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Released by: MGM Limited Edition Collection
Released on: 4/18/2011
Director: Mark L. Lester
Cast: Marjoe Gortner, Lynda Carter
Year: 1975
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The Movie:
Mark L. Lester's 1975 'hot chick and outlaw dude' movie Bobbie Jo And The Outlaw will always be famous to a certain extent as the movie that Lynda Carter shows her boobs in. Wonder Woman fans the world over will be eternally grateful for the few fleeting seconds of topless nudity she offers here, but outside of that, is the movie really any good? Not really, but it has its moments.
When the movie begins, a hood named Lyle Wheeler (Marjoe Gortner) is annoyed when his car breaks down. He solves the problem by carjacking a Mustang which results in a quick chase scene which ends when he runs the cop off the road. He heads to a small town to lay low for a while and flirts it up with a curvy carhop named Bobbie Jo Baker (Lynda Carter) but she's not interested - at least she doesn't think she is. Once she leaves work and goes home only to get into a spat with her hard drinking mom (Peggy Stewart) she decides that maybe Lyle's not so bad. They jump into his Mustang and hit the road, driving out into the desert where Bobbie Jo sings Lyle a bad country song, talks about Linda Rondstadt and tells him about her dream of making it big in the world of country music. Lyle, on the other hand, tells her all about his love of Billy The Kid and then proceeds to teach Bobbie Jo how to use a gun.
With that out of the way, the two hit the sheets and get it on and then they hang out with Bobbie Jo's pal, Essie (Belinda Balaski), after which they take some shrooms and get pulled over by a cop, at which point Lyle decides it's time for the three of them to go on the lam. Bobbie Jo figures her sister, a stripper named Pearl (Merrie Lynn Ross), can help them out so they head to New Mexico where they visit her and her boyfriend, Slick (Jesse Vint). Lyle and Slick wind up in trouble when Slick tries to pull off a robbery which results in Lyle having to kill a man and Slick getting wounded. When the girls hear about the crime on the radio, all involved figure it's only a matter of time before the cops catch up with them while tension mounts among the group as Lyle tries to talk Bobbie Jo into splitting with him and robbing a bank.
Bobbie Jo And The Outlaw is entertaining enough, so long as you keep your expectations in check. It hits most of the prerequisite drive-in movie criteria, offering up some topless ladies and a good bit of violence towards the end and Lester throws in a few good car chase sequences and makes the most out of the film's dusty locations. There isn't a whole lot of character development here, though Vernon Zimmerman's script does offer opportunity for lots of it - the film just never really capitalizes on that. There are continuity problems galore (watch Carter's top change from one shot to the next), plenty of logic gaps, and the score is too repetitious for its own good. Still, the film has a bit of charm thanks primarily to the cast. Carter is beautiful as the female lead but the film relies far more heavily on Marjoe Gortner than on her. He's not bad in the part and has a likeable sense of recklessness to his character - but he's not the most charismatic of leading men. The movie is nicely shot but not very well put together from an editing stand point, which results in choppy storytelling and head-scratching moments that just don't make a whole lot of sense. Entertaining as it can be at times, Bobbie Jo And The Outlaw is also pretty dopey - thank God for boobies.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Bobbie Jo And The Outlaw looks decent enough in this 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Colors are reasonably bright and bold and detail isn't bad for an older drive-in style movie. Skin tones look okay and while there doesn't seem to have been too much remastering done, the print used looks to have been in pretty good shape leaving only minor print damage worth complaining over.
The only audio option on the disc is a Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track, in English, with no alternate language or subtitle options provided. The quality of the track is fine, if a bit flat in spots - in short, it pretty much sounds like you'd expect it to. Dialogue is audible enough and the score sounds good - but this doesn't have a whole lot of range to it.
Extras are limited to a static menu, chapter selections, and the film's theatrical trailer.
The Final Word:
A fun 'on the run' movie, Bobbie Jo And The Outlaw will live in infamy for Carter's nude scene but outside of that is fairly middle of the road stuff. It has its moments, to be sure, and as a time killer you could do worse but it's not particularly well written and relies too heavily on coincidence. MGM's MOD DVD-R looks and sounds pretty decent and includes the trailer, but fails to add an contextual or historical extras.
