Rare Strains

Gene Hackman & Al Pacino star as a pair of hobos who join forces to tramp their way across America in 1973's Scarecrow. Hackman's plays a belligerent ex-con trying to realise his dream of owning a car wash while Pacino's an ex-sailor heading to meet his estranged wife and child. Their uneasy alliance is challenged by their particular exuberances (as well as the expected tribulations) but the film's focus is squarely on the burgeoning friendship between the two men who've fallen on hard times and with two seriously talented actors like Hackman and Pacino providing flavourful, powerhouse performances this is simple take becomes an engrossing, emotional journey. A strangely neglected slice of Seventies cinema.


Glenda Jackson and Susannah York star as a pair of overwrought, slightly deranged, psychologically indentured servants in The Maids, released as part of the American Film Theatre series. The pair take turns to role play their mistress when left alone and this exploration of the tensions and frustrations of their lives leads to some disturbing, real world consequences. A chamber piece like this relies on the quality of script as well as the actors involved and though the former is dense and intense the acting is of a consistently high standard, more than sufficient to drag you into this claustrophobic maelstrom of melodrama. Must check out some of the other AFT releases, appears there's decent actors and directors involved in almost all.