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Last week's Movie Quiz winners

That's Susan Sarandon in the opening credits of her first film, Joe (1970), directed by John G. Avildsen (Rocky I & V). It's a movie that, over the decades, went from sleeper to hit to dated. And now, I think, it's become an under-rated time-capsule of many of the things good and bad that were happening when it was made, both in the movies and in the country. (Here's a brief, spoiler-free synopsis.)

Of course, the movie's most remembered cast member is Peter Boyle in his breakthrough role as the title character. The pic above catches him in mid N-word, the first of many times he says it, along with every other slur known to the American lexicon circa 1970. As factory worker and would-be hippie-killer Joe Curran, Boyle tapped into the wrong side of the '60s generation gap better than Carroll O'Connor ever did.

The ironic thing was that Joe couldn't have been further from Boyle, who was horrified by the warm reception he got from New York hardhats (after their riot the year of the film), and artistically conflicted by how the film and his performance were obviously being taken by some of its audience. After that, he turned down films he thought promoted violence (including the lead in The French Connection). A profile piece from the NYT in 1970 caught Boyle in mid-conflict, and includes this quote, prophetically, for our own time:

"The message of the movie is very plain," he goes on. "It says that we'd just better stop that war in Vietnam now; that we'd just better stop killing our children there or we're going to be killing our children in the streets here. The Bible says that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword, and that's what's going to happen."

Lots of wrong answers, but lots of winners, too, so congratulations and dinner at Joe's house to the following: Wayne Palmer, H. Gurdyev, Corey Anderson, Bill Kelly, Maggie Ripsin, Dack Anderson, Ryan Backman, E. Yarber, Bill Hearne, Mark Gisleson, Dennis Lynch, Mike Moore, mick, and Song-Un Lee. And ultra-groovy kudos to Mike Kelly, who wins this week's grand prize, A MusiCares Person of the Year Tribute Honoring James Taylor. If you remember Joe, I'm guessing you remember James, too, Mike-- enjoy!

Posted by Steve Monaco at June 18, 2007 1:12 AM

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