BOOTLEGGERS

US, 1974, 110 minutes, Colour.
Paul Koslo, Dennis Fimple, Slim Pickens, Jaclyn Smith.
Directed by Charles B. Pierce.

Bootleggers is one of the many action adventures, small-budget, directed by Charles B. Pierce (Winterhawk, The Winds of Autumn, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Gray Eagle – all in the 1970s).

The film is familiar enough in its plot – bootleggers, killings, revenge. The film is notable in retrospect for the appearance of Jaclyn Smith who was to go on to be one of Charlie’s Angels.

1. The indications of the title, themes, tone?

2. The film as a piece of Americana, reflecting an era, attitudes? Impact for American audiences, overseas audiences?

3. The film was to a large extent the personal work of Charles B. Pierce. He wrote, directed, photographed. Did the film reflect a personal point of view on events, characters, themes, America? The quality of the insight of Pierce?

4. How important was the atmosphere of Arkansas, wide screen, colour, landscapes, colouring for the landscapes of American memory? The songs and the music of the hill-billies and the bootlegging communities?

5. What comment did the film make on the American heritage of the twenties and thirties with bootlegging, prohibition, the depression, the abuses, violence, vengeance, family feuds, outside business controls, law and order and the application of justice?

6. The film's attitudes towards the families, the background of their feuding, the violence of the feuds and the effect on families, especially with death? A reflection of the times? The rights and wrongs of the feud?

7. Initial response to the Woodall murder of Othar’s father? Setting a tone for the rest of the film and the violence?

8. Othman as the central character: his strengths of character as a man, memories of his boyhood and the death of his father, the bonds with Dewey? Their work on the farm, their skill in distilling whisky? Victims of the thirties? Of depression? The choices open to them in the world in which they lived? Credible mountain people?

9. The presence and impact of Grandpa? As the patriarch of the family, the distilling of the whisky, the bootlegging itself? His influence on Othar? His practical wisdom? The violence of his death and its significance for the plot?

10. The contrast with the Woodalls as presented unsympathetically, the trucking, McClusky?, the violence consequent on the feuds and the transport of the liquor? How well was this illustrated?

11. The change of tone with Sally and Leola: boys and girls in this atmosphere, town? The girls, work at the beauty parlour and the humorous sequences of meeting the boys? The swimming and the taking of the clothes? The irony of the humour leading to the question of the gun? Gaol for Othar and the change of mood from frivolity to seriousness? The girls and their reaction in the rest of the events?

12. The portrayal of the law, the gaol? The big sequence of the pulling down of the gaol? Balanced by the building of the new one? The irony of Othar and Dewey as deputies and the way that they administered the law, the bias against their rivals?

13. How did this lead to the build-up to the siege? Grandpa's death? The atmosphere of vengeance? The setting of the house, the Woodall family and their occupation, characters, reaction to the siege, violence? The impact of the child and the violence ensuing especially for Dewey?

14. How well drawn was the character of Dewey, in comparison with Othar, the bond between the two, his being wounded?

15. The irony of the ending? The attitude of letting Othar and Dewey go free? Attitude towards law, attitude towards justice and those who didn't have the law on their side?

16. The film within the genre of the seventies of bootlegging heroes, vigilante work, personal administration of justice, feuds and hate?