'The Last of the American Hoboes' Movie Reviews-Commentary
I worked closely with Titus Moody in the making of the movie
'The Last of the American Hoboes'. Recently I have found a few
reviews of the movie on the internet. I was excited to see
favorable mention of some my early work in the music business in
some, others were not as flattering. There was a couple of
misspellings and an error in fact in that the movie wasn't
released in the late '1970's' rather around 1971 or 1972. Below
is a composite-example of a couple of them. I corrected the
misspellings in this post. I have tried to contact the posters
but so far have not had a response. There was no copyright
protection notice and since the reviews deal with my work I
believe I have the right to comment on them in this way.
If you've ever wanted a close up experience with real life
hoboes and their stories this is one of those rare films that
provides just that. Filmed in a documentary, story-telling form
that provides the history of the hobo; going back to how they
began riding the rails, looking for work during the great
depression, and how they would put a mark near a house that was
friendly to hoboes to the story of Hal Jon Norman-Actor and how
he lost his leg while trying to jump on a moving train as a
youth. A Juddy Phillips produced soundtrack the best cut being
'Like A Hobo Should' by Gary Revel also tracks by: The
Chapparral Brothers, Wayne Storm, Brian Mark and sounds from the
street and the hobo jungle brought by Hobo Actor Journalist The
Nobel 'Kid' Chissel, Mike DeTemple, and The Salvation Army Band.
The movie is rare and collectible. I saw it at a screening many
years ago and bought one of the soundtrack albums at a garage
sale. The soundtrack album cover-photography by Ken Berg folds
out and is a unique collectible in it's own right. Inside the
cover it says, "A Judy Russell Gary Revel Byron Spears
Movement". The song credits show that Gary Revel wrote and or
performed on about half of the cuts on the album. I remember
Titus Moody produced and directed. The movie premiered in the
late 1970's at the Hobo Convention in Britt, Iowa. An enjoyable
entertaining film.