Post by Jeff Goldblum on Oct 4, 2008 1:40:05 GMT -5
Breaker! Breaker!
(aka Cindy Jo and the Texas Turnaround)
In May of 1977, a modest little film surprised everyone by launching the CB radio craze into pop culture...and eventually becoming the second highest-grossing film of the year.
A few weeks before that, Breaker! Breaker! opened in Fargo, North Dakota. The film marked the first starring role for Chuck Norris, and found him tackling corruption in a small, redneck town.
It doesn't get much cheaper than this. The town of Texas City appears to have been a former tv western set- complete with signs touting that a "Dentist" lives and works among them.
Chuck plays trucker J.D. Dawes. (It's short for John David, just in case you were wondering.) When his brother disappears after driving into Texas City, Chuck must head there to seek him out and order a donut. No shit. But first, we learn that Chuck is the current arm-wrestling champ at the local truck stop. When a big, bald guy calls him out, Chuck must defend his title. Cue the strains of "Meet Me Halfway".
George Murdock really hams it up as the town's crooked mayor. When Chuck first encounters him, he is using a puppet to talk dirty to another man's wife. During the big finale, he's at home in the sack with his girlfriend.
There's another villain worth noting here. His name is Sgt. Strode and early on, we learn that he has paralyzed a trucker friend of J.D.'s. It seems the trucker had a run in with Strode in Texas City, and now his wife is forced to drive his rig. You see where this is going, right?
Well, no. J.D.'s big showdown isn't with Strode. It's with his partner, the smaller (and mustached) Deputy Boles. J.D. first kicks him through the wall of a barn, but J.D. has already been wounded by gunshot, and Boles runs away. J.D. then takes a moment to concentrate on his third eye, and gets refocused as a result. He then goes after Boles, who is now sitting on a fence and drinking a bottle of Wild Turkey. Again, no shit.
Despite the awkward pairing of martial arts and CB radios, this is pure 1970's redneck hokum. And obviously, therefore comes highly recommended. Chuck gets to sidekick his way through a whole townful of rednecks, and does most of this while wearing a bright yellow shirt. There's even a brief detour through a contrived romantic subplot. To be perfectly honest, it's not that much different from an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.
Wait. Did I mention that the town has a helicopter, which one of the rednecks periodically uses to fly above the town?
The film's original poster didn't do much to sell this as a Chuck Norris film, but check out this great re-release poster from 1980: