MAN OUTSIDE

Man Outside is a pretty average movie for the first two-thirds of the film, but the last one-third moves it into "god awful" territory. Robert Logan is a lawyer and due to a personal tragedy in his life, chucks his city ways and becomes a hermit living in the woods alone with his dog. Logan gets wrongfully accused of snatching a young boy and is arrested.... This is the point where the movie really starts to go downhill.... Logan escapes from jail to track down the abductor and the boy himself. Why did he have to escape....your guess is as good as mine....I mean he could have just orchestrated the whole thing from jail or for that matter told the sheriff who to look for. During his escape, Logan and his love interest/abettor in escape, Kathleen Quinlan, have to sit outside by a fire in the snow and discuss things, even though there's a house with heat in the background. Oh yeah....as long as they're on the run hunting down the boy and the abductor, they might has well take time for a little loving. Then there's a truck which has sat idle in the weeds, but is magically running again after obviously been given a wash and shine before it's placed back on the road (all this in the space of just a few minutes). There's a big psychotic breakdown by the real abductor near the end of the movie right before a super gooey ending. Folks, I'm just touching on some of the really stupid stuff in the last 1/3 of Man Outside....believe me when I tell you there's lots more.


Four fifths of The Band are in Man Outside. Levon Helm has a the most screen time as the sheriff. Levon did a great job in Coal Miner's Daughter portraying Loretta Lynn's father. In Man Outside I can only say his acting is adequate and that is being generous with the word "adequate". The other three members only have minor roles: Rick Danko plays the kidnapped boy's father and has a few lines. He really didn't get enough screen time for me to make any type of judgment about his acting. And speaking of not having much screen time, Richard Manuel is only billed as Vigilante #1 as he and a couple of other guys beat up Robert Logan. Garth Hudson has perhaps the strangest role, he is billed as Recluse in the credits. Supposedly he is a scarred Vietnam Vet living way back in the woods and has a couple of lines of spaced-out dialogue.


The members of The Band didn't do anything to make this movie worse than it was and I guess that should be an accomplishment of sorts. Unless you are a really big fan of The Band and just want to see most of the members in a movie, then I wouldn't recommend Man Outside, you'd be better off watching The Last Waltz.

COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER

There are some actors that transcend acting and so become the musician that they are portraying that afterward when I think of the musician, I always see the actor's face also. This is certainly the case with Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter. Whenever I think of Loretta Lynn, I also have a mental picture of Sissy Spacek, the same as with Buddy Holly/Gary Busey, Johnny Cash/Joaquin Phoenix, and Tina Turner/Angela Bassett.

Loretta Lynn personally chose Sissy to portray her in Coal Miner's Daugter after seeing a photo of Sissy. Loretta wasn't even that familiar with Sissy's acting roles. Sissy Spacek was reluctant to take the role, so she insisted on doing her own singing, hoping that this would deter the producers from casting her. The result was that Sissy doing her own singing is one of the things that made this movie great and probably helped her win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Loretta.

Loretta's father was portrayed by Levon Helm of The Band. This was Levon's first acting role in a major motion picture and he perfectly captures the downtrodden coal miner trying to do the best for his family and trying to look out for his daughter. Levon has only done a handful of roles over the course of his acting career, but everything I have ever seen him in, he was able to fit himself in the role perfectly. I assume that Levon is just a natural when it comes to acting.

Beverly D'Angelo (pre National Lampoon's Vacation movies) plays Patsy Cline, Loretta's friend and mentor. Beverly nails the part, unlike Jessica Lange who five years later would play Patsy in Sweet Dreams (see review here). Beverly, like Sissy did her own singing. The director did add a lot of strings to the background music when Beverly/Patsy is performing at the Grand Ole Opry and as you can see from the above photo, there's not a big string section of violins/fiddles on stage.

Ernest Tubb and Minnie Pearl have cameo parts in the movie and featured in small roles are Merle Kilgore as Cowboy at Tootsies, Vernon Oxford as Preacher and Billy Strange as Speedy West.

Coal Miner's Daughter had to condense a major chunk of Loretta's life into just a little over two hours and did a fine job of accomplishing that task. I would recommend this movie to anyone who has an interest in Country Music, Biopics, or would just like to know more about the Country Music Legend that is Loretta Lynn.