Bonnie and McCloud
The
head of a trucking company is killed before eyewitnesses, and McCloud’s
girlfriend is the culprit.
A Hitch in Your Gitalong
A
great homage to Hitchcock making way for Peckinpah’s Convoy. The Straker
Trucking Company is under investigation by a Senate committee for
irregularities in its pension fund. Jack Straker puts the muscle on his former
mistress Bonnie Foster, who is now dating McCloud. Straker and Bonnie wrestle
over a gun, it goes off, and Bonnie goes to an unwitting McCloud for help. He
gives her a police escort to the airport so she can visit her ailing father in
Houston.
McCloud
returns to his hotel room (516, The Essex) and finds Chief Clifford smoking a
cigar. How would McCloud like to hear a description of the assailant’s
companion? “Tall, rangy, wearing a Stetson and a mangy sheepskin coat.” McCloud
is placed on suspension, and Chief Clifford’s desperation is revealed in his
carrot-and-stick approach to Sgt Broadhurst, who is assigned the task of
keeping McCloud “away from me, away from the press, away from everybody!” How
would the sergeant like to be promoted? How would he like to pound a beat
again?
While
Sgt. Broadhurst is biding his time in the Essex lobby, he does not notice that
Bebe Murchinson is being paged, the paint-spraying prostitute from “The Day New
York Turned Blue”. McCloud eludes Broadhurst just long enough to get to Kennedy
Airport, where the latter handcuffs them together and then is persuaded to
accompany McCloud to Oklahoma, where he has traced Bonnie. The truckers are
mobilized by Straker’s henchmen to find his killer, the County Sheriff is led
to believe that McCloud is an outlaw, Sgt. Broadhurst winds up in the hospital,
and Bonnie tells the story of Straker’s nefarious doings to the lot of them
over Steam Hammer’s CB radio. A convoy carries Bonnie and McCloud over the
border into Texas.
Two
other episodes are cited, “Lady on the Run” and “The Colorado Cattle Caper”.
|
Leigh Taylor-Young Bonnie Foster |
Written by Michael Sloan Directed by Steven H. Stern |
45601, 10.24.76
Gregory Walcott is billed as 2nd Attendant.
Trucker handles heard include “Black Widow”, “Red Dragon”,
“Montana Mustang”, “Bird Dog”, “Eagle Rock”, “Fast Eddie” and “Groundhog”.
Among the “choke ‘n pukes” where the “gearjammers” go for
“100 WT oil” (or the weaker 40 WT) before heading out on the “slab,” is an
actual location (perhaps no longer extant) called Sheriff’s Western Truck &
Auto Center.
CHIEF CLIFFORD: It’s an exceptional night, McCloud.
The kind of night where intelligent, rational men take stock of themselves, and
begin to doubt their sanity.
CHIEF CLIFFORD: (The murder suspect had an accomplice.) Now see
what this description does for you, McCloud. (Reading.) “Tall,
rangy, wearing a Stetson and a heavy coat with a mangy sheepskin collar.”
McCLOUD: (To Chief Clifford.) Birddoggin’s muh specialty!
McCLOUD: (To Sgt. Broadhurst.) Well, ya
can’t get the lard less’n ya boil the hog.
SGT. BROADHURST: I’m not blowin’
fifteen years on the force and eight years of marriage just to help make you a
hero.
McCLOUD: You don’t
have to worry about your promotion, you’re never gonna make lieutenant. Ya know
why?
SGT.
BROADHURST: You better spell it out for me, McCloud.
McCLOUD: Because ya’ve got no guts! No guts!
McCLOUD: (To Sgt. Broadhurst.) Where I
come from, when we’re on the trail o’ somethin’, we
just mount up ‘n ride off.
McCLOUD: You’re a cog in Clifford’s machinery! You’re the butt end
of his cigar!
SGT.
BROADHURST: I’m gonna make you eat those words, McCloud. Every one!
(Sgt. Broadhurst won’t take the handcuffs off McCloud in
Oklahoma.)
SGT. BROADHURST: In Mexico, you get me drunk. In Colorado, you get me
beaten up and thrown in jail. I’m not losing you again.
(They make their way on foot through a cornfield.)
SGT. BROADHURST: Is this your idea of a short cut?
McCLOUD: Just
think o’ Fifth Avenue at rush hour.
McCLOUD: Ya know, a lot’s happened t’ me since I seen ya last,
Bonnie. I’ve embarrassed the New York Police Department, I’ve been suspended
from the force, I’ve been handcuffed to a fellow officer, I’ve
been beaten up and sprayed with DDT. But since I’ve come this far, that is if
you don’t mind, I’d just as soon talk to ya alone.
2nd OFFICER: Where’d you learn to drive, Marshal?
Indianapolis?
McCLOUD: I’m lucky
to be drivin’ at all! I just had a run-in with a
couple o’ eighteen-wheelers across the highway there, did ya see ‘em? They
tried to kill us!
2nd
OFFICER: You sure you didn’t just try to cut in front of ‘em? Truckers
don’t like that.
CHIEF CLIFFORD: (On the telephone to Sheriff Matheson.) I’ll be
on the next plane to Oklahoma City. (Hangs up.) Betty!
BETTY:
(Entering the office, a policewoman.) You’re on flight three-one-seven, you leave in fifty-five minutes.
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: How do you know?
BETTY: Well, whenever you send McCloud someplace... (Her hands
are at her sides, she raises them slightly outward to finish her thought.)
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: Oh. I understand.
CHARLIE WATSON: (Holding a gun on McCloud.) Come down
from the big city, goin’ on a killin’ spree! Well, I
wanna tell ya somethin’, brother. Ya picked the wrong
town this time, I’ll tell ya that.
CHARLIE WATSON: (To McCloud.) I know
you police take care of y’ own. Well, I wanna tell you sump’n,
we take care of our own down here, too.
CHARLIE WATSON: Well, Marshal, this’s
where ‘n how it’s gonna be. You’re lucky,
most people go through their whole lifetime without ever knowin’.
(McCloud is sought in the killing of a deputy.)
SHERIFF
MATHESON: (Resignedly.) Some cops go bad.
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: (Screwing up his face into an expression of painful disgust.) Not this
one. He’s so straight it makes you cry.
(“Big Mama” has a message for Chief Clifford.)
“BIG MAMA”: Ah, hey, uh, Chief Peter B.
Clifford?
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: That’s right.
“BIG MAMA”: I’m “Big Mama”!
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: That’s nice. (Starts to go.)
CHIEF CLIFFORD: (On CB radio.) McCloud,
if one more deputy’s killed in this State—
McCLOUD: Gotta go,
Chief. This place is hottin’ up. (Hangs
up microphone.)
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: McCloud, don’t run that roadblock!
CHIEF CLIFFORD: You always drive this fast?
“BIG
MAMA”: Only when I’m not in a hurry.
HELICOPTER PILOT: (On radio, observing the phalanx of
trucks heading for the roadblock.) Delta One, this is Delta Two. Boys,
you got Patton’s army comin’ at you. Get off the road!
McCLOUD: (To Chief Clifford.) I just have a feelin’ we can wrap this whole thing up in no time and have
somethin’ for the Senate Committee besides.