The Last American Hero

Junior Jackson is a restless young man who finds himself the family breadwinner when his father, a career moonshiner, is arrested and sentenced to one-year imprisonment.

Junior is an outstanding driver, so enters a demolition derby promoted by Hackel, the owner of the local racing track, hoping to win the prize money. Hackel is a cheapskate, but he is sufficiently impressed by Junior’s driving skills and attitude (he modified his vehicle with a piece of railroad iron that he rammed into the other cars) that he allows Junior to enter a stock-car undercard race the next week. Junior does well in it and subsequent higher level races, which inspires him to enter the main race at the next top tier event.

Junior is given some valuable advice on how to enter by Marge, a secretary to the race organizer who has a soft spot for Junior, and when he performs well during the trial laps his entry is assured. During the race Junior does very well for a while, but eventually his overtaxed engine blows and Junior has to retire in frustration. Since the prize money at that level of racing is excellent, Junior decides that is the career for him.

However stock car racing is expensive, Junior needs to buy his racing car and pay for its upkeep, and also provide for his brother, Wayne, and three friends who serve as his pit crew and travel companions. Burton Colt, the owner of a team that has not won any races lately, offers Junior a chance to drive for him, but the financial terms are stacked against Junior, and Colt insists that Junior will have to use the team’s crew. Junior declines the offer. To raise money he spends his nights transporting moonshine, which his father does not approve of, knowing it will inevitably land his son in prison as it did him. Junior’s mother, meanwhile, does not want him to race because she thinks it’s too dangerous a pursuit. A lesser complication for Junior to deal with is that although Marge is very fond of him, she is also attracted to other top drivers on the stock car circuit, including Kyle Kingman, Junior’s racing and now romantic rival.[6][7]

• Jeff Bridges as Elroy Jackson, Jr.
• Valerie Perrine as Marge
• Geraldine Fitzgerald as Mrs Jackson
• Ned Beatty as Hackel
• Gary Busey as Wayne Jackson
• Art Lund as Elroy Jackson, Sr.
• Ed Lauter as Burton Colt
• William Smith II as Kyle Kingman
• Gregory Walcott as Morley
• Tom Ligon as Lamar
• Ernie Orsatti, Jr. as Davie Baer
• Erica Hagen as Trina
• James Murphy as Spud
• Lane Smith as Rick Penny

The film was favorably reviewed by Pauline Kael in The New Yorker, even though The New Yorker had a long-standing feud with Wolfe.[8]

It has an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[9]

The film was released on DVD in 2006 with both full and widescreen presentations alongside its theatrical trailer and it is also available for streaming.[10]

• List of American films of 1973
• New Journalism-a literary movement mixing facts with elements of fiction with members including Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Truman Capote
• I Got a Name- the Jim Croce album featuring the song featured in the film

• The Last American Hero at IMDb
• The Last American Hero at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Last American Hero at AllMovie
• The Last American Hero at the TCM Movie Database
• The Last American Hero at the American Film Institute Catalog