Final Chapter: Walking Tall (1977)

This turned out to be a false title because this film was not the Final Chapter: Walking Tall. Like that other hero from Tennessee Davy Crockett, Buford Pusser was too powerful a hero to die, cinematically speaking.Still as in real life we find that the sheriff with the stick was not universally popular. You take the approach he does to law enforcement and eventually people will fear you. That was a plot in fact for two westerns with Richard Widmark, Warlock and Death Of A Gunfighter. Pusser was in fact defeated for re-election.But news of his exploits in cleaning up his county and all the attempts on his life got him a Hollywood offer for his life story. And then came the car crash that ended his life.I'll never understand why Joe Don Baker didn't do the sequels. To this day it's the role people remember him for because he was so good in the part. Bo Svensson for the rest of his life always came out second best even with more Walking Tall movie to his credit. My best cinema memory of Svensson was as the guy employing Clint Eastwood's wife Marsha Mason in his joint in Heartbreak Ridge.This film maybe entitled Final Chapter, but it was by no means a fade to black for the Walking Tall hero Buford Pusser.

The Final Chapter Walking Tall. Is perhaps the most fictionalized chapter in the series Bo Svenson once again picks up the big stick. The film goes into detail as it's one year to the day Pauline Died and Buford is still fighting his war.Buford is filled with gulit and remorse. If he had not been Sheriff his wife would still be alive. But Buford only knows one thing and that's action. He continues his war and dries up the county and breaks the back of the state line mob. Soon Re Election comes up and Buford is voted out of office. It seems the people want change. and Buford's violent war is something they want to put behind them.So Buford decides to fix cars up and sell them. However some people have a hard time in accepting the fact that Buford is no longer sheriff and call him for help. His enemies attack him. And Buford tries to move on with his life. A Hollywood producer sees a news story on Buford and decides to make a film based on Buford's life. This leads to Buford helping out with the film in telling his story. the end of the film comes with the tragic death of Buford Pusser just days before he was to step in front of the cameras to film Buford. a film continuing his story. A fitting end to the legend of Buford Pusser.

This last chapter is better built than the second and hence has a better rhythm. He is defeated in the election because he shows a high level of distance from the people. He seems to consider it below him to come and discuss things with the public, the electors of the county in a public meeting. Then of course he is a double or triple victim One, of the low life people he had chased and hunted down in his crusade against crime and they think they can finally get their revenge and they can trash his car or even attack him in the street or attack his family or the people he has relations with. Two, of the new sheriff who has the tendency to consider him as a dangerous person and a trouble maker. Three, of the real bad ones who know he does not have the protection his uniform could provide him with (cars, deputies, etc) and they come to the idea they can finally organize his end and go through untouched. That will be his doom. But the best part is his economic situation once he is no longer the sheriff. He lives with his parents who are old and retired and live on a small pension. He refuses to accept the job his brother in the north is proposing because he does not want to move. He also refuses to accept the job the local lawyer is proposing: investigator for his special cases, because he feels it is charity. He finally accepts the proposal of some Hollywood producer to make the film of his life and that brings him the end of his financial problems but also the multiplied desire to get even from the local traffickers, even against the advice of their own higher-ups. This reveals how difficult it may be after you have been in the limelight of law enforcing in a small city. The people reject you and even refuse to testify for you when you are attacked and your property is attacked by some local bullies or rough individuals. The film also shows very well there is a change in the US at that time. People after the worst criminal activity is gone, want to have a more peaceful and less visible law-enforcing police force. But at the same time it represents the end of a generation of traffickers who also want to run things in a smoother way. In other words US society in these early mid 70s, at the end of the Vietnam war, moved from the cult of sheer force to solve any problem to the understanding that a solution can only come if it is founded on some kind of peaceful consensus, even if that means accepting some kind of traffic provided it becomes non-violent, peaceful, and it respects some basic rules like paying taxes. That's exactly what Buford Pusser did not understand. Maybe he was right but at that time crime moved from the back woods of Tennessee to the dilapidated ethnic and poor suburban areas or ghettos of the big cities because the main traffic did not concern moon-shine whisky any more, an inheritance of Prohibition, but the new hard drugs like heroin and cocaine coming from Latin America.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

You don't have to agree with its message to enjoy the first "Walking Tall". Certainly not as violent as the "Dirty Harry" pictures, but just as unsubtle, it was a powerful movie with a totally convincing, appropriately square performance by Joe Don Baker. The first sequel, in which Baker was replaced by Bo Svenson, was a boring, by-the-numbers follow-up, with none of the force of the original. The second sequel is even worse; talky and drab, it exploits (in an almost cannibalistic way) the first movie by lifting and recreating the most famous sequences from it. There are a few good moments (when Pusser picks up his trusty bat), but they are very scarce.