Unsung Auteurs: James William Guercio | FilmInk

You know a man has led a wholly fascinating life when making one of the most effective and unusual films of the 1970s is merely one minor element of his career, rather than its bright shining light. James William Guercio has led such a wide-ranging, unconventional life that his place in that rare pantheon of filmmakers who have only directed one film seems strangely fitting. And though there is a very obvious argument for the fact that making only one film should instantly preclude a director from being named an auteur, one viewing of James William Guercio’s 1973 near unclassifiable police drama Electra Glide In Blue is enough to support the claim that this behind-the-camera one-off nevertheless had a true authorial voice unlike any other. Guercio’s other high-profile achievements and sole directorial credit, however, have meant that voice has been sorely under-celebrated.

Born in 1945 in Chicago to parents outside the music industry, James William Guercio’s first love was for music, and he began work as a session musician and songwriter in the 1960s after moving to Los Angeles. Guercio played on several recordings (and was for a brief time in Frank Zappa’s Mothers Of Invention), and wrote Chad & Jeremy’s 1966 Top 30 pop hit “Distant Shores”, before finding his greatest success as the manager and producer for mega-selling soft-rock titans Chicago. Though he drove them to extraordinary levels of fame and recognition, Guercio’s relationship with Chicago ended acrimoniously when it was revealed that he’d been pocketing 51% of their profits, which made him a very wealthy man indeed. Guercio also played with and managed The Beach Boys in the 1970s; helped craft hits for Blood, Sweat & Tears; and in the late 1970s founded Caribou Ranch, a recording studio in Colorado that played host to the likes of Waylon Jennings, Rod Stewart, Billy Joel, Supertramp and The Eagles’ Joe Walsh.

After a major fire ended Caribou Ranch in 1985, Guercio diversified with the purchase of a professional American soccer team (which didn’t fare so well), and then moved into a range of ventures including cattle ranching, property development, oil and gas exploration, drilling, and production, particularly of coalbed methane wells. He also purchased the Country Music Television cable channel, which he later sold at a profit. In the midst of all this, James William Guercio also directed a film. So, how did that happen exactly? Well, David Picker, the boss of studio United Artists, was a fan of Guercio’s and his work in the music industry, and he simply asked him if he’d like to direct a film. It was that simple? In the post-Easy Rider early 1970s, every studio was looking for the next hipster director and the next low-budget hipster hit, and David Picker obviously liked his chances with Guercio. While the offer didn’t yield an Easy Rider-level hit, it did produce the fascinating Electra Glide In Blue.

Inspired by the tragic highway death of a lone motorcycle cop, the 1973 drama was penned by Robert Boris and Rupert Hitzig, with masterful cinematography by gifted shooter Conrad Hall (Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, American Beauty, Fat City, In Cold Blood, Cool Hand Luke and many more), and a fantastic musical score by Guercio himself. Electra Glide In Blue stars a never-better Robert Blake (who would much later, of course, be embroiled in a tragic scandal after being convicted of murdering his wife) as John Wintergreen, a motorcycle cop who longs to be promoted into the homicide division. While spending his long days rousting hippies and engaging in other acts of uselessness with his hyped-up, affably sinister, and basically corrupt pal Zipper (the excellent Billy Green Bush), the diminutive Wintergreen (“Did you know I’m the exact same height as Alan Ladd?” is one of his pick-up lines) dreams of doing a job where he’s “paid to think” instead of riding up and down the highway all day. It’s a mild existential crisis played out against a stunning tableaux of desert mountains and endless roads that seem to stretch on forever into nothingness, creating the kind of poetic visual metaphor most directors wouldn’t even be able to conjure in their heads.

When the naïve and ever-eager Wintergreen stumbles into a suicide case soon revealed to be a murder, his tenacity and commitment catch the eye of Harve Poole (the mighty Mitchell Ryan, a prolific, old-school character actor of singular skill and gravitas), a cigar-chomping, Stetson-wearing homicide detective with a very, very keen sense of his own importance and crime-busting abilities. Working as Poole’s driver, Wintergreen soon learns that his new boss isn’t exactly all he’s cracked up to be, and the diminutive cop’s own highly-primed sense of righteousness quickly gets him in trouble with his colleagues. Back in uniform and back on his bike (the Electra Glide of the title), John Wintergreen is placed back on that sad, long road to nowhere.

Strange in tone, beautifully performed, poetically composed, visually arresting, bold and compelling in its themes, and totally original, Electra Glide In Blue is so impressive that any viewer who sees it couldn’t possibly help but sadly rue the fact that Guercio never made another film. He was fired after three days’ work on the 1980 western Tom Horn by leading man and producer Steve McQueen (what a collaboration that could have been!), and produced Hal Ashby’s 1980 comedy Second-Hand Hearts (again with Robert Blake), but that – very disappointingly – was indeed that. One of the all-time great one-and-done directors, the potential for future greatness in James William Guercio’s first and final film is staggering.

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