Review of Dixie Dynamite

After their moonshiner pappy (Mark Millner) gets bumped off by big, nasty bossman Dade (a splendidly smarmy'n'slippery turn by unsung fat guy thesp Stanley Adams), Millner's two spitfire daughters Patsy and Dixie decide to get revenge by stealing Dade's tremendous amounts of money and redistributing the cash back to the poor country people Dade's been bilking bread from. Directed with customary zippy élan by former 60's soft-core sex picture filmmaker turned 70's drive-in feature auteur Lee Frost (who also co-wrote the cheekily effective script with longtime collaborator Wes Bishop, who also pops up in a sizable co-starring role as the sleazy, trigger happy, dangerously blundering Deputy Frank), this Southern-fried ozoner revenge potboiler offers a pleasingly ramshackle and richly colorful evocation of the South, what with jubilant bluegrass music on the soundtrack, solid themes concerning family ties and loyalty, an odious Yankee villain trying to buy up everyone's land, cops and crooks mingling with each other just like buddies, poverty and unemployment keeping honest folks down, the occasional lively car chase, a token rowdy bar fight, and two sassy good old gal protagonists who use everything they got to get ahead in life. Jane Anne Johnstone and Kathy McHaley are wonderfully breezy and appealing as the sexy, pretty, very spunky and supremely self-sufficient distaff leads, with sturdy supporting performances by the always dependable Warren Oates as Mack, an amiably scraggly motorcross bike champ who the girls confide in (an uncredited Steve McQueen doubles for Oates in the motorcross race sequences); Christopher George as a nice guy sheriff on the take, and R.G. Armstrong as a venal bank president with feet of clay. Spirited and entertaining, "Dixie Dynamite" serves up a considerable heap of punchy'n'rollicking kick up the dirt animated fun.