White Line Fever

Wednesday, September 28 at 7:30 PM — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the door

WHITE LINE FEVER
Directed by Jonathan Kaplan • 1975
If you loved Jonathan Kaplan’s Truck Turner but were disappointed to find out it didn’t have any actual trucks in it, have we got the movie for you. Falling midway along Kaplan’s path from director of exploitation pictures like The Student Teachers to his more “legitimate” dramas like Over the Edge and The Accused, White Line Fever keeps one foot firmly in both worlds. Described by the director as “the modern Western with trucks instead of horses” and strongly influenced by Sam Peckinpah, it follows a morally upright young truck driver (played by real-life bad guy Jan-Michael Vincent) who lands himself in a world of trouble by refusing to haul contraband goods. His steadfastness in the face of extreme abuse from trucking company goons, corrupt law enforcement, and corporate supervillains unites his fellow exploited truckers (but not before we get our ticket price’s worth of insane truck stunts). Like most good Westerns, White Line Fever deals in complicated dualities. “Consider the truck,” Kaplan seems to say, portraying them as diesel-spewing death-machines, violent tools of corporate interest, and — in heartbreakingly beautiful shots of them crossing the Arizona desert — symbols of something much harder to put into words. Featuring a supporting cast of Peckinpah regulars including Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, and the late L.Q. Jones as a leering trucking company manager. (RL)
90 min • Columbia • 35mm from Sony Pictures Repertory, permission Swank
Preceded by: “Truck Song” (Bernard Wilets, 1988) – 13 min – 16mm