Truck Turner (1974) American International/Action RT: 91 minutes Rated R (strong violence and language, brief nudity, suggestive content) Director: Jonathan Kaplan Screenplay: Oscar Williams and Michael Allin Music: Isaac Hayes Cinematography: Charles F. Wheeler Release date: June 26, 1974 (US) Cast: Isaac Hayes, Yaphet Kotto, Alan Weeks, Annazette Chase, Nichelle Nichols, Sam Laws, Paul Harris, Scatman Crothers, Dick Miller, Charles Cyphers, Bob Harris, Jac Emeil, Stan Shaw, Wendell Tucker, Clarence Barnes, Edna Richardson, Earl Maynard, Tara Strohmeier, Henry Kingi, Esther Sutherland. Box Office: $2.2M (US)
Rating: ***
One of the lesser know blaxploitation flicks of the 70s, Truck Turner stars soul singer Isaac Hayes (Escape from New York) as Mack “Truck” Turner, football player turned professional bounty hunter. Its plot isn’t complex. Truck and his partner Jerry (Weeks, Black Belt Jones) try to apprehend a pimp called Gator and end up killing him in self-defense. His girlfriend Dorinda (Nichols, Star Trek) vows revenge and agrees to allow major “player” Harvard Blue (Kotto, Live and Let Die) and his hired assassins (“The Insurance Company”) to take him down in exchange for a piece of her action.
There, I’ve just described the plot in two sentences, how’s that for simplicity? Actually, Truck Turner makes for a very entertaining grindhouse movie. It’s sort of like a poor man’s version of Shaft; it even stars the musician who composed the score for the landmark 1971 urban actioner. Hayes isn’t all that great of an actor, but he’s got personality and that goes a long way in this genre. He gets some priceless dialogue, one of my favorite lines comes after Truck and Jerry take down a barroom full of toughs, he announces, “Anybody ask you what happened, tell ’em you been hit by a truck: Mack “Truck” Turner!” Okay, the writer isn’t bound to win any literary awards for dialogue like this, but it sounds great in a B-movie not meant for academic types.
One of the best sequences in Truck Turner is a wild chase through the streets of L.A. when Truck spots Gator (Harris, Across 110th Street) meeting with Dorinda. He’s dressed in typical 70s pimp fashion. He’s wearing what I call a “loudfit” (loud outfit) and driving a big pink pimpmobile. No, they don’t knock over any fruit stands; that only happens in foreign locales. They do take down a flower stand and a shopping cart full of bagels (shouldn’t they be empty soda cans?). The final standoff between Truck and Blue (and a few thugs), in a hospital crowded with staff and patients, is cool. Plenty of carnage and chaos plus a death scene overacted shamelessly. How do you NOT love that?
They end up losing Gator, but another pimp named Duke (Crothers, The Shining) tells Truck where to find him. Have you ever wondered what Scatman Crothers looks like with hair? See this movie and find out. He also gets off a classic line when he says, “They don’t make pimps like they used to.” The guys find their man at his girlfriend’s house which leads to a scene that leaves me no doubt that Truck Turner influenced the scene in Jackie Brown where Bridget Fonda angrily answers the phone, drops the receiver and tells Samuel L. Jackson that it’s for him. QT loves his blaxploitation!
Nichelle Nichols camps it up mightily as the villainess Dorinda, a madam as tough and violent as any pimp. She keeps her girls in line with lines like, “Anybody thinking about leaving here is gonna find my left foot square up your ass!” and “Those two bitches that left, they’d better learn to sell pussy in Iceland because if I ever see them again, I’m gonna cut their f***in’ throats!” And let’s not forget this telling gem: “I haven’t had to sell my pussy since I was fifteen and found out that I could sell other bitches instead.”
Kotto makes a good villain. He’s certainly colorful. Of Truck, he says “he’s like a bulldog with eyes up his ass.” It’s an accurate description: Truck Turner is one bad mother! He sleeps with his gun (which resembles a mini-cannon!) and somebody calls him a “two-ton gorilla”. This is one dude not to be f***ed with. He has a more tender side that mainly shows around his girlfriend Annie (Chase, The Mack), an ex-con who just wants him to take her out of L.A. She has a pet cat who unfortunately meets an ugly demise at the hands of Blue’s thugs.
Hayes might not rank alongside the best of the black action stars (e.g. Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown, Fred “The Hammer” Williamson), but he’s no slouch either. He kicks some serious ass over the course of 91 minutes. Also, look for B-movie regulars Dick Miller (Hollywood Boulevard) and Charles Cyphers (Assault on Precinct 13) in smaller roles.
By now, you get that Truck Turner isn’t exactly Oscar material. I don’t see the arthouse crowd flocking to this one. It’s a far cry from Bergman and Fellini. It’s a violent, misogynistic, tough and profane blaxploitation movie that likely saw its fair share of screen time in many an urban grindhouse theater. I could easily see this playing on a triple bill on 42nd Street with titles like The Mack and Detroit 3000. It’s good for what it is. Hayes, in addition to starring, provides a groovy score that adds to the excitement while giving it a distinctive 70s flavor. More than once, I felt like I was watching a cop show from that era.
Truck Turner may not even be the best of the blaxploitation flicks, but it does what it does pretty well and more than serves its purpose.
