D2D entry #61: Bobbi Jo and the Outlaw (1976, Mark L. Lester)
(Featured in Dusk to Dawn #3.)
If you’ve ever heard of this film before, you probably know it as the film in which she who would be Wonder Woman gets her tits out. That’s enough justification for a film right there; if Godard is correct and the history of cinema is the history of boys photographing girls, then I can think of few girls who deserve to be added to that history more than the ripe fullness of 1970s Lynda Carter. But Angel Tompkins has a body that lives up to her given name, and constant nudity on her part wasn’t enough to keep The Teacher interesting. So I soldier on from Ms. Carter’s magnificent bosoms and start into why I unexpectedly rather liked this fugitives-in-love flick from exploitation mainstay Lester.
Anyone who’s paying attention will notice within roughly ten minutes that this is a fairly bald downmarket ripoff of Bonnie and Clyde. Lynda is Bonnie, Marjoe Gortner is the Billy-the-Kid-worshipping stand-in for Clyde, Jessie Vint shows up in the role of Buck, Belinda Balaski plays a distaff Blanche, etc. etc. We’re not talking about the most original concoction here, but the cliches and expected beats are all hit with a surprising amount of professional panache. Lester’s isn’t the most inspired of directors, but he knows how to keep this kind of ozoner moving, and he’s remarkably faithful to the gradual darkening his inspiration’s narrative progress. Call me a sucker, but these sorts of narratives, hinging as they do on corruption, marching loss of innocence and inevitable reckonings, tend to leave me pleased (hell, I even liked Baise-Moi). All Lester has to do is avoid fucking it up while doling out the exploitable elements as a reasonable pace. This he does with a sturdy confidence. It’s easy to see why he’s still working while many of his ’70s contemporaries dropped out of the picture in the video age.
The most fascinating wrinkle in the film, though, is the casting of former child preacher Gortner in the role of the outlaw Lyle Wheeler. Gortner’s a magnetic presence, using the charisma and forceful personality cultivated during his youthful roadshow days to incarnate a likeable, goofy guy who nonetheless likes robbing and shooting people. It’s easy to understand why Bobbi Jo would initially fall for him (the whole bad-boy thing), but what matters is why she stays, and Gortner’s portrayal makes that credible. Even more interestingly, though, is that his past life is clearly factored into the casting, as noted at several times in the script. Most pointedly, there’s a scene where Lyle is teaching Bobbi Jo how to fire a gun. After a couple aborted attempt, Bobbi Jo hits the target, at which point Lyle says: “Told ya, it’s just like prayin’.” Armed robbery or fleecings based on misplaced hysterical belief — it’s all crime in the end.
