MOTHER TRUCKIN’ MAY: HIGH-BALLIN’ (1978)

The backbone of this country is the independent truck

The power of the trucker comes from his truck

The best thing about trucks is the cab overhead

That's where those truckers generate their

Backbone

Backbone

Backbone

Backbone

Honestly, I don’t have a firm grasp on the financial or philosophical ramifications of the truck driving industry but whatever Steve Albini from Big Black can’t teach me with “The Power of Independent Trucking,” then I’m sure HIGH-BALLIN’ (1978) with Peter Fonda and Jerry Reed will fill in the gaps. If you’re looking for a fast drivin’, hard drinkin’, soft lovin’, straight shootin’, trust bustin’, honky tonkin’, convoy of canuxtruxsploitation… then look no further!

Oddly titled P.F. FLYER during preproduction, this tryst toward trucker theater evolved into the working title of HIGH ROLLIN’. When producers learned of the Australian filmmaker Igor Auzins’ carny crime contraband caper cinema called HIGH ROLLING IN A HOT CORVETTE (1977) they pivoted the title once more to HIGH-BALLIN’ to avoid confusion or possible legal kerfuffles, thus the incongruity between the final title and the theme song “High-Rollin’” performed by co-star Jerry Reed. Co-written by Reed with Dick Feller, the song was an attempt to recapture country music lightning in a bottle with the same creative dream team that crafted the hit track “East Bound And Down” for B-movie turned box office behemoth that was SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (1977). The song climbed to #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and was ring-a-dinging on the radidio, baby!

As an elder millennial I often find myself scratching my head at 1970s pop culture styles and standards, but trucker cinema oddly makes sense to me. Perhaps it’s because I spent my adolescence in the road-weary, beer-swilling bosom of punk rock fostering romanticism for the steel sailing scofflaw blue-collar cowboy during a gas crisis that speaks to the part of me who enjoys the dichotomy of combining sitting with stimulants whilst moving at breakneck speeds. While not the first theatrical trucker thrill ride of the era, an accolade that belongs to Steven Spielberg’s DUEL (1971) or the campy cinematic CB radio cultural touchstone that is Hal Needham’s SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, Peter Carter’s HIGH-BALLIN’ burns rubber to pull away from the pack via some creative casting, crisp cinematography capturing chilly Canadian scenery, and a couple of humdinger stunt sequences to boot!

Teaming up Peter Fonda with Jerry Reed as dual leads is the trucker movie equivalent of pairing Schwarzenegger with Stallone in the same film. Seeing Captain America from EASY RIDER (1969) as “Rane” and Snowman from SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT as “Duke” share the cabin of a 1973 Kenworth K100 for one last run and gun is what it’s like when road picture worlds collide. It's an elegant solution to bring name value and camera charisma to the central conundrum of the car action subgenre: someone must always be driving. It would behoove filmmakers to not ensure that audiences were invested in all points of action. Putting semitrailer star power on the stick as well as being able to go mobile with the action when needed was a stroke of 18-wheeler action movie expertise.

Then there’s the third part in our heroic trucking triumvirate in Helen Shavers’ “Pickup.” As a relative newcomer to the big screen, Shavers beat out 104 other capable Canadian actresses who auditioned for the role and there’s plenty for Helen to sink her teeth into for the character. Not just a no-nonsense trucker in her own right, Pickup also serves as the love interest for Rane that’s just oozing motor lodge machisma and saves the day more than once with her light blue “truckified” 1973 GMC C-15 High Sierra. She also delivers the wildest  line in the film. In a scene where our heroes are trying to figure out how to raise seed money to finance a final fruitful shipping run, Pickup offers in jest “Well, I can always sell my fair white body. Y’all be rich!” It really breaks up Rane’s strong stoicism and Duke’s constant threats of sticking stuff “where the sun don’t shine.”

Pickup’s black and gold lacey lingerie isn’t the only sight to behold in HIGH-BALLIN’ (although I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating all dressed Yum Yum Chips). I also find the swirls of snowflakes snaking the secluded streets of Milton, Ontario to be oddly serene for all this big rig high-ballin’. The reclusive roads serve a twofold purpose past just being picturesque in my estimation by demonstrating isolation and authenticity. The desolation is as intrinsic to the vocation of fearless freighter as the community typified chuck wagons and CB radio vernacular. Both serve the lonesome proletariat mythos and give our action yarn realism and relatability..

If you found yourself trolling the aisles of a video store in the 1980s, your interests likely piqued at the tagline for HIGH-BALLIN’ reading ''a stunt chase sequence never before attempted on film.” Known as the first documented "flaming cannon roll" on film, HIGH-BALLIN’ boasts a flipping flaming flatbed truck as performed by Evel Knievel stunt double Gary Davis. Said stunt was executed using a real truck along with the climactic convoy sequence utilizing around twenty four locally hired trucks and their drivers (two phenomena that presently would be financially and legally impossible to reproduce). These were not production company appointed performers but real-life operational rigs obtained from the Ontario trucking industry. Thus making the backdrop was not a reasonable facsimile of the industry, but rather a sentimentalized snapshot of the shipping trade itself.

So perhaps Big Black didn’t quite capture the ethos epitomized in HIGH-BALLIN’ despite Duke, Rane, and Pickup certainly demonstrating an overabundance of backbone in their battles with shanghaiing hijackers and crooked capitalists. Good thing we don’t need to outsource the soundtrack to clanky Chicago noise rockers because we can hear it straight from the Bubba’s beautiful baritone in the aforementioned theme song for the picture:

'Cause when you're high rollin' you play the cards and you bet it all,

When you're high rollin' you just let the chips fall,

Brother, take that wheel of fortune in your hands,

And stand by what you stand for as a man.