"KILLERS THREE" - MERLE HAGGARD - ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
Two backwoods North Carolinians from Ramseur (Robert Walker, Jr., and Dick Clark, go on a killing spree.
Merle Haggard sings The Ballad of Killers Three from the movie, "Killers Three."
Merle Haggard Plays a Police Officer in ‘Killers Three’
Country music’s most famous ex-con embraces the other side of the law in 1968 film
I love discovering movies that were completely off my radar, and tonight's Saturday Night Special is one of those indeed! "Killers Three" is another one of those "Gun Crazy" "Bonnie And Clyde" type of movies, but this one's just a little bit different, and this Spanish poster is freakin' classic!!
The title of the film is "Killers Three," and that is a real misnomer fer share, but one thing that is a fact, and that is this movie is a real sixties cultural iconic treasure trove!
This loving couple is Robert (THE SAVAGE SEVEN, THE MAN FROM O.R.G.Y, BEWARE! THE BLOB) Walker Jr. as poor boy Johnny Warder, and his lovely wife Carol as played by Diane (PEYTON PLACE, WILD IN THE STREETS, JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN) Varsi!
"Killers Three" is a movie about moonshiners.............
..........And the guys watching them, and as a matter of fact, a guvment agent just like this is probably looking through your window right now too!
Here he is, Mr. American Bandstand himself, a 39 year old Dick Clark as Roger C. Kirk! When I think 'actor', Dick Clark is not the first person that comes to mind, but he turns in quite a credible performance here! Dick Clark also produced "Killers Three!" Roger is coming to visit his old Army buddy Johnny, and he's brought a present for him and his wife, an "Ant Farm!"
Roger is a little slow, and a little shy but Maureen (HOT ROD GANG, THUNDER ALLEY, A MAN CALLED DAGGER) Arthur as Elvira Sweeney gets him to break out of his shell a little bit!
Lucky for Roger, Elvira doesn't have any inhibitions at all!!
Roger has a bit of a drinking problem!
Still kickin' ass today, here's Bakersfield country music icon Merle Haggard as Carol Warder's Sheriff brother Charlie! Merle also sings a running documentary of all the events in the movie! Here's just a little taste!
Well, it's once again time for the annual Ramseur N.C. Centennial Picnic and Country Dance with entertainment brought to you by Merle's band The Strangers!
And fronting the band is the amazing Bonnie Owens, a woman so fascinating she won the heart of, and was at one time married to both Buck Owens AND Merle Haggard! Now that's a Queen of Country Music for you!
Without a doubt, these people know how to party!
Talk about an all-star affair, in the background there on the left, I'm sure that's Barack Obama, and Maggie from "The Walking Dead" dancing together!
So here's what's happening, while the big dance is going on outside of town, Johnny and Roger have this plan to use the dance as a diversion while they're in town robbing the safe of the local payroll office! They disappear from the festivities to disable all the cars by cutting spark plug wires etc, but Elvira comes looking for Roger, so for lack of a better excuse for what they are doing, Johnny explains to Elvira that him and Roger got a little bit closer than just buddies when they were in the service, and that they needed some time alone together! Needless to say, she's a little more than incensed by the whole affair and storms off!!
The safe was a little bit bigger than Roger had anticipated, so he didn't really know how much of his nitro/oatmeal mix to use on the door! Turns out it was a bit too much!
Everything was fine until something went horribly wrong! Now people are dead, and there's no turning back!
Carol's only crime was that she was madly in love with her man Johnny, but now she, along with Johnny and Roger are all wanted for murder!
The trio is on the run and hungry, so they stop in a local dive to get some chow, and who should walk in but Carol's brother Charlie! Well, Charlie's one Helluva nice guy, and he tells Johnny and Carol, that for at least 10 minutes, he's going to just go on and pretend like he never saw them, opening up an opportunity for them to escape!
