William Atherton and Goldie Hawn in The Sugarland Express (1974)
Vitals
William Atherton as Clovis Michael Poplin, escaped fugitive and petty crook
Texas, Spring 1973
Film: The Sugarland Express
Release Date: March 30, 1974
Director: Steven Spielberg
Costume Design: Robert Ellsworth & James Gilmore (uncredited)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released 50 years ago at the end of March 1974, The Sugarland Express was Steven Spielberg’s theatrical debut after a number of well-received television productions like the ABC thriller Duel (1971) and “Murder by the Book,” the first episode of Columbo following two earlier pilots.
The Sugarland Express could be argued as fine companion viewing for fans of The Getaway (1972), Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), with Spielberg’s unique touch propelling this darkly funny piece of ’70s cinema that was also the director’s first collaboration with composer John Williams.
Following a title card that informs us “this film is based upon a real event which happened in Texas in 1969,” the fledgling director’s talent becomes evident from the start as he crafts an engaging and often funny road drama with the simple-minded Clovis Michael Poplin (William Atherton) and his Texas Gold stamp-obsessed wife Lou Jean (Goldie Hawn) representing the real-life Bobby and Ila Fae Dent.
Steven Spielberg directs Goldie Hawn, William Atherton, and Michael Sacks on the set of his first theatrical feature, The Sugarland Express.
Developed in collaboration with screenwriters Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, Spielberg’s story begins with a despairing Lou Jean visiting Clovis at the low-security pre-release prison center in the Beauford H. Jester Complex, tearfully appealing for his help in retrieving their infant son from Sugar Land, where social services had relocated the boy to live with a wealthy Methodist couple.
As Clovis still has four months left to serve, Lou Jean relies on her resourcefulness and feminine wiles to convince Clovis to escape—a departure from the story of the Dents, as the actual Bobby had already been released two weeks earlier. After all, “nobody breaks out of pre-release… that’s just stupid!” Clovis’ fellow inmate Hubie (Gordon Hurst) urges him as he and Lou Jean make their slow but intentional stride off the grounds and talking their way into catching a ride with Hubie’s unknowing parents in their two-toned teal 1956 Buick Roadmaster.
The old man’s uncomfortably slow pace down the highway attracts the attention of young patrolman Maxwell Slide (Michael Sacks), whose attention spooks the Poplins into thinking they’ve been spotted… prompting Lou Jean to take the wheel, beginning a bizarre two-day pursuit organized by the relentless Captain Harlin Tanner (Ben Johnson) that becomes a statewide spectacle.
What’d He Wear?
Lou Jean lures Clovis into the men’s restroom at the pre-release center, where she strips him out of his prison whites and dresses him in the heavy plaid flannel shirt (“Say, isn’t this my shirt?”) that she had been wearing under her HemisFair sweatshirt and the dark pair of his Levi’s she had been wearing over her own jeans.
“Say, isn’t this my shirt? You got two pairs of pants on!”
Clovis slowly begins that Lou Jean may have ulterior motives to her amorous advances in the bathroom stall, disrobing out of her extra layers so that he’ll have nondescript clothing to make his escape.
Clovis’ heavy-weight woolen flannel shirt is patterned in a rust-and-cream tartan plaid, further complicated by hunter-green and mustard-yellow overchecks and the diamond-shaped weave mostly clearly seen where the colored checks overlap with the beige sections. The weight, cut, and styling suggest that this would be more typically worn as an over-shirt or “shacket”, the modern portmanteau derived from “shirt-jacket”. (Despite Clovis and Lou Jean’s surname, the shirt is arguably not poplin!)
The shirt’s oversized long-pointed collar is consistent with the exaggerated details that characterized fashions of the 1970s. Six black buttons fasten up the front placket, matching the single button closing each cuff. Two non-matching patch pockets are low-slung on Clovis’ chest, with the gently pointed bottom of each pocket mirroring the shape of each single-button flap.
