MOVING VIOLATION

US, 1975, 91 minutes, Colour.
Stephen Mc Hattie, Kay Lenz, Lonny Chapman, Will Geer, Eddie Albert.
Directed by Charles S. Dubin.

Moving Violation is what is now called a typical 1970s drive-in movie. It is also a road movie with plenty of chases and crashes.

Stephen Mc Hattie is a young drifter who meets up with Kay Lenz, a Dairy Queen attendant. While they go for a swim in the property of a rich man, Will Geer, they witness the sheriff killing one of his deputies. A chase across the county ensues – and the couple have the help of a lawyer, Eddie Albert, who believes them.

The film was directed by Charles S. Dubin who had a prolific career in television making only a few cinema films. It was written by William W. Norton who specialised in this kind of film as well as other genre films like Brannigan and The Day of the Animals.

1. The interest in the 70's in the road drama, the emphasis on police, law, violence and vigilante retaliation? How good an example of this genre was this film?

2. How authentic did it seem in its atmosphere, sense of place, the use of time over several days, the presentation of the police, the issues?

3. What conventional ingredients did it use: the individual man, the girl friend, witness to murder, car chases and smashes, relationships, final violence?

4. Did the film transcend its use of conventional ingredients? How did it involve its audience? In their crisis in their personalities, relationship, humanity? In their danger and their fear? In their desperation? The sense of proportion in the human element, the use of car crashes and violence, the ending?

5. How attractive a hero for this kind of film was J? His personality, his wandering the roads, music and mechanical background, the police harassing him after their own quarrel amongst themselves, taking it out on him? The contrast with his encounter with Cam, his sense of humour, his attractiveness, their going for a swim together in the Rockfield property?

6. The contrast with the character of Rockfield and what he stood for? His background in family and oil in the district, his making of money, his buying police and politicians, his witnessing the murder, his easy way of speaking as if he were not evil? His later involvement in preparing a scenario for a conspiracy about the various deaths? Though seen in few sequences, how strong, was his presence and his evil throughout the film and for its themes?

7. The ugliness of Tyler's blackmail, his confronting the sheriff, his confronting Rockfield, the sheriff’s impulsiveness in killing him, the pathos of Tyler's being wounded and his actual death?

8. The fact that Caddie and Cam witnessed the murder, the effect on them and their running away, was this credible? Their involvement in the chases, Cam and her being scared, the decisions that they had to make, the spot, the fact that it was Sunday, their car running out of petrol, stealing cars, the injuries that they incurred, their wanting to give up, their disillusionment and suspicions of authority the fact that they were typed as cop killers and public opinion against them, the growing victimisation and the repercussions on their fear?

9. How evil was the sheriff? His boorish manner, his arrogance, his violence against Tyler, his manipulation of the police, lack of conscience, the impulsiveness of his chase, his being a law unto himself, his bossing the deputies, his arrogance in authority in the county? Was he a credible villain, was his behaviour believable? What was at stake? The political mesh in which he was involved accounting for his behaviour and arrogance?

10. How did the film continue to involve audiences sympathetically with Caddie and Cam: their taking of the cars, the rest in the cafe sequence and the fight with the car owner, their hiding in the shops, their appeal to the FBI? What else could they do?

11. How interesting a character was Alex Warren? As seen playing pool, a lawyer type, his reputation for being a liberal, his hereditary background in the district, his knowledge of the law and his application of it, his sympathy to the two, making his home available to them? Their reaction in trying to fathom his kindness? His skill in eluding reporters, in eluding the police in their chase? The suddenness of his death and its pathos? What American attitudes did he symbolise? An older generation?

12. Dilemmas, wanting to walk out because he did not trust the law, Cam's persuading him not try his skill in eluding the police on the way to giving themselves up? The impact of the shooting, his decision to run and hide, his raiding of the arsenal and his violence? Was it credible?

13. The film's endorsement of vigilante violence, the visual presentation of it as low key and almost symbolic? Where did audience sympathies lie and why?

14. The horror of the shooting, Cam and her realization of Alex's death, her withdrawing in the hospital, unable to speak, her presence in the asylum?

15. The ending and the possibility of escape, the final freeze frame of Cam climbing the wall, the symbolism?

16. How realistic was the plot, how artificial contrived for symbolic purposes? How accurate a social mirror of a part of America in the 70's? The rich exploiters, the corrupt police, the violent police. the suspicions of law, the older generation, the younger generation? What did this say about the future of America?

17. The value of this kind of entertainment, this kind of moral fable?