Max’s Drive-In Movie – Walking Tall

The movie is about what happened in McNairy County Tennessee with the big stick-carrying Sherriff named Buford Pusser. Don’t get this one mixed up with the modern version… you will not get the “Rock” in this one. It has more of a realistic feel than the latest remake. This movie is not slick or smooth…it was made on a small budget but it works well. I grew up hearing stories about Buford Pusser. A policeman friend of the family knew him well. 

Before I get into the film. The movie stuck with me through the years and I have a personal story about ending up at his house.

My wife and I traveled to Memphis to visit Graceland in the late 90s. On the way back home we got lost (pre-GPS and I have no sense of direction) and ended up in McNairy County. I remembered the name and we looked saw Pusser’s old  home which was turned into a museum. We walked in and the lady working there was super nice. We sat on his couch and looked at his car, badges, guns, and uniforms. Before I left I could not resist…I just had to buy one of those big sticks…which was just an ax handle with his name and also a VHS tape of the Sheriff’s story. I checked today…now they have his furniture behind glass. 

It was pretty cool being able to touch and walk around freely after the “stay behind the rope!” mentality at Graceland…which I understand completely…Hey, it’s the home of the big E. If you ever go to Graceland and if you have a couple of hours to spare, drive to this museum it is interesting… it’s like going back in time to the mid-seventies…it was just a fluke that we found it but it was fun.

Ok back to the movie. It’s a vigilante drama and a revenge story that paces itself pretty well. Joe Don Baker is very believable in this movie. If you hate violence this is not for you because it’s loaded with it. The Sheriff almost single-handedly cleans up the town with the aid of a big stick and his loyal deputies. The film quality is cleaned up and not as grainy as I remembered. You will see the future 70s pinup singer Leif Garret as the Sheriff’s son…also future Rockford Files dad Noah Beery Jr. I watched the movie recently and it holds up very well. 

A little about the history of Pusser. He was the son of Carl and Helen Pusser. His father was the police chief of Adamsville, Tennessee, which likely influenced Pusser’s future career in law enforcement. Before becoming a lawman, Pusser served in the United States Marine Corps and was also a professional wrestler.

He became the sheriff of McNairy County in 1964. The 26-year-old sheriff was fearless and wasted no time cracking down on mafia activity, concentrating on the state border between Tennessee and Mississippi, which was controlled by two separate gangs… the Dixie Mafia and the State Line Mob. The mob gangs made a lot of money off of moonshine, so Pusser’s crackdown was obviously not appreciated. His battle against all of this was intense and personal. His wife, Pauline, was killed in an ambush meant for him, which fueled his determination to clean up the county.

Did he bend the rules? Yes, sometimes into a pretzel but he was playing against a stacked deck. Despite his wife being killed, his family being terrorized, and numerous attempts on his life, he kept going. He was stabbed 7 times and shot 8 during his time as sheriff. I’m sure Hollywood massaged some truth, but it wasn’t cartoonish. 

The movie grossed over $40 million at the box office and led to two sequels: Walking Tall Part 2 (1975) and Final Chapter: Walking Tall (1977), as well as a television series and a 2004 remake I told you about earlier starring The Rock (Dwayne Johnson).

Buford Pusser agreed to portray himself in Walking Tall Part II but, hours after signing the contract, he was killed when his car ran off the road near his home. Some believe his car was sabotaged in retribution for his stamping out the illegal activities of the Stateline mob on the Tennessee-Mississippi border.

Buford Pusser

Quotes: 

Buford: There’s only two rules, and thats all… But don’t ever forget them. Number one we enforce the law equally. Number two, any man caught taking a bribe gets his head knocked off by me.

Plot from IMDB:

“Walking Tall” depicts Buford Pusser’s real-life crusade against the corruption that plagued his hometown. After being severely beaten by criminals, Pusser decides to run for sheriff and wins. He then begins a relentless campaign to rid the county of illegal activities, facing numerous threats and attempts on his life. His story is one of resilience, justice, and personal loss.

The cast included Joe Don Baker, Elizabeth Hartley, Leif Garrett, Dawn Lyn, and Noah Beery Jr.

I have a Jimmy Buffett and Buford Pusser story after the video. It’s well worth the read!

Off topic of the movie but Jimmy Buffet had a Buford Pusser story. I’ve heard this from different sources but this is from http://www.buffettworld.com… The movie was good but this would have been GREAT to see. Jimmy was on the wrong side of Pusser.