The patriotic parade through Rodrigo—and Captain Tanner’s preceding comments about it—may suggest the action is meant to be set on July 3rd and 4th, though the actual incident was in May 1969 and the production itself was filmed from December 1972 through the spring of 1973, as demonstrated by the often sparse vegetation, the felt hats (rather than straw hats) worn by the troopers, and the fact that Atherton never looks too uncomfortable in his heavy woolen shirt over a long-sleeved T-shirt.
This creamy off-white cotton waffle-knit thermal shirt is the same long-sleeved undershirt he had worn with his prison whites.
Lou Jean provided Clovis with a pair of dark indigo selvedge denim jeans, which feature the Levi’s arcuate stitching across the back pockets (a brand trademark since 1943), though it lacks the signature “red tab” that became a patented feature of most Levi’s jeans from 1936 onward. The jeans have belt loops (which go unused) and the traditional five-pocket layout, though the zip-fly—used to comic effect when Clovis discovers Lou Jean “got two pairs of pants on!”—informs us that these couldn’t be the button-fly Levi’s 501.
Note the arcuate stitch across Clovis’ back pockets—a Levi’s trademark, even if his jeans lack the brand’s familiar red tab.
In addition to his undershirt, Clovis also continues to wear the same cheap black leather shoes and white ribbed cotton tube socks that had been part of his prison uniform. Echoing the lace-ups worn by real-life Texas state prison inmates during this era (as seen in some photos featured in My San Antonio and Texas Monthly), these plain-toe derby shoes are laced through six sets of eyelets.
These shoes look rather incongruous with the rugged plaid flannel shirt and dark jeans, but it would have looked suspicious for Lou Jean to try to smuggle her husband an additional pair of shoes when her belongings were already being searched at the pre-release.
During a stop for fried chicken, Slide’s relative comfort with the Poplins shows that he’s reached a degree of Stockholm syndrome, or—as one of William Atherton’s on-screen colleagues would later call it—”Helsinki syndrome.”
Clovis sneaks out of pre-release wearing a pair of sunglasses with matte tortoise frames, the slim cat-eye silhouette and wraparound shape comparing to contemporary favorites like the Ray-Ban Balorama (popularized by Clint Eastwood in 1971’s Dirty Harry) and the Vuarnet Legend 06 (as worn by Alain Delon in 1969’s La Piscine and more recently by Daniel Craig’s James Bond in No Time to Die.)
On the second day of the chase, Clovis has taken to wearing Patrolman Slide’s cowboy hat and gold-framed aviator-style sunglasses, though the latter get taken from his face as they drive through the enthusiastic parade in Rodrigo, Texas.
Consistent with the example Texas set as the first state to adopt an official hat (which was, of course, the cowboy hat), the Texas Department of Public Safety has issued wide-brimmed cattleman’s-style hats to Highway Patrol troopers for nearly a century since the agency was formed. Proudly crafted by the East Texas-based Resistol, these tan beaver felt hats are detailed with a nearly matching narrow band tied into a bow on the left side of the crown.
Clovis wears Slide’s hat and sunglasses as he takes a lesson in driving the Polara like a true Texas highway patrolman.
The Car
Mr. Nocker: We just had our car taken by an ex-con. Claimed he was a working man.
Patrolman Mashburn: Was it a green Buick?
Mrs. Nocker: Seafoam green. 1956.
Mr. Nocker: Roadmaster, B-O-W 404.
Mrs. Nocker: Stole!
The pursuit begins when Lou Jean climbs over the seat to take control of the Nocker family’s two-toned green 1956 Buick Roadmaster, specifically the four-door “Riviera” hardtop that was the model’s most popular trim for 1956, accounting for more than 46% of the 53,427 Roadmasters sold in ’56.
Designed by the legendary Harley Earl and built on General Motors’ full-sized “C-body” platform, the Roadmaster traces its origins to the 1930s, when the Series 80 was marketed as the “Roadmaster” from 1936 onward. The model survived the World War II civilian automotive production hiatus, positioned as Buick’s flagship model for a decade.
