Welcome to Georgia!

Yes, the 1976 film Dixie Dynamite is supposedly set in Georgia but it’s hard not to notice that all of the hills and mountains in the background look like they’re from California.  The story features two sisters, Dixie (Jane Anne Johnston) and Patsy (Kathy McHaley), who go into the moonshine business after their father drives his car off a cliff.  Their father was the best moonshiner in the business and they aim to carry on his legacy, despite the efforts of Sheriff Marsh (Christopher George) and banker Charlie White (R.G. Armstrong).  Blowing up their stills and threatening to auction off their land isn’t going to stop these two from doing whatever it is exactly that they’re doing in this film.  Eventually, the sisters steal a bunch of dynamite and start blowing stuff up.  Normally, I’d say “Woo hoo!” but this film even makes random explosions seem as boring as the 4th of July in Canada.

Warren Oates plays Mack, a motocross champion who occasionally helps the daughter’s out.  At least, I think he’s helping them.  To be honest, it’s not always easy to tell what Mack’s purpose actually is in this story.  He tends to show up randomly, usually after all the action has ended.  He’s kind of a useless friend, to be honest.  Warren Oates brings his rough-hewn charm to the roll and you’re usually glad to see him, if just because the actresses playing the sisters are genuinely lousy, but you’re never quite sure what he’s doing there.  Watching the film, one gets the feeling that Oates just dropped by the set whenever he felt like it and filmed a scene or two.

It’s really not that crazy of a possibility.  Actor Steve McQueen makes a cameo appearance in this film, riding a motorcycle and challenging Oates.  McQueen didn’t make many films in the 70s.  Let’s consider some of the films that he turned down: The Great Gatsby, Jaws, Apocalypse Now, The Driver, The French Connection, Sorcerer, and Hard Times.  None of those films appealed to McQueen but he was still willing to show up for a day’s worth of shooting on Dixie Dynamite.  Of course, McQueen does go uncredited.

This is an odd film, full of slow spots that not even actors like Warren Oates, Christopher George, and R.G. Armstrong can make up for.  Director Lee Frost was best-known for his softcore exploitation films and Dixie Dynamite is full of odd transitions and jump cuts, leading me to suspect that the film was originally meant to be a lot more like a typical Frost film before it was decided to go in a PG-direction as well.

Perhaps the oddest part of the film is that the daughter’s final scheme to get revenge on the sheriff and the banker involves stealing two dead bodies from the local morgue.  The bodies are made up and dressed to look like Dixie and Patsy so that the sisters can fake their own death.  I can understand that and even give them credit for hatching a clever plan.  But I still find it weird that the film never really explains how the bodies were stolen or why they were in the morgue in the first place.  What are the chances that Patsy and Dixie would head down to the morgue and find two look-alikes?

The film features dynamite, Warren Oates, and corpse-stealing  but it’s still incredibly dull.  That’s just weird.