TOWING (1978) – How obscure is this flick? As of this writing there are only 2 user reviews of it at IMDb. That actually makes Towing better known than some of the other flicks I’ve reviewed here at Balladeer’s Blog, but the fact that Joe Mantegna, Sue Lyon, Dennis Franz, Mike Nussbaum, Jennifer Ashley and J.J. Johnston are in this movie make it worth examining.
What’s this movie about? Well, let me start by pointing out that sometimes bad movies are as effective as folk songs at preserving a tiny portion of history or cultural zeitgeist that would otherwise be completely forgotten as the decades go by.
Towing is about that period in the 1970s when Chicago tow-truck operators scandalously began towing vehicles out of parking lots based on VERY questionable grounds of being in violation of city regulations. The sleazy towing companies would charge the vehicle owners much larger than reasonable fees to get them back. Continue reading
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