This film is of interest for a variety of reasons: its surreal feeling through the Arizona desert, its ambiguous story, its thematic threads of honesty, integrity, and corruption amongst the police, its humanizing lust for meaning in an otherwise meaningless world, OKAY, it is getting deep but this film COULD be said to meander in all those areas. Does that make it a good movie? No, not necessarily. Nor is it a bad movie. It is certainly an interesting movie. Robert Blake plays Officer Wintergreen - a short, dedicated motorcycle cop out to become detective. He works with his partner Zipper who is happy just to have a job and get paid and have little work to do. Here the film explores goals and what life is like with and without them. We get more of this through other characters' eyes: Harv the eagle detective Wintergreen initially impresses but later is stripped of all manhood in front of him by a wildly over-acting Jeannine Riley. Riley's Jolene sees life as despair basically loveless and pimped out to Harve I think. We get some hippie characters caught up in life anarchy in communal life and a trucker and Wintergreen himself having just returned from Vietnam. The film has a lot going on in subtext - perhaps too much. I still am not sure what the film is trying to achieve. Is it a mystery of an old man being shot through the chest that may or may not have had some money? Is it a battle of integrity in Wintergreen(played rather decently by Robert Blake) versus corruption as in Zipper's character or Harve's police brutality. Is it meaning versus nihilism with the whacked out ending that leaves one scratching one's head. I honestly don't know. I do know that film will make you think, is evocatively filmed, and generally well-acted. Robert Blake is good - perhaps one of his best roles. The supporting characters are interesting with character stalwarts Royal Dano(great as a coroner in a brief sequence) and Elisha Cook faring well. And what about Jeannine Riley? Sure she overacts, but she is still beautiful. You might remember her as Billie Jo from the first few seasons of Petticoat Junction. Well, it's ten years later - but Jeannine is still sexy and still fills out a sweater wonderfully. Electra Glide in Blue is a strange film by a one-time director. It is definitely worth a look. Then you can figure out what you think everything means.
Review of Electra Glide in Blue
