Scarecrow (1973) Stafford, Va. Frank slinks around Barnes and Noble clutching the new translation of Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (Cortazar 1962). His dread at the world, often unending, is now unbearable as several husky women in pointy wizard hats thrust copies of the latest Harry Potter at him. Of course, based on what he’d read in the local history section, Stafford has had a history of annoying folks. It was even founded by a true colonial jackass. In 1647, Giles Brent with his Piscataway Indian wife had established a plantation on the Widewater peninsula along Aquia Creek and the Potomac River. Brent had left Maryland after POing his cousin, Lord Baltimore, as well as the whole Piscataway tribe, when he laid claim to half of the colony on behalf of his wife, the daughter an “Indian Emperor.” Peace, Brents’ farm, became the first Catholic establishment in the colony, and the “last stop” for pioneers moving up into the wilderness of the Northern Neck. Baltimore, learning of Brent’s location, began issuing land patents in the adjacent colony to upset Brent’s land claims. Giles Brent died in 1672 on a second farmstead that he named Retirement. Nonetheless, the family remained infamous. Margaret Brent, Giles’s sister, was a prominent advocate for women’s suffrage and referred to as “Gentleman” when addressing the Assembly. Giles Brent II took an active part in the Indian wars, but was arrested in 1677 as a part of Bacon’s Rebellion and the burning of Jamestown. The Brent family continued to aggravate their Protestant neighbors, with hostilities reaching a peak when they received a land grant of 30,000 acres from James II in 1687. The new patent gave the Brents all the land bound by the Potomac, Aquia, Tappahannock, and Rappahannock creeks, or one heck of a chunk of land. This prompted an anti-Catholic crusade led out of the Aquia Episcopal Church, based on rumor that the Brents were to incite an Indian massacre. Apparently, the Episcopals cared for the Brents as much as Frank cared for the members of Hogwarts Academy that were now packing the store. He decides to slip into the movie section where the register line should be much shorter. But to his surprise he finds that by some wizard’s magic, the forgotten Hackman/Pacino epic, Scarecrow (1973), was now out on DVD. At the time both stars were both at the top of their games, with Hackman having just done The French Connection (Friedkin 1971) and Pacino, The Godfather (Coppola 1972). Basically the film concerns the redemption of Max (Hackman), a hard drinkin’ and fightin’ ex-con hoboing his way to Pittsburgh to open a car wash. Along his way he meets up with wisecracking Lion (Pacino), an ex-sailor going to Detroit to see his son. The isolated Max lets Lion in on his plans after some camaraderie over the sharing of his last match and Lion decides along the way he tries to teach Max how to get along with a laugh and not a punch. But they’ll have some super rough times to try to joke their way through along the way. In short Scarecrow is Alice’s Restaurant (Penn 1969) without the hippies stirred around with Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger 1969) without the boots. Now, not to be mistaken, the film does have a lot of heart, but what it doesn’t have is an ending. The dialogue between Lion and Max is staccato and often funny and touching as Lion breaks down Max’s gruff angry, particularly symbolic and amusing in the use of Max’s ten layer’s of clothing to keep warm. But, the film just unsatisfactorily ends. It just ends. Right in the middle of the scene. Like they ran out of celluloid right there and the director said. “Eh, fuck it. We already got their popcorn money.” A few movies have successfully and cleverly, but abruptly just ended. Blow-Up (Antonini 1966) and Lifeboat (Hitchcock 1944) spring to mind. Of course, look at the story credit of these to films, the aforementioned Julio Cortazar and John Steinbeck, respectively. Back in Scarecrow, the arc of Max ‘s softening has been pretty much resolved probably 20 minutes before the end of the film, and new story conflicts have arisen and are left in the air. The film has taken 112 minutes to make us like Max and Lion, we have seen them with friends and family, through tragedy and good times, but it will not give us another five to let us know what happens to them. The end result, despite excellent performances by both stars, is a rambling narrative with no pay-off. Plus, the real tragedy is Max and Lion are hitching and jumping trains, when apparently it only costs $27.95 for round trip airfare from Detroit to Pittsburgh. Frank’s hardships are also on-going; the movie/music counter at Barnes is manned by two accusatory teens, recommending the new Black Eyed Peas single. They could not understand the shear dread of up-to-the-minute pop culture. Frank shoves his Cortazar and Scarecrow into a bin of VeggieTales discs and shoots out of the store. He is walking as fast as he can now. Hoping that maybe a greasy snack will make him feel better. But this is no food court, and the sign doesn’t offer “chicken wings” but “chic wigs.” Suddenly a plan B begins to form in Frank’s addled brain…