…tick… tick… tick… *** (1970, Jim Brown, George Kennedy, Fredric March, Lynn Carlin, Don Stroud, Clifton James) – Classic Movie Review 12,818

Jim Brown stars as an African American man elected as the sheriff of a rural county in the American South, in the 1970 American crime drama thriller film …tick…tick…tick..

Director Ralph Nelson’s 1970 crime drama thriller film …tick… tick… tick… is a fairly rousing, neatly handled tale of rape and murder in a Deep South town, with a bit of thought behind it and an intelligent take on the racism of the day.

The main asset to this In the Heat of the Night-ish thriller is Fredric March as the grumpy mayor, Jeff Parks, but there is capable work too from George Kennedy as the white sheriff John Little and Jim Brown as Jimmy Price, the African American man who ousts him when he is elected as the sheriff of a rural county in the American South. That prompts the racial tensions in the divided small town to reach boiling point.

It is tensely and intelligently written by James Lee Barrett. Nelson’s direction and Loyal Griggs’s cinematography are the work of craftsmen.

Jim Brown and Janet MacLachlan in …tick…tick…tick…

Also in the cast are Lynn Carlin, Don Stroud, Clifton James, Janet MacLachlan, Richard Elkins, Robert Random, Mills Watson, Bernie Casey, Anthony James, Dub Taylor, Ernest Anderson, Karl Swenson, Anne Whitfield, Bill Walker, Dan Frazer, Leonard O Smith, Renny Rooker, Roy Glenn, George Cisar, Paulene Myers, Dino Washington, Calvin Brown, Beverly Taylor, Almira Sessions, and Barry Cahill.

It was shot in and around Colusa, California, with the town’s courthouse square remodelled to look like a Deep South one. The same courthouse is used for exterior shots in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Screenwriter/ producer James Lee Barrett also created the TV series adaptation of In the Heat of the Night  (1988–95) with Carroll O’Connor and Howard Rollins. Barrett also scripted a made-for-TV remake of The Defiant Ones (1986), which starred Carl Weathers and Robert Urich.

Brown and Kennedy had previously appeared together in The Dirty Dozen.

MGM released it in the US in January 1970. Nelson’s Soldier Blue was released in August that year.

The cast are Jim Brown as Jim Price, George Kennedy as John Little, Fredric March as Mayor Jeff Parks, Lynn Carlin as Julia Little, Don Stroud as Bengy Springer, Janet MacLachlan as Mary Price, Richard Elkins as Bradford Wilkes, Clifton James as D.J. Rankin, Bob Random as John Braddock, Mills Watson as Joe Warren, Bernie Casey as George Harley, Anthony James as H.C. Tolbert, Dub Taylor as Junior, Ernest Anderson as Homer, Karl Swenson as Braddock Sr, Anne Whitfield, Bill Walker, Dan Frazer, Leonard O Smith, Renny Rooker, Roy Glenn, George Cisar, Paulene Myers, Dino Washington, Calvin Brown, Beverly Taylor, Almira Sessions, and Barry Cahill.

Jim Brown (February 17, 1936 – May 18, 2023).

He retired at the peak of his football career to pursue an acting career. He won 53 acting credits and many lead roles in the 1970s as Hollywood’s first black action star. His 1969 film 100 Rifles made film history for featuring interracial love scenes.

MGM cast Brown in his first lead role in The Split (1968). He followed it with the hit 1968 film Ice Station Zebra and the prison film Riot (1969).

Anne Whitfield and Clint Walker in Cheyenne (1956).

Anne Whitfield, who plays Susan Waverly, the grand-daughter of Captain Bob Wallace, died on 15 February 2024, aged 85, after an ‘unexpected incident’ during a walk in her neighbourhood in Washington. She passed away surrounded by her family at a hospital in Yakima, Washington.

She appeared in White Christmas (1954), Juvenile Jungle (1958) and …tick… tick… tick… (1970).

She had a successful TV career, starring in episodes of Perry Mason, Cheyenne, Rawhide, The New Phil Silvers Show, 77 Sunset Strip, Laramie, Hawaiian Eye, Ben Casey, Peter Gunn, Wells Fargo, Manhunt, The Untouchables and The Six Million Dollar Man, but left Hollywood in the 1970s and moved to Olympia in Washington where she became devoted to ’causes that promote peace and preserve nature’.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,818

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