[Originally published in Movietone News 27, November 1973]
“[Karlson’s] special brand of lynch hysteria establishes such an outrageous moral imbalance that the most unthinkable violence releases the audience from its helpless passivity.” Andrew Sarris’s five-year-old assessment of Phil Karlson’s work up until that time anticipates exactly what makes Walking Tall so frighteningly effective and yet so morally devious. Based on the true-life experiences of a Tennessee sheriff named Buford Pusser, Karlson’s latest film is a seductive and potent fantasy of impossible good vs. heartwarmingly unambiguous evil. Pusser (Joe Don Baker), disillusioned with the organized dishonesty of the wrestling game, quits to return to the idyllically rural environs of his hometown, only to discover that the same evil has wormed its way into Eden in the guise of gambling, mobile cathouses, and poisonous moonshine. It never seems to occur to Pusser that all these criminal activities could be killed off by economic boycott, that someone is buying these soul-destroying services. Unhampered by any newfangled notions about free will, Buford Pusser turns self-styled savior and spends the rest of the film alternately harrowing and being crucified by the forces of Hell.
