The Sugarland Express
It is a real pleasure to watch Steven Spielberg develop and hone his filmmaking craft with 1974's THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS, his theatrical debut as director. It is obvious from the first crane shot that this young man was going places. By then he'd worked steadily in television, but it proved to be far too limiting for this restless boy wonder's scope, one significantly widened here. It would be the first motion picture to utilize the Panavision Panaflex camera. It's fitting that the film takes place in the big ol' state of Texas, where the director can map a huge canvas of drama and mayhem, yet all serving a human drama. But does the latter suffer a bit for Spielberg's grandiose visions? A bit. Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins' screenplay (they share a "story by" credit with their director) is based on a real event that unfolded in 1969, as two petty thieves who lost their child to foster care kidnap a highway patrolman and set off a statewid...
