Two of those films are now appearing on DVD. The 1974 release Dirty Mary Crazy Larry casts Fonda as a stock-car-racer-turned-bandit who, with sidekick Adam Roarke, decides to make a play for a big score and head off into the sunset. The first part comes easily enough, with an answering machine and the threat of violence letting the pair rip off a grocery managed by an uncredited Roddy McDowall. But the getaway gets complicated, and not just because Fonda and Roarke reluctantly pick up wild child Susan George (in a performance that can politely be called "unrestrained"). Tailed by relentless, rules-bending, sideburns-sporting lawman Vic Morrow, they work through a succession of hot rods in an attempt to make it across a county line that seems to move farther and farther way. Director John Hough packs the film with stunning car stunts filmed in California backwaters. Though he sacrifices meaning for trashy thrills at every opportunity—and winds it all down with a brain-damaged variation on the end of Easy Rider—the way Fonda slowly loses his initially unflappable cool throughout the film makes it worth a look.
Released the following year, Race With The Devil takes Fonda on another perilous journey. With wives Loretta Swit and Lara Parker in tow, Fonda and buddy Warren Oates head north from San Antonio to take in some wilderness and—continuing Fonda's nearly unbroken run of motor-enthusiast characters—indulge in some off-track motorcycle rides. But before long, they witness a grisly campfire sacrifice that puts them on the run from Satanists, who, as Fonda and Oates quickly learn, aren't always so easy to spot. A near-exact cross between Rosemary's Baby, Duel, and The Parallax View, Race With The Devil has problems getting over the flat, TV-style direction by Cleopatra Jones director Jack Starrett, but it gets by on engaging drive-in goofiness, even if it's tough to swallow the idea that mid-'70s Texas swarmed with Satanists. (Though come to think of it, maybe that part makes sense.) If Fonda recognizes he's in a lousy movie, however, he never lets it show. He's taken this ride before—the search for good times that leads to horrors that could make a man leave it all behind to go tend bees by himself.
