MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
Badlands, (1973, 94 minutes)
The versatility of actor Martin Sheen is clearly demonstrated in his ability to play both the bone-weary Capt. Willard, sent on a mind-numbing Vietnam War mission in 1979’s Apocalypse Now, and the sociopathic teenage drifter Kit Carruthers in Badlands, only six years earlier, when Sheen was 33 years old.
Loosely based on the 1957 killing spree of Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Fugate, Badlands is a chilling portrait of the murder of 10 people during a two-month road trip, carried out with no more passion than one would spend collecting postcards of a vacation. Director Terrence Malick described Kit as “so desensitized he regards the gun with which he shoots people as a kind of magic wand that eliminates small nuisances.”
“My mother died of pneumonia when I was just a kid,” says Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek) in the opening voice-over. “My father kept their wedding cake in the freezer for 10 whole years. After the funeral he gave it to the yard man. He tried to act cheerful, but he could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his home. One day, we moved from Texas to Fort Dupree, S.D.”
And that’s where Holly meets Kit, a local garbage man who’s quit work early. “I just thought I’d come over and say hello,” he says to the red-haired high-school girl twirling a baton on her front lawn. “You want to take a walk with me?” he asks. “What for?” asks Holly. “Oh, I got some stuff to say. Guess I’m kinda lucky that way. Most people don’t have anything on their minds, do they?”
Before long, Kit and Holly are running around together, against her father’s wishes. “Did it go the way it was supposed to?” she asks, buttoning her blouse as she steps out from behind a large tree. “Yeah,” says Kit. “Is that all there is to it? Gosh, what was everybody talking about?” she asks, disappointed. “Don’t ask me,” he says.
After a confrontation with Holly’s father as he paints a farm scene on a rural billboard, Kit realizes there’s only one solution to this problem. He shows up at their house with a gun. “What are you doin’?” says Mr. Sargis (Warren Oates) when he finds Kit packing Holly’s clothes into a suitcase. “Got a gun here, sir,” says Kit. “Go on, get out of here!” says Sargis. “OK, but I’m taking Holly off with me.” Sargis goes downstairs to phone the police. Kit runs after him and shoots him twice in the stomach. “I should call the doctor,” says Holly. “He don’t need no doctor,” says Kit. “Are you sure?” “Go see for yourself.” Kit sloshes gasoline all around the house, lights a match and the pair takes off in his battered old Mercury.
