With Peter Fonda’s recent passing, I felt it was time to take a ride with Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), the cult car chase action thriller that was apparently a sleeper hit at the time of release. While it’s promoted like Bonnie & Clyde on the posters with thief Larry (Peter Fonda) on the run from the law after pulling a heist on a small town supermarket, picking up a one night stand who tags along for the hectic shenanigans named Mary (Susan George from Straw Dogs), their relationship is built on the pseudo-screwball-throwback back-and-forth patter that seemed popular at the time (and feels both written and improvised). Larry’s connection to Mary doesn’t seem as deep as his relationship to the third party not even mentioned in the title, Deke (Adam Roarke), Larry’s partner and mechanic (they are planning to pay for a new race car with the money) and the arguments about the past he and Larry have throughout. Invaluable in the mix is supporting actor Vic Morrow as the gruff captain after them, who keeps marching into the police offices and perfectly delivering grouchy one-liners and insults in his maddened pursuit of these ‘long-haired’ crooks. While it wasn’t the non-stop chase I presumed it would be – there’s plenty of stops and detours to expand the characters – whenever there’s a major stunt in the movie, it clears the space and lets you feel the dynamic impact and the real physics involved in a car leaping over a bridge or flying across a farm-house roof. Fonda himself is great, investing his character with a psychotic laugh and attitude to burn (My favourite line, accompanied by a zoom-in: “Well ya’ know what it means when somebody like me gets off to a bad start? Not a God damn thing!”). Directed by John Hough, it’s good fun at 94 minutes, complete with one heck of a sudden ending. Recommended.
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