Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s Behind the Scenes Pic!
I know a lot of people haven’t seen The Sugarland Express, which is okay. It’s not one of the most high profile Steven Spielberg films, but it’s a crucial one in his filmography. Without this film Jaws would not exist.
There are many more filmmaking parallels between Jaws and Duel, but from a logistical perspective Sugarland is much more important stepping stone for Spielberg. If it were not for Spielberg impressing David Brown and Richard Zanuck on this film, they never would have thought about him when they optioned that weird little book about a shark terrorizing a New England town.
It’s crazy to think what the world would look like now if Spielberg had never made this film. I’m sure he would have broken out, he was too talented not to have, but in what way? Would he be lower profile? I doubt he could be higher profile than running his own studio and pretty much directing or producing the childhoods of everybody in my generation.
This film about a criminal family on the run was also Spielberg’s first time working with John Williams, a collaboration that would bear many fruits over the next three decades and counting.
Today’s picture features a very, very young Spielberg interacting with his two stars, William Atherton (not playing a huge dickhead) and the impossibly gorgeous Goldie Hawn.
I strongly recommend seeking this one out if you haven’t gotten to it yet, especially if you’re a Spielberg obsessive like me.
Thanks to Pat Barnett for sending this one along! Click to enlargen!
If you have a behind the scenes shot you’d like to submit to this column, you can email me at quint@aintitcool.com.
Tomorrow’s pic is strange and unusual.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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Click here to visit the complete compilation of previous Behind the Scenes images, Page Two
