Walking Tall
Walking Tall is a 1973 film from the USA, directed by Phil Karlson, running 101 minutes. reelscum files it under vigilante and hicksploitation.
- Year
- 1973 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 101 min
- Director
- Phil Karlson
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (26/100)
Defined in the glossary: Vigilante, Hicksploitation
One sheriff, one hickory club, and the blueprint for every Southern vigilante picture after it.
Phil Karlson films the true-ish legend of Buford Pusser, the Tennessee sheriff who took a hickory club to the moonshiners and gambling bosses of McNairy County and got most of his body cut up for the trouble. Joe Don Baker plays him as a wall of righteous stubbornness, and the film backs him without a flicker of doubt. It came out of nowhere to become a colossal sleeper hit, and spawned sequels, a television series and a Rock-shaped remake. The politics are pure law-and-order wish fulfilment and it commits to them completely. Every rural revenge picture of the seventies is standing in its shadow. Sincere in a way the cynical imitators never managed.
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Legal options in USA
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Written about
- Cult films and the audiences that make them
Cult status arrives after release, through late-night television, midnight bookings and VHS trade, as The Brainiac, Walking Tall and Patrick each show.
Filed alongside
The Exterminator
A flamethrower and a meat grinder. Death Wish with the restraint removed.
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Coffy
Pam Grier's arrival. Jack Hill knows exactly what he has.
Rolling Thunder
Paul Schrader script, and the last twenty minutes are perfect.
Two Thousand Maniacs!
H.G. Lewis, a Southern town, and gore effects that predate everyone.
Thriller: A Cruel Picture
The eyepatch Tarantino copied. Contains real hardcore inserts and a real animal death.
Maniac Cop
A dead cop stalks New York in uniform. Larry Cohen writes, Robert Z'Dar's jaw does the rest.
White Lightning
Burt Reynolds, moonshine, and the blueprint for a decade of Southern comedy.
Death Wish 3
Abandons realism entirely. Bronson defends a housing block with a machine gun.
I Saw the Devil
Revenge as a chew toy. Nobody in Korean cinema has been crueller for longer.
Across 110th Street
Grim, well acted, and the best film in the cycle by some distance.