…tick…tick…tick… promised tension, thrills & transformation, in another 1970 race-relations drama set in a Southern-fried small town, but despite a cast of vets headed by a personality & publicity pre-sold leading man it fumbled the job, turning into ...tepid…tepid..tepid...*

‘Colusa County’, somewhere ‘down South’. Sheriff  ‘John Little’ (George Kennedy) has been defeated for reelection. Fair’nuff, ceptin’ the new man happens to be ‘Jim Price’ (Jim Brown) and while Jim may be the right man for the job he’s the wrong color for the sweltering burg’s spite-raised gaggle of racist rednecks. Little’s a decent guy, and so’s the gruff-but-fair Mayor-since-Vicksburg ‘Jim Parks’ (Fredric March), but the deck is otherwise stacked with sweaty bigots, braying bitches and dimwitted brutes, both white and black.  An equal-opportunity place to move the hell away from.

Colusa, California (north of Sacramento) did simmering duty as the Dixie perspiration & prejudice pit. The three variously charismatic leads and some made-for-grit supporting dudes heft weight which is otherwise dropped by the writing (tripe), editing (blunt), direction (offhand to bizarre) and scoring (abject pitiful). In reserved and amiable mode, Kennedy’s imposing size and likability (when a good guy) provide some degree of characterization depth to his fulcrum role. Cagey pro March opts to go garrulous and cranky, close to the edge of the parody line without quite shuffling over it. Also on tap that year in The Grasshopper and El Condor, Brown’s impassive aura had served effectively in actioners like The Dirty Dozen, Dark Of The Sun, Riot and 100 Rifles but chiseled and cool-tuned-chilly, with limited range (let alone attitude) he’s considerably less convincing as a ‘nice’ guy in the Poitier mold; he’s merely okay here, not helped at all by the script. Ladling out white trash venom with customary relish are Don Stroud, Bob Random, Clifton James, Dub Taylor, Mills Watson and Anthony James.

The screenplay by James Lee Barrett (Bandolero!, The Green Berets, Smokey And The Bandit) sets up viable possibilities and then goes nowhere with them, flatlining dialogue into triteness, subplots that blink out, with a finale whopper: the local Klan sides with the new sheriff in a deux ex machina turnabout more fit for a Disney musical than anything resembling race hatred reality. In his “whatever?” direction, the once-capable Ralph Nelson (responsible that year for the truly execrable Soldier Blue) and his editor muff one sequence after another, and somehow (Nelson produced as well) made the asinine choice to overlay ten songs (sung by The Glaser Brothers–you’ve been warned—with Mike Curb as Music Supervisor, just run away) that aren’t just non-germane to the action but plain lousy to boot. The zenith of this foolhardiness comes when a upbeat instrumental version of “Gentle On My Mind” accompanies a foot-chase pursuit and rock-pummeling following the death of a little girl from a drunk driving car wreck. Sticking with the rest of the movie after that moronic segment is optional with red lights flashing to EXIT.

Grosses ticked to $6,500,000, 46th place. Others in the cast include Lynn Carlin (plain oatmeal as Kennedy’s spouse), Janet MacLachlan (a cut-out cipher as Brown’s wife), Bernie Casey (spoiling for Black Power payback), Richard Elkins, Karl Swenson, Dan Frazer, William Walker and Roy Glenn (demoted from Sidney Poitier’s dignified dad in Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner to two minutes here—as the town drunk. 100 minutes.

* “Get back, honky cat”—Race-baiting ‘The Man’ in 1970—Cotton Comes To Harlem, The Great White Hope, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!, The Liberation Of L.B. Jones, Watermelon Man, The Landlord, The McMasters and Halls Of Anger. 

The way paved, the following year badass Shaft (“Hush yo mouth!”) kicked off the ‘Blaxploitation’ cycle, to which Brown, shrugging aside the ‘nice’ fib, contributed glower to Slaughter, Black Gunn, Slaughter’s Big Rip-off, The Slams, Three The Hard Way, Take A Hard Ride and One Down, Two To Go.

Our Man George—ticking didn’t do much for Kennedy, but 1970 flew him a winner with Airport.

Forward, March—the great Fredric, 72 in this movie, made just one more, part of the ensemble three years later in The Iceman Cometh. He passed away in 1975.

Direct/misdirect—Ralph Nelson started strong (Requiem For A Heavyweight, Lilies Of The Field, Fate Is The Hunter, Duel At Diablo) then downshifted starting with Counterpoint and Charly, then Soldier Blue, The Wrath Of God, The Wilby Conspiracy, Embryo.