DURANT, Oklahoma—

James Taylor is in Oklahoma on the sixth week of filming his first movie. The strain of motion picture acting is taking its toll; the interminable waits, the plodding slowness, have all left James rather on edge. Still enthusiastic about the overall outcome of the film, but doubting his future as an actor, James expressed his biggest complaint:
"Sitting around waiting."

In the film, Two-Lane Blacktop, James portrays the driver of a 1955 Chevrolet dragster. Two Lane is being shot entirely in location, in such "large" cities as Tucumcari, New Mexico, Boswell, Oklahoma and Little Rock, Arkansas. The director is Monte Hellman.

I have met James a few times at the home of his manager, friend and producer, Peter Asher. James is infiniteIy easy to talk to - and impossible to interview. He is a private man, not given to philosophical interpretations of either his work or his actions. He likes to talk about "things" but refuses to delve deeply into the stuff of which interviews are supposedly made. We had lunch together on location in what looked like a burnt out school auditorium. James, half joking, said: "Now you’re going to bleed me."

James had signed to do the film without reading the script - in fact, he explained that Hellman had kept the script from the actors well into shooting. "We’d get the dialogue in the morning and just learn the one day. He finally let us see a dialogue script. But Peter (Asher) had read it and liked it,
and I met with Monte and thought he was a good dude. Rudi too." Rudi is Rudi Wurlitzer, the screenwriter of Two-Lane Blacktop. James had spent the entire morning, after rising for a 6 am call, walking across the only main street in Boswell, Oklahoma. By 12:30 the company broke for 30-minute lunch and James explained that he’d be doing variations on that walk all afternoon "I don’t have any lines, today," he said somewhat reluctantly.

Lunch proved better in expectation than in reality. The food was far from appetizing. Finally breaking, James disgustedly said under his breath "They expect me work all afternoon after eating this?" It was the only time James truly complained.

He spent most of the breaks during the day singing bits and pieces of songs, his own and other people’s. When co-actor Warren Oates said, noting the load of food on the only actress in the picture’s plate: "Pack it in," James launched a chorus of Joni Mitchell’s "Song About The Midway," singing "pack it in/I heard you did/pack in, in, in...

He did concede that working this film has provided better nutrition than he’s had in months. "I can’t cook at all, and I don’t h a wife." Suggestions of obtaining either a wife or a cook were unanswered.

He has become tired of people likening Two-Lane Blacktop Easy Rider, simply because both films deal with seemingly free travel across the United States. "They’re very different," he explained to a local writer for what must have been the hundreth time. "Our film has characters totally without egos. Not like Easy Rider.

An excerpt from James Taylor (a songbook) ©1971 Amsco Music Publishing Co

Tow-Lane Blacktop is directed by cult legend Monte Hellman (director of The Shooting nad Cockfighter and Executive Producer of Reservoir Dogs) from a screenplay by Rudolph Wurlitzer (Pat Garret & Billy The Kid), and features unforgettable performances by Warren Oates (The Wild Bunch) as well as singer/songwriter James Taylor and The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson in their first - and only - acting roles.

"Our Nomination For Movie Of The Year..."
- Esquire

...Closeup on driver. His face is completely concentrated, completely involved in the moment. His lips are tense, his eyes slightly squinted. Inside the Car it is absolutely quiet. All sound ceases until the end of the movie.

The Driver's right hand: The hand grips the stick shift and pushes it into first. The Driver's hands on the steering wheel. The airstrip is visible and the '32 Coupe lined up on the right. The sun is sinking fast. On the left, the starter chops down his hands. The race starts. We're instantly propelled forward within the Car. The Car seems suspended outside of time. It is as if the projector were running down as the Car floats slower and slower toward the finish line. The film stops. The heat of the projector lamps burns a hole in the frame and the entire frame dissolves.

~ Two-Lane Blacktop, by Rudolph Wurlitzer and Will Corry

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