6/26/08: Electra Glide In Blue (1973)We’ll be reviewing Chicago’s great lost
Stone of Sisyphus album somewhere else—but it’s kind of neat that Chicago made an album in the ’90s that their label considered too weird to be released. The pop act had pretty much lost their early reputation as innovators during the ballad-heavy ’80s. And while
Stone of Sisyphus is interesting, it doesn’t replace
Electra Glide In Blue as the coolest project in Chicago’s long history.
Actually, this cult film—which isn’t nearly as cultish as it once was—is really a triumph for Chicago’s manager. James William Guercio was a veteran music figure, but a novice filmmaker when he signed on to produce, direct, and even compose the movie’s original score. His favorite band’s involvement mostly consists of members showing up as assorted unsavory characters.
Electra Glide In Blue covers a lot of complicated ground, so let’s go ahead and establish some conservative credentials. It was roundly condemned as a fascist statement after playing the Cannes Film Festival. Right away, you know Guercio was on to something right.
Electra Glide quickly establishes itself as a bizarre Hollywood production. Robert Blake stars as Arizona motorcycle cop John Wintergreen, who we first get to know at home and on the job. He’s a fitness freak who’s downing raw eggs long before
Rocky made audiences wince at the idea. He’s got a healthy sex life, too. Wintergreen has a good sense of humor, but he’s a true straight arrow. He politely and good-naturedly hands out tickets to a mod L.A. police detective and a fellow Vietnam vet. His career advice to the vet: “Don’t go asking for favors.”
Filmgoers must’ve been puzzled by all this. They were watching a movie where the protagonist would’ve usually been the comic-relief bad guy with a Napoleon complex. (“You’re a joke, fella,” says the outraged L.A. detective.)
The audience probably never caught on to the first clue as to what’s going on. Wintergreen starts his day with his fellow motorcycle cops, as their superior greets them with, “Good morning, you fascists”—and then adds all the other popular slurs of the day. Wintergreen is in a movie where the ’60s are over. The revolution has happened, and he’s living with the consequences. That includes daily training in community relations and learning how to take abuse.
Wintergreen still has ambitions. He wants to transfer into Homicide, and gets his big break when an old man is found dead in a trailer out in the desert. Wintergreen impresses Detective Harve Poole by rightly insisting that the supposed suicide was staged.
That’s enough of the plot. The real story is Wintergreen’s tale of existential angst. (There’s a term we don’t use lightly.) The poor guy is caught between changing times. There are a lot of bikers and hippies and drug dealers going through Arizona, and Wintergreen’s not the type to shake them down based on their looks. He can’t even get a bunch of freaks on a farm to help him track down a suspect in the murder case. Instead, Poole has to step in—but only after seeing Wintergreen’s soiled boots, and noting that his protégé “has stepped in a little community relations.”
Poole gets all Dirty Harve on the hippies, and wins the kind of cooperation Wintergreen can’t manage. We’re not saying that Wintergreen should’ve started busting heads once the lead hippie introduced him to the commune as “Little Chief.” It’s just a complicated situation. That situation’s made worse by how Poole is proven right, since his character has already been established as a racist with some pretty bizarre beliefs.
But there’s no belief too bizarre on the road that hippies travel. That’s the lesson that Wintergreen has to learn before he ends up in the middle of said road. It’s a fascinating journey.
Electra Glide In Blue isn’t a fascist statement. It’s actually a sad tribute to individual principles—made tragic in a time when so many principles were in plain poor taste.
Make it your own: We’re leaving out all kinds of great details about
Electra Glide In Blue. That’s partly because it’s a shame to give away anything about the film. The
DVD covers a lot of the story, but it’s not quite the Special Edition that fans would like.
