Irish Film Institute -ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE

ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE

Director: JAMES WILLIAM GUERCIO

U.S.A. • 1973 • COLOUR • ANAMORPHIC • DOLBY STEREO • 114 MIN.


BOASTING STUNNING WIDE-SCREEN CINEMATOGRAPHY BY CONRAD HALL, THIS OVERLOOKED GEM OF 1970S AMERICAN CINEMA IS A STRIKING ONE-OFF BY FORMER RECORD PRODUCER JAMES WILLIAM GUERCIO.
Often misunderstood as some kind of right-wing riposte to Easy Rider, it’s essentially a black comedy about a pint-sized Arizona motorcycle cop who means well. At heart a naive, by-the-book policeman who harbours dreams of becoming a detective, John Wintergreen (an excellent Robert Blake) is a kind of Candide figure who learns the hard way that everything is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Given an opportunity to work with a real detective on a murder case, he discovers that his mentor has no use for evidence, preferring instead to stand in the moonlight listening to his inner voices. In fact, the police department is riddled with corruption, and a disheartened Wintergreen soon finds himself back where he started, riding his Harley Davidson along seemingly endless stretches of highway. Beyond its beautiful images of Monument Valley, Guercio’s film uncovers dark depths of loneliness and despair in a divided American culture of the 1970s.

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