By Curt Schleier

Ask the average person who John Sayles is and you’ll likely draw a blank stare.  But his first feature, THE RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS SEVEN, filmed for just $40,000, helped launch the independent film movement.  It’s been pretty much uphill ever since -- with the exception of a couple of plateaus. Film buffs certainly recognize most of his other films – among them MATEWAN, EIGHT MEN OUT, THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET, PASSION FISH, LONE STAR, SUNSHINE STATE, and LIMBO -- as proof that when it comes to filmmaking, money and quality are not necessarily synonymous.

His latest, HONEYDRIPPER, is another positive contribution to Sayles’ legacy.  I don’t think it’s his best film, but it has an attribute typical of his work: it lingers and makes you think.  There’s always something to talk about when you stop for post-film ice cream cone or sundae.

It’s 1950s rural Alabama, and the Honeydripper Lounge is in trouble.  Toussant’s, the bar across the road, is bouncing with this new music, rock ‘n’ roll, while the Honeydripper sings the blues, literally and figuratively.  But the club’s owner, boogie-woogie piano player Tyrone “Pine Top” Purvis (Danny Glover) isn’t going to let a little debt get him down.  He has a plan.  He’s hired famed singer Guitar Sam to come to town for a one-night stand.  It’s sure to bring in the crowds and a sudden power failure could give someone the opportunity to abscond with the gate receipts and even start a new life.


But Guitar Sam never shows up.  There’s another guitarist wandering through town, a stranger named Sonny Blake (Gary Clark, Jr.).  Sonny is not only a great musician and singer, he plays this new instrument.  It looks like a guitar, but you have to plug it in.  And it produces an amplified sound.  And no one in town knows what Guitar Sam really looks like.

Sonny clearly has potential to fill in, but there’s a problem: he’s in jail.  But this is Alabama in the early 1950s, so getting Sonny released is just a matter of making the sheriff your partner not your enemy.

Sayles does a bunch of things very effectively.  He recreates a small Southern community with fearless exactness.  Sheriff Pugh (Stacey Keach) operates with impunity, and can not only arrest any black person he wants, but can also rent him out to local farmers for cotton picking.  (In his quest for accuracy, Sayles even had extras taught the proper way to hand pick cotton, an “art” lost since the task was mechanized.)

Mary Steenburgen does a nice turn as Amanda Winship, a wealthy white lady who has no idea how racist she really is.  And Lisa Gay Hamilton is also excellent, as Delilah, Tyrone’s wife fighting a moral battle between her church lady standards and her husband’s occupation.


So what’s not to like?  The film is a little long and editor John Sayles might have done well to rein in John Sayles the director and screenwriter.  There’s also a character I couldn’t figure out: a blind man who spent most of his time in the film playing the guitar.  Was he the devil, the one who supposedly bought the soul of Robert Johnson at the Crossroads?  And whose soul was he after?

That’s what we discussed over our ice cream cones and sundaes.