Badlands (1973)

Based on the Starkweather-Fugate killing spree of the 1958, in which a fifteen-year-old girl and her twenty-five-year-old boyfriend slaughtered her entire family and several others in the Dakota badlands.

Director:

Terrence Malick

Writer:

Terrence Malick

Stars:

Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 3 wins.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Martin Sheen	...	Kit
Sissy Spacek	...	Holly
Warren Oates	...	Father
Ramon Bieri	...	Cato
Alan Vint	...	Deputy
Gary Littlejohn	...	Sheriff
John Carter	...	Rich Man
Bryan Montgomery	...	Boy
Gail Threlkeld	...	Girl
Charles Fitzpatrick	...	Clerk
Howard Ragsdale	...	Boss
John Womack Jr.	...	Trooper
Dona Baldwin	...	Maid
Ben Bravo	...	Gas Attendant

Storyline

Kit Carruthers, a young garbage collector and his girlfriend Holly Sargis from Fort Dupree, South Dakota, are on the run after killing Holly's father who disagreed with their relationship. On their way towards the Badlands of Montana they leave a trail of dispassionate and seemingly random murders. A very intriguing narrative without judgements, and lacking the usually sensational approach of this genre. Very good acting and directing, and beautiful photography. The script was based upon the true story of the Charles Starkweather and Caril-Ann Fugate murders in 1958.

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Plot Keywords:

murder | killing spree | south dakota | badlands | on the run | 

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Taglines:

He was 25 years old. He combed his hair like James Dean. She was 15. She took music lessons and could twirl a baton. For a while they lived together in a tree house. In 1959, she watched while he killed a lot of people.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

7 April 1975 (Sweden)

Also Known As:

La balade sauvage

Filming Locations:

Bloom Mansion - 312 E Main Street, Trinidad, Colorado, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$450,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros, Pressman-Williams, Jill Jakes Production

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although Charlie Starkweather had been executed when the movie came up for production, Caril Fugate was still alive and facing parole, prompting the filmmakers to change the names of the principal characters to avoid a lawsuit.

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Goofs

In the airport scene at the end many of the troops are armed with M-14 and M-16 rifles (as indicated by the flash suppressors.) While these weapons would be contemporary with the filming, they are much later than the film's time frame (late 1950s).

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Quotes

[first lines]
Holly Sargis: [voice over narration] My Mother dies of pneumonia when I was just a kid. My Father kept their wedding cake int he freezer for ten whole years. After the funeral he gave it to the yard man. He tried to act cheerful but he could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his house. Then one day hoping to begin a new life away from the scene of all these memories he moved us from Texas to Port Dupree, South Dakota.

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Connections

Referenced in Siskel & Ebert: True Romance/The Ballad of Little Jo/Kalifornia/The Joy Luck Club/The Real McCoy (1993)

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Soundtracks

"Gassenhauer"
(uncredited)
by Carl Orff

User Reviews

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday...

It's really a shame that Terrence Malick didn't have the brilliant career he deserved at Hollywood. Shot with a nearly shoestring budget, "Badlands" remains one of the most dazzling debut movies of all time. Malick's legend based on his (long) absence has helped it to become a cult-movie. Inspired by a tragic short news item which took place in 1959 (a young couple who decides to commit a series of free murders to leave a mark in history), the odds are that Malick's first feature-length movie inspired Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino for their dangerous and irresponsible "Natural Born Killers" (1994). Concerning Tarantino, I read an interview about him in which he expressed his admiration of Malick's work. It shows that the author of "Pulp Fiction" (1994) has a great esteem for this talented and mysterious film-maker. At the same time, we can also note down that Malick's work inspired Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen two songs: "Badlands" on his "darkness on the edge of town" album (1978) and "nebraska" on the eponymous LP(1982).

An American journalist had written that "Badlands" was the best mastered movie in the history of cinema since "Citizen Kane" (1941) by Orson Welles. One can judge this affirmation as exaggerated but it is nevertheless indisputable that Malick's opus strikes on numerous aspects: an assertive and opaque story, a fluid making, a relevant screenplay, an original photography which gives to the landscapes an image of desolation and lost paradise perturbed by a free violence. The work is also strongly steeped in a certain poetry.

Concerning the two main characters, a French critic had written that it was difficult to feel liking for these two irresponsible. I think that this critic badly analyzed the film. Terrence Malick doesn't try to make them likable to us. He describes them without kindness and condescension. They haven't got an imposing personality and live only through an intermediary myth. It is particularly obvious for the young man (Martin Sheen) who is obsessed with James Dean. One can also say that Sissi Spacek's voice-over which tells this dramatic story is of an amazing neutrality. Then, unlike many criminal lovers, Sheen and Spacek will live at the heart of this violence and the latter won't bring them together or take them away.

With "Badlands", Malick was judicious for the choice of the actors. In a way, his first movie enabled to put Sheen and Spacek on the map and it also launched their respective careers. Then, what happened to Terrence Malick after this sensational debut movie? A second movie, "Days of Heaven" (1978) starring Richard Gere as successful as "Badlands". After that, for twenty years, nothing. However, in 1998, Malick made a rather successful come-back with "the Thin Red Line" (1998). According to the latest news, he would currently shoot a movie about the first years of America's colonization in the beginning of the seventeenth century. If my memory serves me well, the movie will be released next year. Let's hope so...