In 1974, Jimmy Buffett had a run-in with famed “Walking Tall” sheriff Buford Pusser. The story is referred to in “Presents To Send You” from the 1974 album A1A and also in “Semi-True Stories” from the 1999 album Beach House On The Moon.
In both songs, few details are mentioned. But at a show in 1974 at the Exit Inn in Nashville, just a few months after the incident, Buffett took some time to tell the crowd about the altercation:

“There were a lot of rumors circling around that I had an encounter with this young man. Which are true. We finished doing our recording over at Woodland Studio, real happy that the album had come out so well. All the lightweights had went out to get a few bottles of champagne and celebrate. Sammy Creason and Chuck Nease and I decided to go out and get a bottle of Cuervo Gold Tequilla and 3 straws. We went at it and in 15 minutes we were just knee-crawlin’ drunk. So we proceeded to the flashiest night spot in town, the roof of the King of the Road Hotel.

We’re there dining and dancing. Ronnie Milsap was on vacation. Sammy Creason was with me, so we provided just a gala of entertainment. Me on acoustic guitar so drunk I couldn’t hit the chords and him just pounding the drums out in 3-quarter time. Ran everybody out. We got the screaming munchies and we were going to Charlie Nickens to eat. And I couldn’t find my rent-a-car, which was parked somewhere amidst thousands of cars in the parking lot of the fabulous, plush King of the Road hotel. It was a little bitty car. It was hiding among many big ones there. And there was a Tennessee Prosecutors convention going on there. If they had made it to room 819 they would’ve had a closed door case.

So I stood on the hood of this car with a pair of… actually, they were old Ra Ra’s that I bought in Miami for 2 bucks. They were white and brown old Ra Ra’s but they were golf shoes so I had to take the cleats out but they still had the posts in them so they clicked a lot. I was standing on the hood of this particular car and as fate would have it it belonged to a rather large man who came up behind me and threatened my life real quickly. And I hadn’t been in a fight since junior high school on the city bus in Mobile. He came up and said “Son you stay right there, you’re under arrest”. So I politely turned around and said “You kiss my ass”. He didn’t. Instead he followed me over to the car which Sammy had found. I got in the driver’s side and Sammy got in the passenger’s side. My window was up, his was down and this fellow poked his head in and said “Would you like for me to turn this car over?”.

I was not scared of this individual. I just thought he was some ex-football player turned counselor. And Sammy said “look whatever damage we did ABC will pay for everything” which was awfully generous of Sammy since he didn’t have the authority to say so. Being a good company man I took up for my company and said “No they won’t. I’m still gonna beat your ass if you don’t leave us alone”. With that he pulled up then stuck his big head and his hand in and grabbed me by my hair until it separated from my head. I had a big bald spot on the back of it and I looked like a monk for about 3 months. Then he punched Sammy right in the nose. We knew he wasn’t kidding. So Sammy defended himself bravely with a big pen. He starts stabbing at this man’s arm trying to get it out of the window because we couldn’t start the car because with the new modern features of ‘74 automobiles you can not start your car unless your seat belt’s buckled and we were too drunk to get ours hooked up.

So we sit there while this man pounded the hell out of both of us. I looked over at Creason and I said “Sammy I don’t wanna die in a Gremlin.” Eaten by a shark, killed in a plane crash, but what’s my mother gonna say? Smashed to death in a Gremlin in the parking lot of the plush King of the Road hotel. Nope. So I mustered all the courage and energy I had and all the coordination I had left in my poor body and got the seat belt buckled and went to Charlie Nickens. We ordered our barbecue and on the way back we hit the Jefferson St. Bridge. Luckily there was no one around so we just backed up and headed for the hotel.

Got back, and we decided that this man may be lurking in the bushes or else may have been snorkeling around in the pool trying to scoop up coins that people threw in. So we decided to defend ourselves with a classic southern weapon: a tire tool. So we destroyed the back end of the Gremlin looking for the tire tool, found it. Walked through the lobby of these prosecutors, and we had caused a turmoil by this time. And got up to the 8th floor where we were staying and figured we were all safe. But I had forgotten my key.

So I had to go back downstairs and Sammy said well you take this I’m not going back down there. And he gave me the weapon, which I stuck in my back pocket. Walked down into the plush lobby of the plush King of the Road hotel, walked up to the desk and asked for the key to my room. This man snuck up behind me and took the tire tool out of my back pocket. I whipped around and I said “look you, that was for my protection and you started this whole thing. I didn’t mean to get on your car and I’m still gonna beat your ass if you don’t quit bothering me.” At this point, two detectives seized me, drug me into the elevator and said “son, we would call the police and have you arrested. You’ve caused quite a disturbance here tonight. But we figure your just lucky to be alive because that was Buford Pusser.” And I went “Oh. 8th floor please.”