WALKING TALL

US, 1973, 100 minutes, Colour.
Joe Don Baker, Elizabeth Hartman, Rosemary Murphy, Gene Evans, Noah Beery, Brenda Benet.
Directed by Phil Karlson.

Walking Tall is the kind of film people who deplore violence and/or the danger of self-righteous vigilante groups taking the law into their own hands readily condemn. It is very violent.

Joe Don Baker created the role of sheriff Beauford Pusser, renowned for imposing the law (with the help of a baseball bat). There were two sequels which starred Bo Svenson. There was a 2003 remake with The Rock as Pusser.

1. What did the title mean? Was it true of the hero? What were your final impressions of the whole film? Was it too violent? Did you approve of its attitude towards justice and the execution of justice? Why?

2. How real do you think the story was? The hero in real life was technical adviser to the film. About eighty percent of it was considered exact. What impression then did the film give of Tennessee life? Of corrupt society and the need for justice?

3. Did the film have a just attitude towards justice? Did it believe that might is right? Did it pay proper attention to the due processed of law? (Even when there was corruption in the high legal places?) Did it show the hero as a kind of knight on a shining horse (or knight in shining armour on a white horse??) with a staff and a lance to combat evil? The private citizen's right to combat evil? What did the final sequence of the bonfire and the final song add to the significance of the film and help the audience judge its attitude towards justice and violence?

4. What kind of person was Buford Pusser? The fact that he had served his country in war? His military background? His return home and the shock that he had? Buford Pusser at home with his wife, Pauline, and children? With his parents? In making his own way? What was the result of the first incident at the Lucky Spot? The violence that he suffered? What reaction did it have on him? Why did he stand for sheriff? Despite all the opposition and the violence done on him? Why did it make him more determined? Did you approve of his having the big stick and his use of it? How symbolic of his approach was the big stick?

5. Did the film give a just enough view of the criminals themselves? Were they caricatures? Or was their evil well presented on the screen? What particular aspects of their evil disgusted you? The Lucky Spot itself and what stood behind it? What was your reaction to the official protection behind the criminals? The judge's injustice? The corrupt sheriff and politicians? The protection from the capital cities?

6. What decisions did Pusser have to make about combating the evil? He himself was the law. Did he break the law in his violent administration of justice? What did that mean he had to do?

7. Comment on the election campaigns.

8. Why did the people not support him? Why were people in fear in Tennessee?

9. Comment on the significance of the betrayal by one of the police. How did this show how difficult it was to administer justice?

10. Your impressions of the sequence where he was bashed and left on the road to die? Can you understand his emotional reaction to this violence?

11. Comment on his relationship with his negro assistant Parley. How did Parley help him in combating injustice? What moral support did he give?

12. Comment on the presentation of deaths and torture in the film? Callie as a focus of this violence and torture? The whipping of the girl at the Lucky Spot? The personalities of the thugs around the Lucky Spot and their violence and torturing others?

13. What role did Pauline Pusser play in her husband's life? How well did she support him? Comment on the sequences with them at home, their loving one another, with their children. How did this make her death the more horrible? Comment on the sequence of the funeral and what that meant to him and what he had been doing.

14. By the end of the film had Pusser been motivated by revenge rather than justice? Or was he still motivated by justice? How difficult is it to tell the difference between the two?

15. What was your emotional reaction to the sequence where Pusser bashed down the Lucky Spot and the crowd gathered for the bonfire? Is this the way to handle evil and injustice? Some critics have said that this represented the violent attitude of Nixon's silent majority. Does this make sense or is it an exaggeration?

16. How does a film like this provoke audiences into deciding where they need to take a stand about violence and why?