Walking Tall (1973)

To get away from a business where he’s always told what to do, to please his wife Pauline (Elizabeth Hartman), and to provide a steadier home for their children, the delightfully named Buford Pusser (Joe Don Baker) retires from wrestling to the small Southern town where he grew up in and that parts of his family still call home.

The place has changed, though, and not necessarily for the better. It has grown its own little vice district, and while the things going on there look pretty damn harmless to my eyes, Buford seems rather shocked on his first encounter. When he makes a fuss about the local casino cheating one of his old buddies – who clearly isn’t the most intelligent or mentally healthy to boot – the owners of the place react absurdly violent, not just beating Buford to an inch of his life, but also cutting him up with knives and leaving him somewhere by the side of the road to die. Our hero’s made from stern stuff, though, and survives his ordeal. Afterwards he doesn’t just learn the bastards also stole his station wagon but that the local sheriff’s not willing to do a damn thing about the people who nearly murdered him. Consequently, once he has recovered, he makes himself a very big stick and goes out for some vigilante justice, combining brutally beating up his would-be killers with having them pay an invoice for his damages. Him, the Sheriff does arrest, but the ensuing trial sees Buford giving a rousing speech and getting of scot free.

Next step in his project to clean up town is to run for Sheriff himself. Clearly, there’s a demand for an honest man in the role, even if he’s an amateur like Buford. Before and after he becomes Sheriff, Buford has to cope with various attacks on his life, family troubles, and the general corruption of parts of the charming little town.

Walking Tall is the first of the two films at the end of his career veteran director Phil Karlson made with Joe Don Baker, and it is generally considered to be the slightly superior one. Personally, in a cinch, I’d probably go with Framed as the slightly superior film, but that has more to do with that film’s shorter running time, tighter structure and more controlled sentimentality than with anything Walking Tall does terribly wrong. This is just a differently shaped film, telling a story of a greater scope in time and vaguely basing itself on actual events concerning the real Buford Pusser. To which degree, I don’t know, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to.

In theory, this could be one of those films whose too loud love for vigilante justice and dislike for stuff like the actual rule of law or the separation of power between judicative and executive could sour me on it too much to have fun with it. In practice, the film does use these latter bits also to portray the degree of Pusser’s naivety when it comes to the things needed beside a moral compass to do his new job properly.

In other regards, this is just a simple joy to watch: Joe Don does the Joe Don Baker swagger, inhabiting his role in a way which makes questions of “acting” seem pointless, Karlson uses his direct but effective style to the best, and most entertaining effect, and the whole thing has a wonderful sense of place. Of course, that place is a made-up sort of South made of idealisations, clichés and truth in probably equal parts but it feels alive and real on film.

Speaking of the US South, I do find it interesting to point out that both of the Baker/Karlson films feature one major black character as a friend of Joe Don’s respective character who isn’t a caricature, with actual things to do in the plot, and positioned in a way to give the film some opportunity to talk about racism in its specific Southern variety, in scenes that suggest someone involved in the production had some practical experience with these matters beyond the burning crosses and knew how this sort of thing played out in real life in smaller – but not less painful – ways at this time and place. It’s also just pretty cool to have a film showing a guy like Joe Don actively trying not being a racist prick, and even apologizing when parts of his socialisation make him act like a prick.


If you don’t care about that sort of thing and only come to see Joe Don Baker smite evildoers with his big stick, you’re well provided by Walking Tall, too.