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Scarecrow (IB Tech Print)

With bittersweet humor, Scarecrow follows two hardscrabble drifters and friends stuck on the outs looking for a chance to start over. Silver tongued charmer and self-described “meanest sum-bitch alive,” Max (Gene Hackman) convinces sensitive ex-sailor Lion (Al Pacino) to go in on a car wash venture and an accompanying odyssey across the country to Pittsburgh for promised start-up cash. This lyrical dual portrait is Steinbeck for the Seventies, a ballad for soldiers of misfortune and their ill-advised dreams and heartfelt flaws. Warmly directed by Jerry Schatzberg and shot by Vilmos Zsigmond, this New Hollywood gem showcases Hackman and Pacino at their most creative and overall brims with the urgency and vitality which defined that halcyon period in American film.

“A virtuoso piece of acting by Hackman and Pacino” – Roger Ebert

“Hollywood movies have rarely spoken such tough and tender truths.” – Keith Uhlich, Time Out

“The passing years have proven Scarecrow‘s continuing appeal as a low-key character study, a downbeat ode to the downtrodden, an elegy for the American dream gone sour. Director Jerry Schatzberg and DP Vilmos Zsigmond craft a visually rich and evocative film as attuned to the rhapsodic vistas of the American pastoral as it is to the squalid dive bars and inhumane work farms that provide the grungy backdrop for screenwriter Garry Michael White’s loose-limbed drama.” – Budd Wilkins, Slant Magazine

Howard S. Berger writes about director Jerry Schatzberg on the New Beverly blog.

Kim Morgan discusses Scarecrow on the New Beverly blog.

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