Scanning the pop-culture I.Q. of America’s fascination with life on the open road:
“Big Rig” (2007): Documentarians travel 21,000 miles through 45 states in search of what the life of a long- haul driver is all about. I.Q.: 130“Bus Stop” (1955): Play turned iconic film, set in a diner in rural Kansas during a snowstorm from which bus passengers must take shelter. I.Q.: 110
“City of Conquest” (1940): When a dame tells Jimmy Cagney he has no ambition because he’s happy just being a truck driver, he sets out to become a boxing champion. I.Q.: 100“Duel” (1971): Unknown young director Steven Spielberg makes his mark with an ABC “movie of the week” about a salesman being terrorized on California highways by a faceless truck driver. I.Q.: 92“Alice” (1976): Truck-driver widow Alice lands at a greasy-spoon diner in Phoenix where, each week, someone is advised to kiss her pal Flo’s grits. I.Q.: 90
“Any Which Way but Loose” (1978): Clint Eastwood plays a smitten truck driver who follows an aspiring country music singer to her home in Denver, bringing along his pet orangutan, Clyde. I.Q.: 32“Smokey and the Bandit” (1977): Maverick race-car driver Burt Reynolds makes an $80,000 bet that he can transport an illegal shipment of Coors beer from Texas to Atlanta in 28 hours. I.Q.: 20“Convoy” (1978): Based on the hit song by C.W. McCall, a group of struggling truckers (who stay in touch by CB) form a convoy to bring down a blackmailing traffic cop. I.Q.: 18
“Breaker, Breaker!” (1977): A judge uses CB technology and a gang of henchman to lure wayward truckers into their town to do them bodily harm. Enter Chuck Norris. I.Q.: 14
“The Dukes of Hazzard” (1979): Redneck TV series fueled America’s fetish for truckers, CB radios, moonshine, dumb hicks and dumber cops. Also brought the word “Cooter” into the American lexicon and spawned a Johnny Knoxville film. I.Q.: 4 Greatest truck-driver cameos in film history
“The Brady Bunch Movie” (1985): A trucker named Schultzy, played by “Brady” maid Ann B. Davis, picks up middle daughter Jan and convinces her not to run away.
“Creepshow II (1987): Author Stephen King plays a truck driver in the story of a hitchhiker out for revenge.
“The Jerk” (1979): Rob Reiner plays a truck driver who picks up Steve Martin in a film made by his dad, Carl Reiner.
Sing it!
Four trucker songs featured in the new stage musical “Mama Hated Diesels”:
“White Line Fever,” Merle Haggard, above: “The wrinkles in my forehead show the miles I’ve put behind me.”“Looking at the World Through a Windshield,” Del Reeves: “I’m gonna sign my name in this diesel smoke, and let the ones that come behind me choke.” “Mama Hated Diesels,” Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen: “One day the county sheriff came and told me they had found a body by the side of the road; she’d been flagging diesels down.”
“Roll On, Big Momma,” Joe Stampley: “Well the feel of the wheel delivers me from a life where I don’t wanna be.”— John Moore
