Fri 3 Jan 2014
Archived Movie Review: GOIN’ SOUTH (1978).
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews , Western movies[4] Comments
GOIN’ SOUTH. Paramount Pictures, 1978. Jack Nicholson, Mary Steenburgen, Christopher Lloyd, John Belushi, Danny DeVito, Veronica Cartwrighht, Ed Begley Jr. Director: Jack Nicholson.
Even if I told you this was a Western, you’d still know it was a comedy, just by looking at the list of people in it. The only two cast members of any consequence, however, are Nicholson and Steenbergen — the first film appearance of the latter, at the very young age of 25.
Nicholson is a horse thief, a former member of Quantrill’s Raiders, an outlaw through and through, and of no good to anyone to boot. Captured in Mexico and broght back (illegally) across the border to be hanged, he is saved from the noose at the last minute by Steenbergen’s speaking up at the last minute to say that she will parry him. (A local ordinance carried over from the Civil War, when men were scarce.)
It’s not really a husband she’s looking for, however. She has a mine on her property that needs working, and she’s desperate to find the gold she’s sure that’s there before the railroad comes in and takes over the land.
One look at Nicholson in this movie will show you just how desperate she is. He is the scruffiest looking star of a major motion picture that I can ever recall seeing. He is manical capering gnome of a man, leaping for the sheer joy of living, with a leer in every glance to sends his new wife’s way.
And Mary Steenbergen, although still young, is a quintessential “old maid,” with fussy, virginal ways, but totally in charge of the situation, until, of course, it blushingly (and inevitably) goes out of control.
The rest of the cast is there for background, nothing more, except for perhaps Veronica Cartwright, who plays the outlaw’s former love, he “first woman he ever had to pay for.” Sparks fly, misunderstandings abound, nefarious double-dealings run amuck. And for a Jack Nicholson movie, there are surprisingly few moments of enigmatic incomprehensibility. This is a funny movie, worth looking out for.
January 3rd, 2014 at 2:36 pm
Saw this one long ago on cable, probably not more than a year or so after it came out. I remember enjoying it, but not much more than that.
January 4th, 2014 at 11:35 am
As near as I can place it, I wrote this review in October of 1991. The copy of Mystery*File 37 where I found this review seems to be first draft or proof version with penciled corrections and no date given.
That’s still long enough ago that I don’t recall anything more about the movie myself than what I wrote about back then. The trailer I found on YouTube helped bring back some of Jack Nicholson’s performance, but I remember nothing of Mary Steenbergen’s.
January 4th, 2014 at 1:33 pm
I always rather liked Christopher Lloyd in this one. Not a big part, but a memorable line: “Ain’t your day!”
January 6th, 2014 at 4:37 pm
I recall seeing this when it came out, and feeling Nicholson was trying too hard to be Nicholson and much to hard to be funny. It entertains some, and the performances are uniformly above average, but like many movies from the seventies, it may be realistic looking, but it is also tiresomely dirty looking, which is not entirely accurate about the old west (though granted they needed to bathe more often).
My problem here is that everyone is so obviously aware they are trying to do something different with a western that the movie always strikes me as self conscious and much to amused with itself. I get the feeling everyone involved was having more fun than the audience — another problem with some films of the era and many of these ego driven star projects. It would all have worked much better for me if Nicholson had quit mugging and just acted.