Lolly-Madonna XXX

This moves in on Peckinpah/Boorman territory, and comes adrift through lack of the singleness of purpose which those directors' obsessive preoccupations might have given it. It starts as a kind of thriller, with a gang of backwoodsmen capturing a girl at a lonely bus stop, then moves on to take in inter-family feuding (the Feathers headed by Steiger versus the Gutshalls led by Ryan), rape, mental deficiency, illicit moonshining, revenge killings, and some flashbacks to the death of the wife of one of the kidnappers. Sarafian can bring off the odd key scene in a fresh and convincing way, but seems unable to establish the drive the film needs to take it past its complicated plot and on to a satisfactory climax. Basically, rather over-decorated backwoods mayhem, memorable for the sequence where Ed Lauter fantasises himself as a Country & Western star and goes out to die like Elvis waving to his cheering fans.