Unfortunately, Roger was out of the room and didn't get the message, so an unprecedented event happens, and the King of 60's pop music promotion shoots and kills one of the biggest stars of the 60's country music scene! I find it culturally ironic!
Well, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out this movie's not going to have a happy ending!
They can try as they may, like with this poster, to make this look like a gruesome story about bloodthirsty killers, but the reality is that it's about a couple of nice naive young people who make a couple of bad decisions, and end up paying the ultimate price for it!
So, there you go! "Killers Three" is an obscure little movie worth seeking out, and you won't have to look far if you have a Netflix streaming account!
With three albums released in 1968 (all of which contained a Number One hit), Merle Haggard was well on his way to becoming one of country music’s biggest stars of the 20th century – a phenomenal achievement especially considering that at the beginning of the decade, he was doing hard time at California’s San Quentin Prison.
Mired in a life of crime, Haggard eventually turned things around with music, which perhaps explains one of the oddest credits on his considerable resume. In 1968, the singer-songwriter donned a uniform to play an upstanding lawman in Killers Three, a seedy Southern crime drama whose cast included “America’s Oldest Living Teenager,” Dick Clark. The singer’s earnest (albeit brief and ultimately tragic) character is actually one of the film’s few redeeming qualities. In addition to contributing to the country-themed Killers Three soundtrack (which features an instrumental version of the future classic, “Mama Tried”), Haggard is a one-man Greek chorus, singing the lyrics of the theme song which telegraph the film’s plot. Haggard’s wife at the time, singer Bonnie Owens (who had previously been married to Buck Owens), also performs briefly in the film.
A household name thanks to his hosting duties on TV’s American Bandstand, Clark capitalized on (well, exploited, really) the 1967 box-office success of Bonnie & Clyde, co-producing and co-writing what is ultimately a witless, violent tale of post-World War II North Carolina bootleggers and revenuers. In other words, it did not have a good beat and was not easy to dance to. What it does have is Clark, in one of his few acting roles, as Roger, the weirdo Army buddy of the lead character, Johnny, who’s played by Robert Taylor Jr. We know Roger is a little “off” because he mumbles most of his lines. He also has a mustache, wears glasses and is referred to by the decidedly in-PC nickname the “Sissy Bandit.” Roger is something of an explosives “expert.” Thanks to his dubious safe-cracking skills (pssst: the secret ingredient is oatmeal!), Roger is forced to go on the lam with Johnny, Johnny’s wife, Carol (the “Killers Three” of the title), and the couple’s young son, whose dubbed lines manage to be even creepier than Roger’s mustache. What few laughs the film offers are entirely unintentional, the most obvious one being Clark’s numerous screen credits (in a special lowercase font, even). He even manages to sneak the word “bandstand” into the film’s dialogue, although that could just be a coincidence.
In spite of the dubious results, Killers Three didn’t blow up Haggard’s career — in either a good or bad way. He even acted again, playing the character of Duke in a 1975 TV version of Huckleberry Finn, starring Happy Days actors Ron Howard and Donny Most as Huck and Tom Sawyer, respectively. The following year, the country icon appeared in an episode of The Waltons.
This
movie was made in Randolph County, NC, near a little town named
Ramseur. It was made during the summer of 1968. They used "local"
townspeople for some scenes. I remember it was the biggest thing that
ever happened in Randolph County (other than Richard Petty being from
there and still resides there). They had a scene where the townspeople
were dancing at a party - most of those folks were locals and some were
my classmates at Asheboro, NC (high school). I will say that Dick
Clark was always receptive to anyone who approached him for an autograph
or just to shake his hand. I saw him in 1968 and again several years
later at the Los Angeles International Airport (I was returning from
military service in the Far East). I approached him and mentioned the
movie "Killer's Three". He immediately smiled and said - Were you
there? Dick Clark was exactly the way you saw him on TV - friendly and
approachable. BTW, he thanked me for my military service. What a Class
Act.