As featured in The Sugarland Express, the 1956 Roadmaster was the final year of the generation distinguished by the “ponton”-inspired redesign two years earlier but maintaining the elegant chrome “Sweepspear” side molding. The four-door Riviera hardtop was one of four available body styles, all with a 127-inch wheelbase and a 213.8-inch overall length that was somewhat shorter than the two preceding years. The 322 cubic-inch Buick “Fireball Eight” was the only engine option, generating 255 horsepower and mated to GM’s two-speed Dynaflow automatic transmission.
Lou Jean demonstrates how the Nockers’ Roadmaster can master beyond traditional roads.
After Lou Jean crashes the Nockers’ Roadmaster, she takes the opportunity to goad Clovis into taking Maxwell Slide’s Texas Highway Patrol cruiser, a black-and-white 1973 Dodge Polara, at gunpoint. Though briefly considering an RV, this would be the trio’s wheels throughout The Sugarland Express, with Spielberg himself purchasing the bullet-ridden screen-used car after production ended.
The Guns
The dutiful Patrolman Slide’s assistance to Lou Jean after she crashes the Roadmaster also gives her the opportunity to grab his matte blued steel Smith & Wesson Model 28 from its holster and toss it up to a dumbfounded Clovis.
Introduced in the mid-1950s as an affordable yet equally robust alternative to the polished Smith & Wesson Model 27 Registered Magnum, this large “N-frame” .357 Magnum revolver was appropriately marketed by Smith & Wesson as the “Highway Patrolman” and was indeed issued to many American police departments—including the Texas Department of Public Safety—across the latter decades of the 20th century. Aside from its hefty dimensions, weighing in at 41 ounces even with the standard four-inch barrel, the Model 28 Highway Patrolman echoes the operation of most contemporary service revolvers with its six-round swing-out cylinder and traditional double-action (DA/SA) operation.
Clovis keeps Slide’s Model 28 trained on Captain Tanner as the two TDPS Polaras cruise next to each other.
Lou Jean also takes Slide’s Mossberg Model 500 AT riot shotgun, which Clovis handles akimbo with the Model 28 during the complicated delivery of a port-a-potty to attend to Lou Jean’s call of nature.
Compared to alternatives from competition like Remington, Stevens, and Winchester, the Mossberg 500 was a relatively newer pump-action shotgun, designed by Carl Benson in 1961 as an affordable and reliable shotgun for hunters, though these same qualities resulted in its appeal for law enforcement and the introduction of the Model 500AT combat police model.
The Mossberg 500 was initially only produced with a wooden slide and stock, as illustrated by the 12-gauge Model 500AT wielded by the Poplins in The Sugarland Express, though many—if not most—modern Mossbergs are rigged with synthetic furniture.
“Now, I just might see what happens if I shoot a load of buckshot into that commode!”
How to Get the Look
William Atherton with Michael Sacks and Goldie Hawn in The Sugarland Express (1974)
Lou Jean Poplin smuggles her husband Clovis some subdued casual layers appropriate for a transitional season like spring, though I’d swap out his prison-issued black leather lace-ups for hardy dark brown boots. (Of course, I have the luxury of not being limited to whatever clothing Goldie Hawn can unobtrusively layer around her own outfit.)
- Rust, cream, green, and mustard tartan plaid woolen flannel over-shirt with long-pointed collar, six-button front placket, two low-slung patch-style chest pockets (with pointed button-down flaps), and button cuffs
- Off-white waffle-knit cotton thermal long-sleeve crew-neck T-shirt
- Dark indigo selvedge denim five-pocket jeans with belt loops
- Black calf leather plain-toe 6-eyelet derby shoes
- White ribbed cotton crew socks
- Matte tortoise-framed slim cat-eye sunglasses
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
Now, stick ’em— reach for y’… just get your goddamn hands in the air.
I done some dumb things, but I ain’t a goddamn mental subject!
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