Truck Turner (1974)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Jonathan Kaplan

Writers:

Michael Allin (writer)
Leigh Chapman (writer)

Release Date:

19 April 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Black, bold and bloody mean!

Plot:

Truck is a bounty hunter who gets a job to track down a guy named Gator. When he and his partner find him...

Plot Keywords:

Bounty Hunter | Vengeance | Hospital | Organized Crime | Convertible

Cast

Isaac Hayes	...	Mac 'Truck' Turner
Yaphet Kotto	...	Harvard Blue
Alan Weeks	...	Jerry
Annazette Chase	...	Annie
Nichelle Nichols	...	Dorinda
Sam Laws	...	Nate Dinwiddie
Paul Harris	...	Richard Leroy 'Gator' Johnson
Charles Cyphers	...	Drunk
John Kramer	...	Desmond
Scatman Crothers	...	Duke
Dick Miller	...	Fogarty
Bob Harris	...	Snow
Jac Emil	...	Reno
Stan Shaw	...	Fontana
Wendell Tucker	...	Wendell

Also Known As:

Black Bullet

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

France:-16 | West Germany:18 | Australia:R | Netherlands:16 | Sweden:(Banned) | UK:18 | USA:R | Norway:18 (video rating)

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

American International Pictures (AIP)

Quotes:

Dorinda: What's the matter, Blue? Can't you cut the job?
Harvard Blue: I am the job. I came here to get 'em off your ass!
Dorinda: My ass is in good shape.
Harvard Blue: Your ass is into hot water without a boat!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

That's Mack 'Truck' Turner

Carrying around a 44 Magnum that was probably bought at the same place Dirty Harry Callahan bought his, Isaac Hayes essays the role of Truck Turner, former pro-football player turned skip tracer. Hayes is not too squeamish about what he has to do to bring back a given quarry and along with partner Alan Weeks, being a skip tracer he's not bound by the rules that Clint Eastwood has to live by as a cop.

My best recollection of Isaac Hayes is as the jail house friend of James Garner in The Rockford Files. Gandolf Fitch was a man of few words and a very short fuse and next to him, Truck Turner is positively garrulous.

The first part of the film is almost lighthearted in nature as we see Hayes and Weeks go about their jobs and we Hayes's relationship with girlfriend Anazette Chase. She's a nice woman, but an incurable shoplifter that Hayes constantly has to bail out and pay the fines or the merchandise for. The end of the first half though concludes with a car chase to rival Bullitt in which Weeks is wounded and their skip trace, a pimp played by Paul Harris is killed.

After this the film changes mood so abruptly it's like watching a second film. Harris's woman and partner Nichelle Nichols wants Hayes dead and will pay anything for it and brings in a whole bunch of business competitors led by Yaphett Kotto to do the job. The second half of the film is a serious of gunfights, climaxed by a blazing shootout in a hospital.

For those who remember Nichelle Nichols as the nice Lieutenant Uhura forever with that earpiece and trying to open channels on the starship Enterprise, you won't recognize the murderous fury that's in this character played by the same woman. She steals the film from Hayes in every scene she's in. I would not want her on my case.

Truck Turner is a good action film with an astonishing portrayal from Nichelle Nichols. Star Trek fans might want to check this one out.