Sorry, this movie sucks

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This John Frankenheimer movie presents a low-action, sparsely-populated story about a married Tennessee county sheriff (Gregory Peck), who falls in love with a young girl (Tuesday Weld). Weld's father (Ralph Meeker) and younger brothers are illegally operating a still as a family business that probably goes back for decades and may go forward for decades more. The movie also stars Estelle Parsons as Peck's pathetic wife and Charles Durning Peck's as his deputy. This movie does not live up to the Frankenheimer standards that I learned to love from his early 60s black and white movies. The best part of the movie was Johnny Cash's singing of the title song.

Gregory Peck spent time preparing for this role by doing a character study with my grandfather. My grandfather was a small town sheriff in Gainesboro, Tennessee in the 1960s and 1970s. Peck walks and dresses just like my grandfather did in his role. My step-father helped work on the truck used in the opening scene of the movie. I finally located the DVD version of the movie last year and my family loves watching it to point out all of the locations we grew up with. It was shot on location in Jackson and Putnam counties in middle Tennessee. Gregory Peck is my all-time favorite actor. There's a photo somewhere of him with my grandfather that I saw once and I would love to find it and have a copy.

As denoted by its title I Walk The Line is distinguished by its use of a country music soundtrack supplied by Johnny Cash. Because Cash's biggest hit was used as the title of this film, the fine biographical film that starred Joaquin Phoenix many years later had the 'I' cut from the title.Gregory Peck with the exception of an occasional rogue as in Duel In The Sun usually is the most upright of moral heroes. His very uprightness is turned on its ear in I Walk The Line with a plot that somewhat resembles The Blue Angel. Peck is the local sheriff who has been ordered by Federal Man Lonny Chapman to clean out a nest of moonshiners. He makes it clear he wouldn't do that on his own as these people supplement their very existence from the untaxed alcohol the sell.But then Peck is given a really good reason not to pursue one of these families. He's going through the usual forty something midlife crisis and when he stops Tuesday Weld for speeding, the little hillbilly tramp really sparks his engine. With the connivance of her moonshiner father Ralph Meeker, she and Peck go at it hot and heavy. He uses his official position to cover this family up and it all ends really badly for Peck. Director John Frankenheimer does leave Peck's fate as uncertain at the end, but the viewer will not think of any good options for him.Mixing films like The Blue Angel and Thunder Road doesn't quite jell. Tuesday Weld is certainly one seductive sight, but somehow I could never wrap my mind around Gregory Peck falling for her. Maybe then we're all vulnerable, even Atticus Finch.The film didn't do much for the careers of the folks behind and in front of the camera. Then again Peck was not getting too many good film offers at this point in his career. But if you like Johnny Cash this is your film, his singing is the best thing about it.

Gregory Peck stars in this tale about a man of the law who walks the straight and narrow path of doing the right thing and being a model citizen. That is, until he meets Tuesday Weld, who gives another breathtakingly real yet simplistic portrayal of a young girl who doesn't know who she is. Greg is tempted by her sweet and coy nature and gets more involved than he expected.There isn't really much action in the movie. But to watch Tuesday and Greg together in this otherwise rather low-key and humdrum film makes for something rarely conveyed in 1970s films.At first, once I had seen the whole of it, I had not thought much of it, but dwelling on it, it seems like those mistakes you make that no else knows about. They seem to creep back on you and they're there. They never left. "I Walk the Line" is a disturbing example of life at its most haunting.