Sugarland Express

UPC: 025192558122

Studio: Universal Studios

MPAA Rating: PG   Contains:[Violence, Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Profanity]

Summary: Based on an actual incident, Steven Spielberg's first theatrical feature follows the adventures of a Texas outlaw couple striving to keep their family together by any means necessary. Determined not to lose her child to the authorities, Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn) gets her obedient convict husband Clovis (William Atherton) to break out of jail and help her kidnap their baby from its foster parents. With hostage Officer Slide (Michael Sacks) in tow, the fugitives head across the plains to Sugarland, Texas, pursued by a flotilla of cop cars. Even though Slide becomes the couple's friend, the Law is bent on capturing its criminal quarry. Even though it was greeted with strong reviews, and Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Spielberg won the screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival, The Sugarland Express flopped. The young audience that had embraced the challenging tonal shifts of Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider in the late 1960s was no longer so reliably drawn to narrative uncertainties in 1974. The massive success of Spielberg's next picture, the popcorn thriller Jaws (1975), would confirm his suspicion that downbeat films were no longer the way to popular approval. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Category: Crime

Awards: Best Screenplay – Cannes Film Festival Best Screenplay – Cannes Film Festival

Features: Trailer

Sugarland Express

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 08/17/2004

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 110 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: French,Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 --
1. Pre-Release (Main Titles) [4:42]
2. Leaving Today [7:08]
3. Written Warning [4:15]
4. Never Shot a Man [6:38]
5. Real Trouble [6:28]
6. Bad Hombre [7:11]
7. Gettin' Gas [5:59]
8. Hold It [5:23]
9. Drive Thru [6:43]
10. Racked Up [5:55]
11. Sweet Talk [6:35]
12. Reserve Officers [8:20]
13. We Got 'Em [6:35]
14. Stopping for Supplies [5:28]
15. Innocent People [6:37]
16. This is Goodbye [5:07]
17. Don't Stop [8:52]
18. End Titles [1:50]

Michael Hastings

More influential than even the director's fans are willing to give it credit, Steven Spielberg's first theatrical feature exhibits many of the traits that would later become his signatures: a majestic sense of scope; a fleet-footed sense of technique with even the most mundane action sequences; a childlike, na?ve sense of wonder; and, yes, an occasionally cloying sentimentality. The Sugarland Express merges the men-in-cars dynamics of Spielberg's breakthrough TV movie Duel with a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of two holy fools (played impressively but with just a little too much gusto by Goldie Hawn and William Atherton) who will stop at nothing to get their child back. Although the story verges on the melodramatic, what saves the film is Spielberg's sense of space, place, and mood. He's so completely tuned in with his characters' hopes and fears that he's able to convey their every feeling through the visuals, which -- as shot by master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond -- are a mix of documentary-style observational shots, sweeping vistas, and absurdist car chases. With the notable exception of the film's de rigueur, early-'70s unhappy ending, many of Sugarland's story arcs, character quirks, and even camera placements can be traced through every subsequent Spielberg feature, from something as epic as Raiders of the Lost Ark to -- most obviously -- his 2002 fraud-on-the-run hit Catch Me if You Can. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Buster Denials  Actor 
A.L. Camp  Actor 
Kenneth Hudgins  Actor 
Bill Thurman  Actor 
Ted Grossman  Actor 
Guich Koock  Actor 
Gene Rader  Actor 
James Harrell  Actor 
Big John Hamilton  Actor 
Louise Latham  Actor 
William Scott  Actor 
Dean Smith  Actor 
Jessie Lee Fulton  Actor 
Steve Kanaly  Actor 
Robert Golden  Actor 
Merrill Connally  Actor 
Gordon Hurst  Actor 
Hal Barwood  Screenwriter 
David Brown  Producer 
Matthew Robbins  Screenwriter 
Steven Spielberg  Director 
John Williams  Composer (Music Score) 
Richard D. Zanuck  Producer 
Goldie Hawn  Actor 
Ben Johnson  Actor 
Michael Sacks  Actor 
William Atherton  Actor 
Gregory Walcott  Actor 
Harrison Zanuck  Actor 

Country: USA