TEXAS DETOUR - A HOLLYWOOD CLASSIC CRIME THRILLER MOVIE

TEXAS  DETOUR   - A HOLLYWOOD CLASSIC CRIME THRILLER MOVIE

A trip across the United States takes a wrong turn when three California teenagers have their van stolen. Stranded in a backwoods town with the sheriff refusing to help, the trio decides to settle scores while getting justice.



Texas Detour is a 1978 American action–crime thriller that blends drama, tension, and gritty storytelling. The film was produced, written, and directed by Howard Avedis, known for his work in low-budget genre cinema during the 1970s. The film stars Patric Wayne (Clay McCarthy) and Priscilla Barnes (Claudia Hunter) in the main cast, along with Mitch Vogel (Dale McCarthy) and Lindsay Bloom (Sugar McCarthy). The film also stars R.G. Armstrong (Sheriff Burt), Anthony James (Beau Hunter), and Cameron Mitchel (John Hunter).

It’s a classic late-70s drive-in exploitation thriller, known more for its gritty, sensational elements than for critical acclaim.

If you want to see critically acclaimed and Oscar-recognized movies, then search my earlier Blogs such as "INTERSTELLAR" and "AVATAR".

Plot Summary:

The story follows three teenagers from California—siblings Clay, Dale, and Sugar McCarthy—who are driving across the United States in a van. Their trip takes a dark turn when their van is stolen in a small, corrupt Texas town. Stranded and unable to get help from the local sheriff, the trio is forced to work on a ranch owned by a powerful patriarch while trying to recover their vehicle and continue their journey.

SYNOPSIS:

Texas Detour is not without its low pleasures. The contrived story of three Californians who become victims while trapped in a small town, the picture is predicated on stereotypes, as per the norm for drive-in schlock. Yet the movie knows which lizard-brain responses to provoke, so the evil guys do evil things, the heroic characters do heroic things, and the sexy starlet gets naked. There’s also an abundance of vehicular action, including a couple of dirt-bike scenes. Much of this is set to original songs by Flo & Eddie, formerly of the Turtles, whose tunes mimic popular Me Decade musical styles. (One number, “The Big Showdown,” is a fair simulacrum of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run vibe.) Alas, the picture’s shortcomings greatly outnumber its trashy thrills. The story begins with the McCarthy siblings—twenty something Clay (Patrick Wayne) and teenagers Dale (Mitch Vogel) and Sugar (Lindsay Bloom)—venturing from L.A. to Nashville, where Clay has a job doing stunt work on a movie shoot. The McCarthys are run off the road by crooks who steal their van, so the siblings hitch a ride with creepy redneck Beau Hunter (Anthony James). After even creepier Sheriff Burt (R.G. Armstrong) takes their crime report, the McCarthys accept an offer of hospitality from Beau, who lives on the ranch owned by his dad, John (Cameron Mitchell). While on the ranch, Clay falls for Beau’s sister, Claudia (Priscilla Barnes), even as circumstances wend inevitably toward Beau raping Sugar. Reprisals ensue. As in their other films of the same period, Barnes is ornamental, and Wayne is wooden, so it falls to Armstrong and James to inject Texas Detour with individuality. There’s only so much they can do, seeing as how the movie’s dialogue was apparently composed for the benefit of viewers perplexed by language past the first-grade level.




USER REVIEWS:

In the 1970's there was what's called Vansploitation films... young people cruising in groovy vans... but for TEXAS DETOUR, that aspect is a jumping-off point, beginning with would-be Memphis musician family Patrick Wayne, Mitch Vogel and Lindsay Bloom driving across the titular Lone Star State before their beloved vehicle's stolen in a one-horse town... with the usual rich guy who runs the town, and a sheriff forced to appease him...



Vansploitation is a term and film genre used to describe American independent films from the 1970s, in which a van or vans are the main key element to the plot, and feature comedic stories about young adults.



While the lanky and aesthetically-formidable BURNT OFFERINGS chauffeur Anthony James is that important town-owner's spoiled, wild-card son, instantly smitten with the spunky Bloom after they're stranded without wheels...



While the family works at patriarchal Cameron Mitchell's ranch until they can afford to move on, TEXAS DETOUR finds its central romance between great-looking Patrick Wayne and blonde bombshell Priscilla Barnes, who's Mitchell's daughter/James's rich-girl-with-a-heart-of-gold sister...

And while Wayne and Barnes's opposites-attract tryst could have led into an intriguing melodrama aspect with semi-thriller elements (while Lindsay Bloom romances Michael Mullins and Mitch Vogel's paired with Kathy O'Dare), DETOUR remains just that... a middling dusty-blue-jeans hangout flick that goes semi-enjoyably in one ear, out the other.




USER REVIEW NO. 2:

Bring out the Banjos! Textbook "hicksploitation" gem.








Hicks and hillbillies ahoy! Straight away from the rhythmically joyous title song serenade, you just know this will become a glorious Southern-flavored cheesy mix of wild shooting farmers, indecent yokels, and a whole lot of horse-lovers! The whole point and raison d'être of "Texas Detour" is a complete mystery to me, but I sure do love this typically 70's trend of "Hicksploitation". Every couple of sequences, there's a primitive musical interlude while you can look at images of pick-up trucks in the desert, Yi-Ha! Three hippie siblings are held up in a little Texan hick town when their A-Team van gets stolen by fugitive criminals. They find shelter and temporary jobs with the town's patriarch, John Hunter, his beautiful daughter Claudia, and his obnoxiously spoiled brat son Beau. The son is interested in the girl hippie Sugar, but she's a liberated woman and thus chooses to date a simple town mechanic instead. Obviously, the one thing you shouldn't do in rural Texas is turn down a spoiled redneck son. Beau takes what he wants anyway and rapes Sugar, upsetting not only her brothers but also his own sister, who fell in love with the oldest brother, Clay. When Beau is then stabbed to death in a banal bar fight, the blame naturally falls on Clay, and the whole posse has to go on the lam (insert banjo music here).



"Texas Detour" is a fun time-waster without too many high ambitions. The deliberately clichéd situations and jokes are reasonably effective, like the shy music-obsessed sibling experiencing his first sexual contact with a willing local girl and the obligatory "get-your-hands-off-my-woman" bar fight scene. Halfway through, the film shifts into a higher gear and finally dares to show some action and sleaze. Personally, I feel a movie like this should have been much sleazier and more violent, but writer/director Howard Avedis ("Mortuary") clearly opted to retain the light-hearted tone and atmosphere throughout the film. Several lines in the screenplay are fantastically offensive ("Oh come on, she probably has been raped before"), and that typical southern hospitality gets more claustrophobic with every minute that passes. "Texas Detour" is amusing but totally harmless. I still feel convinced we should have seen more boobs, pitch-fork truck chases, male backwoods rape, incestuous undertones, farm animals, chewing tobacco, and perhaps some rodeo footage.





TRIVIA :


This was Mitch Vogel's last acting performance.




The film duration is 92 minutes, 9 secs.



It's considered a decent, if not memorable, entry in the 70s exploitation genre, often praised for being an enjoyable, if slightly campy, watch.




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