By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the 1974 drama-thriller The California Kid, starring Martin Sheen, Vic Morrow, Michelle Phillips and Nick Nolte.
The 1974 drama thriller The California Kid is a wondrous head-on collision between two actors famous for their measured, slow-burning intensity: Martin Sheen and Vic Morrow. Interestingly, both of these fine actors also have a strong connection to the telemovie field.
Though he would of course find major stardom in cult classics like 1973’s Badlands and 1979’s Apocalypse Now, Martin Sheen featured in some terrific small screen films early in his career (1971’s Mongo’s Back In Town, 1972’s Welcome Home Johnny Bristol and That Certain Summer) and tracked back there even when he’d achieved greater success, delivering superb performances in 1974’s The Execution Of Private Slovik, 1975’s Sweet Hostage and more.
Tragically, Vic Morrow – a rugged, commanding screen presence if ever there was one – is best known for his horrific death above all else. Decapitated during a helicopter accident while filming 1983’s The Twilight Zone, Morrow’s death changed safety rules in Hollywood and threw the “anything for the shot” mentality of some directors into stark, ugly relief. Famed for his iconic role in the groundbreaking 1960s WW2-set TV series Combat! and for films like The Bad News Bears (1976) and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), Morrow’s run of telemovies is just as impressive as Martin Sheen’s, with essential titles like A Step Out Of Line (1971), The Glass House (1972) and The Night That Panicked America (1975) dotting his resume.
Martin Sheen and Vic Morrow really throw sparks off each other in The California Kid, a truly top-notch small screen effort from director and Unsung Auteur Richard T. Heffron (Trackdown, Outlaw Blues, Futureworld) and screenwriter Richard Compton (Macon County Line). Set in 1958, The California Kid should really have been called “The California Kid Versus Sheriff Roy Childress”, because this tight, taut little hot-roddin’ drama-thriller is a two-hander all the way, the story of vastly different men on opposite sides of the law who share a dangerous love for on-road speed that will likely leave one of them dead.
Sheriff Roy Childress (Morrow) is the law in the small town of Clarksberg, and he won’t hear otherwise. The taciturn lawman especially hates speedsters, so much so that he chases them down in his own hotted up patrol car, and then bumps them off the bitumen on the circuitous, cliff-hugging roads that loop the town, sending them crashing and crunching to their death. We see Sheriff Roy Childress delivering this sadistic brand of on-road lawmaking in the film’s first thrilling scene, so there’s no doubt about who the bad guy is here. Richard Compton’s script, however, offers enough shading and nuance to prevent this classy tale from ever becoming too simplistic.
Sheriff Roy Childress meets his match when gear-head Michael McCord (Sheen) quietly rolls into town in his own souped-up 1934 Ford, which comes complete with painted-on flames and his own eponymous moniker stencilled on the door. Cool, calm, earnest, but curiously kind (Sheen is even more like James Dean here than he is in Badlands), McCord quickly ingratiates himself with the local youngsters (one of whom is energetically played by a youthful and very fresh-faced Nick Nolte), and catches the eye of beautiful waitress Maggie, winningly played by the luminous Michelle Phillips (the Mamas And The Papas singer was also a very fetching actress, and she’s particularly effective here). Sheriff Roy Childress, meanwhile, watches, bristles and boils from the sidelines, convinced that Michael McCord and his 1934 Ford aren’t parked in his town by accident.
Though, like in many telemovies, the period details in The California Kid aren’t exactly properly nailed down (opal-bracelet-wearing Morrow’s hair is far longer than any 1950s smalltown sheriff, while Phillips looks like she’s just walked off the stage with Mama Cass), this is highly involving, gripping stuff. A solid hand at action, Richard T. Heffron really gets things going in the telemovie’s perfectly timed selection of well-choreographed car chase sequences, making the most of his wide-open-spaces locations, and cannily connecting emotion and meaning with the high-speed on-screen thrills. The vintage cars give it all added edge, while the score by brilliantly named telemovie and exploitation regular Luchi De Jesus drives the action with real flare.
With the spare script leaving plenty of room for Sheen and Morrow to engage in ample wordless interplay, these two wonderful actors use their facial expressions and body language with expert grace, mining glorious swathes of tension out of every scene they share together. It all leads to a rubber-shredding climax that won’t disappoint. Lean and minimalist at a trim 74 minutes, The California Kid plays out almost like a cleaned-up, more centre-of-the-road TV model of big screen 1970s existentialist car flicks like 1971’s Two-Lane Blacktop and Vanishing Point. Sure, it’s not nearly as tripped out as those cult wonders, but there’s something undeniably cool about the pared-back style of The California Kid.
A geared-down but still dynamic showcase for two excellent (and considerably underrated) actors, The California Kid is a thrilling battle of wills between two well-drawn and impressively iconoclastic characters, and rates as nothing less than a forgotten gem.
Availability: The California Kid is available as a Region 1 import DVD, and also on US Blu-ray…though it will cost you. The film can also be sourced fairly easily online in a reasonably clear, clean presentation.
If you enjoyed this review, check out our other vintage telemovies The Cracker Factory, Night Terror, Inmates: A Love Story, The Shadow Riders, CHiPs: Roller Disco, Dawn: Portrait Of A Teenage Runaway, Young Love, First Love, Escape From Bogen County, The Death Squad, Hit Lady, Brian’s Song, The Defiant Ones, A Cry For Help, Trilogy Of Terror, Policewoman Centerfold, Smash-Up On Interstate 5, Something Evil, Savage, A Step Out Of Line, The Boy In The Plastic Bubble, The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission, A Very Brady Christmas, The Gladiator, Elvis, The Rat Pack, Silent Victory: The Kitty O’Neil Story, Terror Among Us, The Hanged Man, Hardcase, Charlie’s Angels: Angels In Vegas, Vanishing Point, To Heal A Nation, Fugitive Among Us, To Kill A Cop, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Police Story: A Chance To Live, Murder On Flight 502, Moon Of The Wolf, The Secret Night Caller, Cotton Candy, And The Band Played On, Gargoyles, Death Car On The Freeway, Short Walk To Daylight, Trapped, Hotline, Killdozer, The Jericho Mile, Mongo’s Back In Town and Tribes.
