequence, for instance, Coley is driving a pick-up truck through farmland to evade Police who are using the main roads. Coley drives the truck at top speed on a rural muddy road with the added danger of meandering Cows dispersed throughout the road. As a viewer knowing that sometimes nowadays in film we don’t get the realism of actual people driving actual cars around actual Cows on celluloid anymore, the scene is fairly compelling, engaging even with the knowledge that somebody had to do this correctly or else end the scene in physical Angus, er, anguish.
“Jackson County Jail” has a tremendously rough and abusive over-the-top rape scene, i suppose kudos should go to both Mimieux and the accommodating Male actor for such a chillingly and accurate portrayal of a sexual assault, I couldn’t help but thinking that the filmmakers shaded this with a sense of perversion, due to the length of the rape scene and how we the audience have to uncomfortably listen to and view Mimieux getting violated. Not for the faint of heart by any means, I give this warning primarily so you don’t go and watch this movie on Tubi or some shit and are so offended that you want to track me down and knee me in the groin. To add to the adversarial context that exists in this film between Men and Women, or more specifically those that adhere to the conventions of interpersonal control, Mimieux’s character is an outspoken Woman from the Left Coast, she has no issue stating her opinions, which short-fused Male characters can’t stomach at all.
When Coley and Dinah first go on the run, they hole up for a bit with criminal friends of Coley’s who come off like Country anarchists, including a scene-stealing turn by a young Mary Woronov as Pearl, a machine-gun toting Communist Lesbian activist type who lives in a barn and has no problem emptying out a couple of mags from her automatic weapon on rural Police. The portrayal of the hillbilly counterculture as forest and barn-dwelling guerillas gets visited briefly and then left in the dust of Coley’s stolen pick-up truck as it hurtles past the chicken coop and onto the backroads of hardscrabble rugged individualist America. The film’s bleak outlook on the life and existence of America’s voluntary counter culture is palpable, Jones embodies the message of the film with his constant reminders to Mimieux that they will either be killed or captured, nobody in authority will ever believe their innocence, that American law enforcement is like the proverbial Dog, always searching for a new bone to obsess over, and they are on the menu.
The film waxes on about how there exists an unspoken club in America, that they know each other by their clothes, their mannerisms, their shared values, their cars and their wariness and insensitivity toward strangers, especially if those strangers are not White and/or Male. “Jackson County Jail”‘s small-town America looks innocent and inviting, it is anything but for Dinah, small-town America and it’s accompanying tone of classic Americana is nothing short of a misogynistic nightmare for her.
Jones as Coley is fantastic in this, you see how he became a star, his presence here is unmistakable, he carries himself in each scene with a kind of criminal aloof swagger, very similar to the character of Napoleon Wilson from John Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13”, released the same year as “Jackson County Jail”. Although his character believes he is making ends meet by all means necessary, he is not a savage, the character of Coley is unrepentant about not adhering to the system and he will kill to protect his pride, honor and freedom. Jones is physical in this and believable as a petty street-smart criminal, he has the wisdom of a Man much older, but his life of criminality and failure has left him ever on the edge of snapping out and he has no hope for his own future.
As startling and fresh as Jones’ performance is, Mimieux takes the biggest risks here, it is a gritty display by an actress who shows she is willing to take chances and she succeeds in grand style. Without her focused and sincere performance, this movie doesn’t work, it would feel forced and contrived. Mimieux had done a considerable amount of film work before this, but she had the look of a trophy wife, just as she had been the young nubile ingenue from 1960’s “The Time Machine”, beautiful and Blonde and not saying much. Here she plays an empowered and free career Woman from the 1970’s and society has told her that all she needs is a Man to complete her.
Yet Dinah’s choices for Male companionship are between Liberal losers who cheat on her, attractive albeit suicidal psychos and then the majority of her choices are insecure and controlling emotionally delayed Conservatives who can’t handle back talk from Women nor do they not expect loyalty and fealty, they desire a quiet, passive and demure Woman who will not compete with them, they are emotionally sterile. Mimieux has a tough line to walk here, she is constantly sweaty and in a panic and wearing dishelved and torn clothes. She does not act overtly sexual, but her performance is so physical and her appearance is so naturally beautiful, it does emit a kind of sensuality, this is a Woman scrambling and fighting for her life and it is entertaining as well as arousing.
To Women, this movie may feel like more of a survival film, akin to “First Blood” for girls. Mimieux’s performance, in addition, is enchanting because it displays raw intelligence, we know from her career that she knows the ins and outs of Hollywood, she had been in both A-list and B-list movies over the years and probably knew that this was a film with A-list sensibilities existing inside exploitational clothing, that here was Mimieux displaying that as an actress she had truly ascended to being an artist by making a film where she is simultaneously violated, exploited, vulnerable, triumphant and physically haggard, Mimieux makes a strong statement here as an artist, actress and as a Woman. I had never seen “Jackson County Jail” before this past week, as far as espousing some of the rebellious spiritual ideology of the 1970’s, this and Paul Shraeder’s “Rolling Thunder”(to be reviewed at a later date)are two of the era’s absolute best.
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