The newspaper article that launched the most successful directing career in history
The introduction to this article could just be a list of some of the fantastic films Steven Spielberg has made over the years. However, that would probably take up most of the word count. The veteran director is widely regarded as one of the best to ever do it, and with good reason. Nobody ends up with a body of work as good as his by accident.
The Amblin’ Man began his career making shorts, amateur films, and straight-to-TV movies before Jaws came along and catapulted him right to the top. Before that, though, there was The Sugarland Express, Spielberg’s first-ever feature film from 1974. Starring Goldie Hawn and William Atherton as a couple who kidnap a police officer and generate a massive media circus, the movie is unlike anything else in the director’s catalogue. It also has quite a story behind it.
When speaking to the Director’s Guild of America in 2006, Spielberg recalled how he got the idea for Sugarland Express. “I wrote the story based on this newspaper article I read about an actual couple that was going to get their baby back from child welfare,” he said. “And this led to a crazy hullabaloo of a chase throughout Texas.” The DreamWorks co-founder also admitted he was inspired by the 1951 movie Ace in the Hole by Billy Wilder. The film, which Spielberg calls “one of my favourite movies of all time”, also involves a gaggle of press focusing on an unusual event, this time a man stuck in a cave.
The real-life incident that Spielberg read about in the paper was the case of Ila Fae Holiday and Robert ‘Bobby’ Dent. They really did kidnap a police officer and lead his colleagues on a slow-moving chase across Texas until it came to an end when they pulled up outside Holiday’s mother’s house, and Bobby was fatally shot.
In the movie, the characters undertake their dangerous journey because they are trying to retrieve their young son before he is placed into foster care. The DGA interviewer pointed out that the “isolated child” plays a big part in Spielberg’s filmography, from Elliott in E.T. to Christian Bale’s character in Empire of the Sun to the recent semi-autobiographical depiction of his own childhood in The Fabelmans. “I’m really not sure how conscious I was of that when I was making The Sugarland Express,” he replied, but it’s not hard to see where some of his future ideas got their start.
Prior to this film, Spielberg’s biggest challenge had been Duel, a TV movie that was eventually extended for theatrical release. The director heaped praise on his screenwriter, Richard Matheson, for the success of his first major project. “I think that was the first time I realised, ‘Hey, if I have a good script, and I’m a good director, I can make a pretty terrific movie.’ I think that was the first time I really embraced the idea that directors need great screenplays to look good.”
Despite only having a budget of $3million, The Sugarland Express was a critical hit, drawing many positive comments on the quality of the camerawork, Hawn’s performance, and the overall direction by this young unknown. It even managed to turn a profit, generating $12m at the box office. More importantly, it put Spielberg in touch with producers David Brown and Richard D Zanuck, who put him in charge of their next movie. It was something to do with a giant shark terrorising an island community – now what was it called…
