Hicksploitation brings out the most colorful elements of the South. As someone who has lived below the Mason-Dixon line for decades, I can assure you that many of the characters in these films aren’t stereotypes. I’ve seen them in the wild. Common Law Wife + Jennie, Wife/Child: Backwoods Double Feature has two movies about old guys hooking up with much younger women. You might think this is a nasty stereotype being pushed by Hollywood people about Southerners. However, you can find this exact person in Congress right now. Representative John Rose of Tennessee allegedly met his wife when she was a 17-year-old high schooler and awarded her a college scholarship. He was 41 at the time. They might have met earlier through their involvement in Future Farmers of America, but Rose has been reluctant to share his love at first sight story. They married when she turned 21 and he was 45. So don’t act like the basis for either film is mocking the South. This is something still happening down here.
Common Law Wife (1963 – 75 minutes) serves as a legal warning to viewers about how in some states, you can cohabitate with a partner long enough to be considered legally married. Shugfoot Rainey (George Edgley) is a rich old geezer who is bored of his live-in girlfriend Linda (Anne MacAdams). He’s tossing darts at her while breaking the news that he’s dumping her and upgrading. He lined up his niece Baby Doll (Lacey Kelly) to move in. She’s not an innocent young girl since she’d spent the last few months as a stripper in New Orleans. Linda isn’t about to leave quietly since she’s been sharing a bed with the elderly Shugfoot long enough to qualify for common law wife status. Baby Doll doesn’t want any of Shugfoot’s money to go towards a divorce and alimony. Things are going to get nasty in the small Southern town.
The movie is extra interesting since it was originally made by Larry Buchanan (Mars Needs Women). He shot it on 16mm color film. Another filmmaker bought the film and shot new scenes in 35mm black and white film. The entire film was released as black and white. Sayer was able to get Anne MacAdams and George Edgely back for the reshoots. Lacey Kelly was unavailable. He brought in another actress to fake being Baby Doll. The new (and uncredited) Baby Doll isn’t quite a body double match. This reminds me of when Ed Wood replaced Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 From Outer Space. The film has a great ending that matches the tawdriness.
Jennie, Wife/Child (1968 – 83 minutes) has older Farmer Albert Peckingpaw (The Last Unicorn‘s Jack Lester) putting his extra young wife Jennie (The Crawling Hand‘s Beverly Lunsford) in her place. They’re one of those marriages where you ponder what they have to talk about. Mainly he’s there to talk and she’s there to be quiet and do his bidding. Her only sort of relief from her husband is hired hand Mario Dingle (The Glory Stomper‘s Jim Reader). This goes bad when Albert plots to do more than just fire Mario. The film feels like a less intense version of Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll except Reader’s Mario isn’t quite as creepy as Eli Wallach. Lunsford pulls off the young woman trapped in a creepy marriage and gives us a wife/child vibe.
These two films have more in common than old guys hooking up with really young women. Like Common Law Wife, Jennie, Wife/Child was recut and reshot with extra scenes to get released. They aren’t the same movie told twice since Jennie isn’t nearly as diabolical as Baby Doll. While you think their subject is part of the past, Congressman Rose and his wife keep them in vogue. Rose is not alone as we keep seeing more older men that own sports franchises hooking up with much younger women. Shugfoot Rainey and Farmer Peckingpaw were trailblazers. Common Law Wife + Jennie, Wife/Child: Backwoods Double Feature is great for a date night on a hot and humid Southern night.
The Video is 1.85:1 anamorphic for both films. The restoration both black and white films make them look better when they came to tiny theater in Hickory, NC. They’ve done a good job not making too obvious when the original footage cuts into the new footage. The Audio is DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono and Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. You’ll hear a slight twang on the actors. The movies are both subtitled in English.
That’s Hicksploitation: The Origin of Southern Sinema (50:30) has filmmaker C. Courtney Joyner explain how movies about the South were important over the decades. Turns out that there were a lot of movie theaters in the South outside of major cities that weren’t owned by the major studios. They could book films from independent distributors. Producers made films aimed at that audience. This is a perfect bonus feature to explain the genre.
Archival Commentary with Larry Buchanan and Nathanial Thompson is the best as Larry explains what he shot and was done in the reshoot. He is both frustrated that his film got butchered, but sort of satisfied that the film is still being shown after all these decades. Larry passed away in 2004. Film Masters deserves credit for giving us subtitles for the audio commentary.
Audio Commentary by Millie De Chirico and Ben Cheaves gets into the history of Southern movies from this era. You might remember Millie De Chirico as the programmer for Turner Classic Movies’ TCM Underground that showed a double feature of wildness on Friday nights. I set my DVR for it. Both Millie and the show was axed by the creep from the Discovery Channel as “cost savings.” I appreciate what Millie did over the years with the TCM Underground (bring it back!!!!)
Trailer for Common Law Wife (2:44) mimics Alfred Hitchcock’s original trailer for Psycho. An actor walks us around a cheap motel room and promises no clips from the film to keep from shocking the children in the audience. He sniffs clothes and points out an unmade bed. We’re promised a “Depraved climax.” He also gets into the “common law wife” laws in certain states.
Audio Commentary by Millie De Chirico starts off with how Jennie Wife/Child had a major soundtrack release under the title Peckingpaw’s Revenge. The film was originally finished as a two-hour melodrama and shopped around as Tender Grass. This didn’t interest any distributors. They made the film a bit more tawdry and sliced away 2 reels. This commentary also has subtitles.
New Jennie Wife/Child Trailer (2:06) was cut in 2024 for this restoration. They give us a sense of the trouble brewing between the old farmer, his young wife and the hunky hired hand.
Booklet has an essay by Lisa Petrucci and photos from the movies.
Film Masters present Common Law Wife & Jennie Wife/Child. Directed by Larry Buchanan, Eric Sayers, Robert Carl Cohen & James Landis. Screenplay by Grace Nolen and James Landis. Starring Annabelle Weenick, George Edgley, Max W. Anderson, Lacey Kelly, Jack Lester, Beverly Lunsford, Jim Reader & Virginia Wood. Boxset Contents: 2 movies on 2 Blu-ray discs. Rating: Not Rated. Release Date: June 25, 2024.
