Breaker one-nine pig pen. This here is the Big Popcorn Papa Popper. Over. What’s that? You’d want to know what’s playing at the Preacherman’s Drive-In off Exit 52? It’s a rip-roaring, high-octane double-trouble feature of Hot Summer in Barefoot County and the gear-griding Truck-sploitation classic Trucker’s Woman! What’s that Rubber Dubba Ducky? Have you never heard of Truck-sploitation? What dingy rest stop have you been hiding out at? It was a film movement in the 1970s fueled (literally) after the success of the Steven Spielberg/Richard Matheson thriller Duel and the popularity of C.W. McCall’s kitschy-ditchy-witchy smash hit ‘Convoy’ (ain’t the movie a beautiful sight?). Overhauling from the interstates right onto jumbo outdoor screens, films such as White Line Fever, The Great Smoky Roadblock, and Highballen’ were so heavy (metal) to handle it would take a wide-loaded runaway ramp to ease your excitement! Over. What is the best of these? While they all are pure high-octane joy, Trucker’s Woman certainly wins a bonus, being the only bobtail in the fleet to not only feature an early role by Darkman and Dr. Giggles lead Larry Drake, but one of the only Truck-sploitation plots ripped directly from Mr. Billy Shakespear’s Hamlet (“Do not for ever with thy vailed Class-D Driver’s Licence seek for thy noble father in the eating my dust!”). Are you excited to see it now, Rubber Dubba Ducky? Over.
According to the GDP, over ninety percent of all food consumed by United States citizens comes your way via a trustworthy truck driver, with an estimated time on the road averaging over forty hours, often without breaks or rest (gee, makes me feel oh so safe on the road). Under these appreciative conditions, would it surprise anyone listening to their Cobra 29 LTD NW that these good ol’ boys (and more than twenty percent female and growing) need to drop their gears into maximum overdrive for some R&R? With the new notoriety of romanticizing the trucker culture as the modern-day cowboy (giddy up, little eighteen-wheeler, yee-haw!), it was natural for the film industry to exploit the newfound fade and Truckin’ Man (the original title until the producers re-named it to trick audiences into thinking they saw a brand new flicker) helped the producer roll on down the money highway from all the film cans they shipped (via semis of course). Shot on location in the rowdy hills of South Carolina, with smooth photography by Darrell Cathcart (D.P. for Final Exam and Death Screams), this was made in an era when music rights were not so costly or complicated to feature an all-star country soundtrack featuring the likes of Bobbie Atkins, The Jeffords, and Jerry Shinn (sorry McCall, over the weight limit).
Like any great business of ‘MURICA (you wave those flags from the grill), the trucking industry is very incestuous (get your mind out of dirty exhaust pipe, I’m talking about nepotism), and like father/like son, Mike Kelly (is his name and trucking is his game) was going to follow in his father’s steel-toed cowboy boots until life took him elsewhere. At least it did until his father crashed his tractor-trailer on a job and passed on to the great truck stop in the sky (take a ticket for a heavenly shower). It doesn’t take Mike long to realize this was no accident, with the trail leading to some hoods trying to take over the routes his father was trying to expose. Going undercover as a union driver (not in a trucker hat or flannel shirt but with a polyester suit) Mike searches for the real killers by flooring down some gas station hoagies, hauling a few double-nickles in a meat wagon, and driving some ten-two in a big-slab lot lizard who may or may not be the mafia boss’ daughter (how’s that for a hooker?)! Will Mike find who greased his ol’ man or will he be blinded by the headlights of his ol’ reliable (trucker) woman?
Hammering down at a chicken-cooped eighty-one minutes, with Will Zens large and in charge (of productions like To the Shores of Hell and Hell on Wheels), the various negatives left have stumped audiences with an infamous display of a pizza inserted into the film to (allegedly) subliminally make audiences haul-donkey to the food shack! You can find this traffic cone honking on most streamers but try to pull some strings in finding the 80s VHS from Troma Home Video featuring a man and woman arm wrestling which is nowhere to be found in the film (seems a bit over the top!). What’s that Rubber Dubba Ducky? What’s my ten-twenty? I’m burning rubber to make the midnight double feature. Repeat that? You’d want me to get you some pizza from the Rib Rig Shack? Big Popcorn Papa Popper sure will, as long as you zipper along the toothpicks. Over and out.
