The Sugarland Express (1974)

A woman attempts to reunite her family by helping her husband escape prison and together kidnapping their son. But things don't go as planned when they are forced to take a police hostage on the road.

Director:

Steven Spielberg

Writers:

Hal Barwood (screenplay), Matthew Robbins (screenplay)

Stars:

Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, Michael Sacks

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Goldie Hawn	...	Lou Jean Sparrow Poplin
Ben Johnson	...	Capt. Harlan Tanner
Michael Sacks	...	Officer Maxwell Slide
William Atherton	...	Clovis Michael Poplin
Gregory Walcott	...	Mashburn
Steve Kanaly	...	Officer Ernie Jessup
Louise Latham	...	Mrs. Looby
Harrison Zanuck	...	Baby Langston
A.L. Camp	...	Mr. Alvin T. Nocker
Jessie Lee Fulton	...	Mrs. Nocker
Dean Smith	...	Russ Berry
Ted Grossman	...	Dietz
Bill Thurman	...	Hunter
Kenneth Hudgins	...	Standby #1
Buster Daniels	...	Buster Daniels - Drunk (as Buster Danials)

Storyline

Lou-Jean, a blonde woman, tells her husband, who is imprisoned, to escape. They plan to kidnap their own child, who was placed with foster parents. The escape is partly successful, they take a hostage, who is a policeman and are pursued through to Texas...

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Plot Keywords:

texas | hostage | pursuit | highway | police car | 

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Taglines:

Every cop in the state was after her. Everybody else was behind her.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 April 1974 (USA)

Also Known As:

Carte Blanche

Filming Locations:

San Antonio, Texas, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Zanuck/Brown Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

110 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Steven Spielberg: [music] This film marked the beginning of Spielberg's friendship with John Williams. As of 2016, Williams has scored every Spielberg-directed theatrical film except The Color Purple (1985), Bridge of Spies (2015) and the anthology film Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

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Goofs

Throughout the film, Captain Tanner's unmarked blue Dodge Polara is shown to have full-size factory hubcaps. When he is crashed into by the local sheriff trying to "76" the hi-jacked patrol car, Tanner jumps out and the car now has typical police dog dish hubcaps.

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Quotes

Clovis Poplin: We're in real trouble.
Clovis Poplin: Say, I didn't mean what I said.
Maxwell Slide: What was that?
Clovis Poplin: When I called you a son of a bitch, I didn't mean it
Maxwell Slide: And you ain't no mental subject neither.

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Connections

Referenced in Swordfish: The Effects in Focus - The Flying Bus (2001)

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Soundtracks

The Eyes of Texas
(uncredited)
Traditional
[Played by marching band when the car enters Rodrigues, Texas]

User Reviews

Spielberg's first film is wonderful, a classic.

Haven't heard about "Sugarland Express" till recently and I had to see it because it was vintage Spielberg, and I'm a fan. And I wanted to see the young Goldie Hawn. I was not disappointed. It was one of these road-chase movies, bigger than life, but it was unique, especially because it was based on a true story. That fact made me incredulous throughout the film, but everything in Texas is supposed to be bigger than life.

Goldie desperately wants to get her baby back. She was in jail for some minor crimes and was found to be an unfit mother and her baby was put in a foster home and the foster parents were going to adopt him. Despite being a young girl, or maybe because of it, she was desperate to have her baby back. It was a love-child and the mother-love was passionate and obsessive. Hawn played the part to the hilt and used her sexuality and femininity to overcome the objections of her husband who was in a pre-release facility with low security.

She had a plan to help him escape, but he didn't want to risk it, take a chance of being caught and being incarcerated again. He only had four more months to serve. The other inmates were incredulous as they disguised themselves and got an old couple to give them a ride.

From this quiet beginning the film proceeded to repeated crescendos of drama and excitement. Try to imagine the young couple, young officer in tow, leading a chase of police cars, first a few, then a few dozen, then many dozen and ultimately hundreds, law-enforcement officers from all over the state and then snipers and a helicopter.

Lucky for the young couple an old-hand cop realized they were just a couple of kids and he staved off snipers with telescopic long-range rifles and a couple of vigilante gun-nuts.

You know something bad is going to happen at the end, because these kids didn't know what they were doing; they were madly in love and in a fantasy-land of getting their little boy back and living happily ever after in Mexico. Something bad happened, but something good happened. It will be worth your while to see this little classic from one of the greatest directors of the 20th century.