History Film / Convoy

[[TroubledProduction Production was somewhat troubled]]. Sam Peckinpah's earlier films, ''Film/CrossOfIron'', ''Film/TheKillerElite'', ''Film/BringMeTheHeadOfAlfredoGarcia'', and ''Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid'' had struggled at the box office, and Peckinpah needed to do a successful blockbuster if he was to get on. EMI had bought the screen rights to [=McHall=]'s song that chronicled the story of a convoy blasting past the fifty-five mph limit with an army of police attempting to enforce it. The screenplay was written by B.W.L. Norton, and was originally comprised with fast and furious action backed up by cartoonish characters and slapstick dialogue. Given the massive success of the similar ''Film/SmokeyAndTheBandit'', [[FollowTheLeader Peckinpah saw an opportunity in the script for the successful blockbuster he needed]]. However, unhappy with Norton's screenplay, Peckinpah tried to encourage the actors to re-write, improvise and ad-lib their dialogue, with little success. At the time, Peckinpah was struggling with drug addiction, so friend and actor Creator/JamesCoburn was brought in to serve as second unit director. Coburn directed much of the film's footage while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer. The picture finished 11 days behind schedule at a cost of $12 million, more than double its original budget. Surprisingly, ''Convoy'' was the highest-grossing picture of Peckinpah's career, notching $46.5 million at the box office. But alas, his reputation was seriously damaged by rumors of increasingly destructive alcohol and cocaine abuse. Peckinpah would make just one more film, ''The Osterman Weekend'' in 1983, before his death the following year.

[[TroubledProduction Production was somewhat troubled]]. Sam Peckinpah's earlier films, ''Film/CrossOfIron'', ''Film/TheKillerElite'', ''Film/BringMeTheHeadOfAlfredoGarcia'', and ''Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid'' had struggled at the box office, and Peckinpah needed to do a successful blockbuster if he was to get on. EMI had bought the screen rights to [=McHall=]'s song that chronicled the story of a convoy blasting past the fifty-five mph limit with an army of police attempting to enforce it. The screenplay was written by B.W.L. Norton, and was originally comprised with fast and furious action backed up by cartoonish characters and slapstick dialogue. Given the massive success of the similar ''SmokeyAndTheBandit'', [[FollowTheLeader Peckinpah saw an opportunity in the script for the successful blockbuster he needed]]. However, unhappy with Norton's screenplay, Peckinpah tried to encourage the actors to re-write, improvise and ad-lib their dialogue, with little success. At the time, Peckinpah was struggling with drug addiction, so friend and actor Creator/JamesCoburn was brought in to serve as second unit director. Coburn directed much of the film's footage while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer. The picture finished 11 days behind schedule at a cost of $12 million, more than double its original budget. Surprisingly, ''Convoy'' was the highest-grossing picture of Peckinpah's career, notching $46.5 million at the box office. But alas, his reputation was seriously damaged by rumors of increasingly destructive alcohol and cocaine abuse. Peckinpah would make just one more film, ''The Osterman Weekend'' in 1983, before his death the following year.

* DeadpanSnarker: Rubber Duck and Lyle Wallace. But all the truckers have their moments.

* DinerBrawl

* RunForTheBorder

* TheSeventies

* GondorCallsforAid: When Spider Mike is thrown into prison by the Sheriff of Alvarez, Texas, a sympathetic janitor at the jail send a call for help by CB radio. The message is relayed from trucker to trucker until it arrives to Rubber Duck.

* TheFilmOfTheSong: ''Convoy'' is based on the eponymous C.W. [=McCall=] song. [=McCall=] actually re-recorded the song with new lyrics for the movie, making it a Song of the Film of the Song.

* PoliceBrutality: Wallace asks a Sheriff of a little Texas town to arrest Spider Mike, an afroamerican trucker who has left the convoy, to use him as a bait to catch Rubber Duck. The Sheriff brutally beats the poor chap down.

