Robert Blake plays Loyal Muke, a drunken loser who marries bar waitress Dinette Dusty, who is his equal in loserability and who also has three kids staying with in-laws.
When she was a baby, Dinette was traded by her parents for a rebuilt transmission when theirs went south on the highway. Loyal has a job at a car wash for a few weeks, only to be fired when he misses several days work after getting married. The two take off for California from Texas in Loyal's beaten-up old Rambler station wagon (a brave or foolish venture, or both), stopping to pick up Dinette's kids along the way.
Blake does a good job in his role as a drunken, fidgety bum who can never remember what he did when he was drinking. Harris is also good as an airheaded waitress whose singing career never got off the ground (when you hear her sing, you'll know way). At least the two don't make any more kids, since they are already saddled with Dinette's three elementary school-aged offspring. They're looking forward to arriving in California, because, as Dinette's father in-law says, "They have the welfare out there."
When she was a baby, Dinette was traded by her parents for a rebuilt transmission when theirs went south on the highway. Loyal has a job at a car wash for a few weeks, only to be fired when he misses several days work after getting married. The two take off for California from Texas in Loyal's beaten-up old Rambler station wagon (a brave or foolish venture, or both), stopping to pick up Dinette's kids along the way.
Blake does a good job in his role as a drunken, fidgety bum who can never remember what he did when he was drinking. Harris is also good as an airheaded waitress whose singing career never got off the ground (when you hear her sing, you'll know way). At least the two don't make any more kids, since they are already saddled with Dinette's three elementary school-aged offspring. They're looking forward to arriving in California, because, as Dinette's father in-law says, "They have the welfare out there."