The Dion Brothers aka The Gravy Train

Director: Jack Starrett

1974 / 94min / 16mm

Race with the Devil director Starrett’s crime-comedy pairs Stacy Keach and Frederic Forrest as working-class West Virginia good ol’ boy brothers who impulsively decide to leave behind their lives of hard labor, relocate to Washington, D.C., and try to get-rich-quick by teaming up with some local stick-up men, with the dream of opening a seafood restaurant called The Blue Grotto. Keach and Forrest, eventually joined by a charming Margot Kidder, exude hillbilly charisma; Starrett gives us a finale for the ages with a shoot-out set in a building undergoing demolition; and the screenplay is co-written by none other than a pseudonymous Terrence Malick, who here anticipates the ”Take this job and shove it” opening of his Days of Heaven.

Please note that the 16mm print is faded