''Macon County Line'' is a 1974 American independent film directed by

Richard Compton Richard Compton (March 2, 1938 – August 11, 2007) was an American actor, director and writer, primarily in television. Compton had small parts as an actor in film and television series, including minor roles in two episodes of ''Star Trek ...

and produced by

Max Baer Jr. Maximilian Adelbert Baer Jr. (born December 4, 1937) is an American actor, producer, comedian, and director widely known for his role as Jethro Bodine, the dim-witted relative of Jed Clampett (played by Buddy Ebsen) on ''The Beverly Hillbillies' ...

Baer and Compton also co-wrote the film, in which Baer stars as a vengeful county sheriff in Georgia out for blood after his wife is brutally killed by a pair of drifters. The $225,000 film reportedly became the most profitable film of 1974 (in cost-to-gross ratio), earning $18.8 million in North AmericaMacon County Line, Box Office Information.
The Numbers. Retrieved July 7, 2012. and over $30 million worldwide. The film is

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typic ...

in tone, though it was presented as "a true story" to attract a wider audience''.'' The plot and characters are entirely fictional.

Plot

In 1954 Macon County,

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, brothers Chris (Alan Vint) and Wayne Dixon (Jesse Vint) from Chicago are on a two-week spree of cheap thrills throughout the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

before their upcoming stint in the Air Force. Wayne entered the service when Chris was given the option of military duty in lieu of prison as the result of an earlier episode with the law. Driving through

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, the brothers pick up hitchhiker Jenny Scott ( Cheryl Waters), a pretty blond with a shady backstory that she would rather not discuss. Meanwhile, local backwater town sheriff Reed Morgan (Baer) is preparing to bring his son Luke (

Leif Garrett Leif Garrett (born Leif Per Nervik; November 8, 1961) is an American singer, actor, and television personality. He worked as a child actor, then in the 1970s became famous as a teen idol in music. He later received much publicity for his drug ...

) home from military school. Hunting season begins the next day and he buys Luke a new shotgun. When Chris, Jenny and Wayne experience car trouble, they must wait in Sheriff Morgan's town. Unable to repair the car themselves, they scrape together enough money to get it patched up by garage owner Hamp (

Geoffrey Lewis Geoffrey Lewis may refer to: * Geoffrey Lewis (actor) (1935–2015), American character actor * Geoffrey Lewis (scholar) (1920–2008), British professor of Turkish * Geoffrey Lewis (philatelist), Australian philatelist * Geoffrey W. Lewis (died ...

). Waiting at the garage, they are informally threatened by Morgan, who says they could be picked up for vagrancy if they decide to stick around. Not interested in trouble, the brothers and Jenny head out once their car is running, but after another breakdown, they take refuge in Morgan's barn. Inside the house, Morgan's wife is brutally raped and murdered by two men who then kill a cop when pulled over. When Morgan returns home to find his wife dead, he pursues Chris, Wayne and Jenny, believing they must have been responsible. There is a running firefight during the chase. With Wayne and Jenny holed up in a boat hiding from Morgan, Chris sneaks out to try to start the boat's motor. A gunshot is heard, and Wayne and Jenny fear that Chris has been killed. Young Luke Morgan then enters the boat's cabin and shoots Wayne and Jenny. It is revealed that Morgan was killed during the firefight. Afterwards, a wounded Chris comes back to the boat to find his friends killed, and Luke being held by another policeman. The last scene is Chris in his car, finally repaired by Hamp, with the locals and police then watching him leave. The epilogue shows that Chris became a master sergeant in the Air Force, with a wife and three children. Luke spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.

Production notes

While the poster advertising the film included the tagline "It shouldn't have happened. It couldn't have happened. But it did," and the title card states that it is a true story (and several reviewers have stated the same), director Richard Compton and producer Max Baer have said that they wrote the original story without any basis in historic events.James Newman.
Macon County Line
", imagesjournal.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-29. The film is one of several so-called "drive-in" films that were presented as true stories (

à la Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...

1972's ''

The Legend of Boggy Creek ''The Legend of Boggy Creek'' is a 1972 American docudrama horror film about the "Fouke Monster", a Bigfoot-type creature that reportedly has been seen in and around Fouke, Arkansas since the 1940s. The film mixes staged interviews with some lo ...

'', 1974's ''

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' is a 1974 American horror film produced and directed by Tobe Hooper from a story and screenplay by Hooper and Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, w ...

'', and 1976's '' Jackson County Jail'' and ''

The Town That Dreaded Sundown ''The Town That Dreaded Sundown'' is a 1976 American thriller horror film directed and produced by Charles B. Pierce, and written by Earl E. Smith. The film is loosely based on the 1946 Texarkana Moonlight Murders, crimes attributed to an unide ...

''). In each case, most, if not all, of what was portrayed on screen was fictional (with the exception of ''The Town That Dreaded Sundown'', which was inspired by the

Texarkana Moonlight Murders The Texarkana Moonlight Murders, a term coined by the contemporary press, was a series of four unsolved serial murders and related violent crimes committed in and around the Texarkana region of Arkansas and Texas in the late winter and sprin ...

of 1946). Alan Vint and Jesse Vint, who played brothers Chris and Wayne Dixon onscreen, are brothers.

Reception

The film earned $10 million in rentals in North America.

Home video releases

Anchor Bay released the film on both VHS and DVD in February 2000. The Anchor Bay DVD release included an audio commentary with director Richard Compton and the featurette, ''Macon County Line – 25 Years Down the Road.'' Both the VHS and DVD have been out of print since 2007. The Warner Home Video DVD was issued on May 6, 2008. It uses the same transfer from the 2000 DVD release and is single-layered including subtitles - with no extra features. The film was released on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

disc by

Shout! Factory Shout! Factory is an American home video and music company founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases include previously released feature films, classic and contemporary television series, animation, live music, and comedy ...

on January 16, 2018.

Legacy

Richard Compton directed the film ''

Return to Macon County ''Return to Macon County'' is a 1975 American action drama film and a sequel to the 1974 drive-in classic ''Macon County Line''. This film was written and directed by Richard Compton, who was also responsible for the earlier film. It was re-relea ...

,'' released theatrically in 1975. Despite its title, the film is not a sequel, although it loosely follows a similar plot of mistaken identity.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 0071788, Macon County Line
Screen: ''Macon County Line'' Arrives
by Vincent Canby,

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

(January 16, 1975) 1974 films 1970s action drama films American action drama films American International Pictures films Films set in 1954 Films set in Texas Films shot in California Southern Gothic films 1974 drama films Films about automobiles Films scored by Stu Phillips Films directed by Richard Compton 1970s English-language films 1970s American films