Convoy (1978)

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When the western film, for many decades the staple of the American cinema, suffered a decline in the Seventies, a new sub-genre helped fill the void the trucking epic. Legendary filmmaker Sam Peckinpah (Ride the High Country, Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) directed this action-packed classic based on the runaway hit song, Convoy. Martin 'Rubber Duck' Penwald (Kris Kristofferson, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid) who, in pursuance of a feud with Sheriff Dirty Lyle 'Cottonmouth' Wallace (Ernest Borgnine, The Wild Bunch), unites scores of his fellow drivers via Citizen Band radio into a gigantic mile-long convoy which, powered by pent-up frustrations and resentments as much as by diesel fuel, rolls irresistibly along the Arizona highways towards the freedom of the Mexican border. The stellar cast includes Ali MacGraw (The Getaway), Seymour Cassel (Rushmore) and Burt Young (The Killer Elite) as Bobby 'Love Machine' 'Pig Pen'. Beautifully shot in CinemaScope by the great Harry Stradling Jr. (Bite the Bullet), Convoy was Peckinpah's biggest box office hit.