Scarecrow (1973)

Film: Scarecrow (1973)
Stars: Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Eileen Brennan, Ann Wedgeworth, Richard Lynch
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Oscar History: No nominations, but it did win the Palme d'Or
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We're taking a mild detour in our conversation about the films of 1973 today.  This film is, indeed, from 1973, but it is not Oscar-nominated.  I keep a list of every Oscar-nominated film that I've never seen, but also on the list is every Palme d'Or winner I've never seen, and I didn't fact check, so we'll have this as one of our five 1973 movies this week (the last one, I promise, will close with an Oscar nominee).  It's a good question as to why this wasn't nominated, though.  At the time, Al Pacino & Gene Hackman were major stars, and had certainly gotten Oscar's blessing.  Two years prior Hackman had won Best Actor for The French Connection and the year before this came out Pacino had gotten his first citation for The Godfather (which he had to have at least been close to winning for).  What was it about Scarecrow that kept Oscar at bay, but made Cannes give it the top prize?  Let's find out.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about two drifters: Max (Hackman), a hot-tempered felon who is just out of prison, and Lion (Pacino), an immature guy (but in an endearing way) who seems to view the world with a weird sense of innocence and hope.  The two set off on an adventure to Philadelphia, where Max has socked away enough money that they can start a carwash together, but in the process they meet multiple women including a girl Max woos at a bar (Brennan) and then another who seems like she might be a more permanent love interest named Frenchy (Wedgeworth).  Max gets into a fight with Frenchy's ex-boyfriend at a bar, which lands them in a prison farm for a month, and on that prison farm Lion, abandoned by Max who blamed him for the arrest, is sexually assaulted by a man who claimed he was trying to be his friend.  Afterwards, Lion is angry and no longer sees the world as a place of hope, and their roles are reversed, with Max now trying to keep Lion happy.  This ends badly-Lion ends up having a breakdown and is institutionalized, with Max, now seeing him as his one true friend, vowing to get him out one day and paying for him to get better.

The film is grim, as you can tell, and was not a hit at the time, which likely made it harder for Oscar to bless (Pacino's other movie that year, Serpico, was a huge hit and much friendlier with AMPAS).  It's also a bit dated, to be honest.  The film runs rampant with homophobia, with Richard Lynch's Riley the only outwardly "queer" character in the film (though there's an element to Max & Lion's friendship that could be read for some Celluloid Closet code), and of course he's the film's rapist.  Additionally, the only thing the female characters are expected to provide is cleavage, and it does have that aura of a Seventies film that the only important things that happen are to people who are miserable.

But this isn't a bad film by any stretch, and the leads are great.  Hackman is probably a bit better, getting the simpler role but making it sing.  There's something weird about seeing the more collected Hackman playing the hothead and Pacino getting the sweet novice (a few years later, these roles surely would've been reversed), but it works for Hackman, whose Max has a sense of entitlement and anger at the world that informs his worldview, but feels well-earned.  Pacino is good, though not quite as good as he'd be consistently at the time-it's hard to grade an Al Pacino performance that's solid but not groundbreaking when you know that there's roles like Michael Corleone and Sonny Wortzik just sitting around within a year or two ready for the taking.  But this is definitely a film that I get why it was both critically-lauded and commercially-unsuccessful...even if I'm kind of in the middle on both.