All the Kind Strangers, the 1974 movie from director Burt Kennedy and screenwriter Clyde Ware, is a movie hampered by its medium. It’s an American network television movie, therefore subject to Standards and Practices. An unconscionable level of restrictions on content and story was the norm on American television at the time, and it shows in All the Kind Strangers. A movie that could have had teeth was instead dumbed down.
Stacy Keach plays Jimmy Wheeler, a photojournalist taking a road trip across America in search of…well, that’s never explained. But it looks as if he’s taking the back roads, searching for some gritty Americana he can put on film and maybe turn into a touching piece for Harper’s or The New Yorker. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: All the Kind Strangers”