[[quoteright:329:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2879656839_9bc32b1d7d_493.jpg]]

''Film/VanishingPoint''... [[RecycledInSpace with trucks!]]

* DueltotheDeath: [[spoiler:With a truck and a platoon of the Texas National Guard.]]

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere!: When the trucks converge on his police station to free Spider Mike, the Sheriff of Alvarez [[DirtyCoward jumps on his patrol car and tries to flee]]. But he is outdriven by the truckers and crashes into an house.

* HollywoodPoliceDrivingAcademy: The police officers who give pursuit to the convoy after the brawl in the diner crashes their cars [[LemmingCops while chasing the trucks across a dirt road]].

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: We rarely learn any of the main characters real names.
* PoliceAreUseless: Apart from Sheriff Wallace, who may be a CorruptCop, but is very good at his job, most of the police officers that try to stop Rubber Duck's convoy are either incompetent or [[PoliceBrutality brutal bigots]].

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: At the end Wallace brings with him an entire unit of the Texas National Guard, complete of an M42 Duster armoured vehicle, to confront Rubber Duck and his truck

* FollowTheLeader: Follow ''Smokey and the Bandit''.

* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler:During the final confrontation with Sheriff Wallace on the bridge, Rubber Duck deliberately steers his tractor unit over the side of the bridge, plummeting into the churning river, seemingly to his death. Later Mellisa finds him [[AttendingYourOwnFuneral attending his own funeral]] in disguise, where he explains his survival with the line: "You ever seen a duck that couldn't swim?"]]

''VanishingPoint''... [[RecycledInSpace with trucks!]]

'''''Convoy''''' is a 1978 action film directed by Creator/SamPeckinpah (''TheWildBunch'', ''StrawDogs''), based on the 1975 country/western and novelty song "''Convoy''" by C.W. [=McCall=]. In [[TheSeventies 1978]], the National Maximum Speed Law which prohibits speeds exceeding 55 mph is in full force, and the country's truck drivers don't much like it. Martin "Rubber Duck" Penwald (Kris Kristofferson) is one such driver, just going about minding his own business. When he and some friends - Mellisa (Ali [=MacGraw=]), Pig Pen (Burt Young), Spider Mike (Franklyn Ajaye), and Widow Woman (Madge Sinclair) - run afoul of corrupt Sheriff "Dirty Lyle" Wallace (Ernest Borgnine), a [[DinerBrawl fight breaks out at a truck stop]] and the bunch are forced to flee in their trucks, the police in pursuit. [[RunForTheBorder Heading for the Mexico border]], dozens of other truckers join them in their own trucks, until the epononymous convoy emerges, over a mile long. They communicate by means of CB radio. Rubber Duck, heading up the front, is thrust into the status of a folk hero. Will they evade the authorities and make it?

[[TroubledProduction Production was somewhat troubled]]. Sam Peckinpah's earlier films, ''Cross Of Iron'', ''The Killer Elite'', ''BringMeTheHeadOfAlfredoGarcia'', and ''Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid'' had struggled at the box office, and Peckinpah needed to do a successful blockbuster if he was to get on. EMI had bought the screen rights to [=McHall=]'s song that chronicled the story of a convoy blasting past the fifty-five mph limit with an army of police attempting to enforce it. The screenplay was written by B.W.L. Norton, and was originally comprised with fast and furious action backed up by cartoonish characters and slapstick dialogue. Given the massive success of the similar ''SmokeyAndTheBandit'', [[FollowTheLeader Peckinpah saw an opportunity in the script for the successful blockbuster he needed]]. However, unhappy with Norton's screenplay, Peckinpah tried to encourage the actors to re-write, improvise and ad-lib their dialogue, with little success. At the time, Peckinpah was struggling with drug addiction, so friend and actor Creator/JamesCoburn was brought in to serve as second unit director. Coburn directed much of the film's footage while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer. The picture finished 11 days behind schedule at a cost of $12 million, more than double its original budget. Surprisingly, ''Convoy'' was the highest-grossing picture of Peckinpah's career, notching $46.5 million at the box office. But alas, his reputation was seriously damaged by rumors of increasingly destructive alcohol and cocaine abuse. Peckinpah would make just one more film, ''The Osterman Weekend'' in 1983, before his death the following year.

