JACKSON COUNTY JAIL

US, 1976, 84 minutes, Colour.
Yvette Mimieux, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Carradine, Severn Darden, Nan Martin.
Directed by Michael Miller.

Jackson County Jail is a surprise. Not the kind of sensational exploiter title and advertising suggest, it is an effectively alarming story of a middle-aged woman driving across America and, by chance, robbed, held in jail overnight after a false charge against her, raped and forced to flee with a prison escapee. Despite the coincidences and ugliness, the plot is all too plausible. Yvette Mimieux brings credible dignity to the central role giving the film strength while it shows human suffering and criticises the inherent violence in America, contriving to bring the events to an ironic climax on July 4th 1976 during a bi-centenary procession. Ending swiftly, the film could have been satisfyingly longer.

1. The tone of the title and its emphasis? The advertising and the sensational style? Expectations? Fulfilment?

2. The quality of the plot and characterisation, the quality of the film and production? The work of a new director working within a small budget and brief running time? The achievement?

3. The creation of an authentic United States: the world of commercials, Los Angeles' homes and morals,, cafes on the roads, the highways and the hitchhikers, the stores in the middle American counties, the jails and their kindness and brutality, the protest and underworld of America? The particular view of the American way of life and its impact in the 70s? How applicable to a universal message?

4. The film as an American road film, the violence on the road, the allegory of modern America? The importance of the bi-centennial setting? The importance of the final patriotic procession the flag and the stop-sign with Coley's dead body?

5. The basic male response to the film? To Dinah, to her plight? The female response and greater identification with the character, her experience and suffering? Her vengeance?

6. The importance of the initial setting, the world of advertising, the ad itself, the subject advertised? Dinah doing her job and yet resenting it? The artificiality of this life-style? Dinah at home, the clashes with the man at work, her husband, an angry atmosphere and need for self-assertion?

7. How attractive a character was Dinah? Smart woman, New York to Los Angeles her huff with the boss, her return home, the encounter with David and her anger, her desperation at so many forgiveness’s, her phone call to New York, her determination to go and to leave immediately, her hopes for relaxation in seeing her country - the irony?

8. Comment on those who were against her and what they represented in American values: the advertising boss, Dave, the waitress who tried to cheat her, the hitchhikers and their taking the car, the store owner with rape in mind and charging her, the jailer who raped her, the hostile police? The significance of this group of people and the representation of an ugly and oppressive world?

9. The contrast with those who were for her: her New York boss, the girl traveller that she encountered moving in the opposite direction, the kindly sheriff, his assistant, Coley, Coley's friends? Not the obvious sympathetic people? The significance of this group and what they represented in an ugly world?

10. The humour and humanity of the cafe sequence, the pleasant girl she discussed roads with, the waitress and her attitude and her trying to cheat Dinah? The hitchhikers and their performance, their conversation about going to Alaska, their brutality in taking her car and even contemplating killing her? The importance of her going to the store after being brutalised?

11. The experience in the store, the phone, the washroom, the advance of the storeman (and the evidence of his religious background?), her language and the attack of the policeman, her being taken to jail? How credible were these events?

12. The experience of Coley? Dinah seeing him on the road at the time of his arrest? The intertwining of Coley's experience with Dinah's? The interview and the discussion between the two police about Coley's life, jail, attitudes, their treatment of him? Pro and con the treatment of a person like Coley?

13. Was it clear why Dinah was detained? Was any other process possible? The fact that her contacts were away? The pleasant treatment by the police, especially the sheriff in trying to find out the truth? The meal? The intercutting of Hobie and his return from the hunt, introduction to him in his attitude, sprucing himself up and combing his hair, bringing in the meal?

14. The build-up to the dramatic sequence of the rape: Hobie and his attitude, Dinah and her enforced wait, tiredness, Coley and the treatment of him in the next cell? The visibility from one cell to another? The build-up to Hobie raping? How credible? The comb and the mirror, Dinah's fear of him? How well portrayed was the rape sequence in its physical and psychological reality for Dinah and her fear and disgust, being physically overpowered? Hobie and his rapist attitude? His regret, his wanting to apologise?

15. The inevitability of his death and Dinah's reaction? Coley's intervention and persuading her to go? Should she have had the presence of mind to stay? Her fear and shock, her wanting to phone her sister, her tears? Credible behaviour from an ordinary woman that people in the audience could identify with? The build-up to the chase, the irony of the drunken couple and then their deaths? The pathos of the sheriff dying? The effect on Dinah coming to her senses, wanting to phone, arguing with Coley and his persuading her that she would never get justice? The pessimism of his own experience?

16. Dinah's encounter with Coley's friends, the change of clothes and wanting Dinah to kiss Coley for her? The brutality of the bashing as seen by her bruises etc.? The effect on her? The experience of being under siege by the police and escaping?

17. Flight to the house, the meal, the shared drink, the shared rest? The importance of the talk between the two and what Dinah understood about herself, about Coley? Was sufficient information given about Coley in his encounter with his friends?

18. The brutality of the fight between Coley and the farmer?
The desperation of their escape, of the chase with Dinah driving? The build-up of the chase and the shooting? Typically American, universal?

19. The introduction of the 4th of July parade, the bi-centenary and American values in history? The chase and Coley erupting into the chase? Dinah powerless because shot? The contrived ending of Coley dead with the flag and the road sign of "Stop"? A final pessimistic image? The final image of Dinah transferred to the police car locked behind it in a freeze?

20. What would be Dinah's future? Would she be able to explain everything?

21. The significance of this kind of entertainment, social study ? What did Dinah and Coley eventually have in common? The portrait of America and its values?