Has little if anything to do with [[TransFormers Optimus Prime]]'s Japanese counterpart.

See also ''Film/EasyRider'', ''SweetSweetbacksBaadasssssSong'', ''Film/TwoLaneBlacktop'', ''Smokey and the Bandit'' and ''VanishingPoint''.

* TheFilmOfTheSong

[[TroubledProduction Production was somewhat troubled]]. Sam Peckinpah's earlier films, ''Cross Of Iron'', ''The Killer Elite'', ''BringMeTheHeadOfAlfredoGarcia'', and ''Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid'' had struggled at the box office, and Peckinpah needed to do a successful blockbuster if he was to get on. EMI had bought the screen rights to [=McHall=]'s song that chronicled the story of a convoy blasting past the fifty-five mph limit with an army of police attempting to enforce it. The screenplay was written by B.W.L. Norton, and was originally comprised with fast and furious action backed up by cartoonish characters and slapstick dialogue. Given the massive success of the similar ''SmokeyAndTheBandit'', [[FollowTheLeader Peckinpah saw an opportunity in the script for the successful blockbuster he needed]]. However, unhappy with Norton's screenplay, Peckinpah tried to encourage the actors to re-write, improvise and ad-lib their dialogue, with little success. At the time, Peckinpah was struggling with drug addiction, so friend and actor James Coburn was brought in to serve as second unit director. Coburn directed much of the film's footage while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer. The picture finished 11 days behind schedule at a cost of $12 million, more than double its original budget. Surprisingly, ''Convoy'' was the highest-grossing picture of Peckinpah's career, notching $46.5 million at the box office. But alas, his reputation was seriously damaged by rumors of increasingly destructive alcohol and cocaine abuse. Peckinpah would make just one more film, ''The Osterman Weekend'' in 1983, before his death the following year.

* [[BlackDudeDiesFirst Black Driver Loses Truck First]]: Weirdly displaced, the second female lead ''Widow Woman'' loses her 'white' truck in an over shot turn. Also the black driver ''Spider Mike'' ends up as "bait".

'''''Convoy''''' is a 1978 action film directed by SamPeckinpah (''TheWildBunch'', ''StrawDogs''), based on the 1975 country/western and novelty song "''Convoy''" by C.W. [=McCall=]. In [[TheSeventies 1978]], the National Maximum Speed Law which prohibits speeds exceeding 55 mph is in full force, and the country's truck drivers don't much like it. Martin "Rubber Duck" Penwald (Kris Kristofferson) is one such driver, just going about minding his own business. When he and some friends - Mellisa (Ali [=MacGraw=]), Pig Pen (Burt Young), Spider Mike (Franklyn Ajaye), and Widow Woman (Madge Sinclair) - run afoul of corrupt Sheriff "Dirty Lyle" Wallace (Ernest Borgnine), a [[DinerBrawl fight breaks out at a truck stop]] and the bunch are forced to flee in their trucks, the police in pursuit. [[RunForTheBorder Heading for the Mexico border]], dozens of other truckers join them in their own trucks, until the epononymous convoy emerges, over a mile long. They communicate by means of CB radio. Rubber Duck, heading up the front, is thrust into the status of a folk hero. Will they evade the authorities and make it?

See also ''Film/EasyRider'', ''SweetSweetbacksBaadasssssSong'', ''Two-Lane Blacktop'', and the aforementioned ''Smokey and the Bandit'' and ''VanishingPoint''.

* SomebodyElsesProblem: Rubber Duck is really kind of careless about some things and does a great job of showing it by nearly running off with out his compatriots, letting strangers and other truckers follow him, and risking the lives of alot of people by assuming it isn't his problem.