IN HOT PURSUIT (1977) aka POLK COUNTY POT PLANE

[The Burgomaster]

This is one of those terrible, shoestring budget movies filmed in the deep south that probably didn't get released anywhere except rural drive-ins.  The movie appears to have been made by a group of "good old boy" buddies who had some extra cash, a camera, and some film stock lying around, so they popped open a few cans of Schlitz and made this movie.

The dumb plot involves a guy with a heavy southern accent, ugly plaid pants, and a rockabilly haircut (complete with 1970s style sideburns) who flies shipments of marijuana into Georgia in his HUGE private plane.  This is not a small 4-seater . . . I'm talking about a full-sized cargo plane.  And he lands it in the middle of local grassy fields . . . but the police can't seem to catch him.

He recruits 2 bearded brothers to help him with his smuggling operation.  Most of the movie involves the pilot and the brothers trying to elude the police in a series of "Smokey and the Bandit" style car and truck chases down rural highways.

Nobody refers to the illegal merchandise as "marijuana."  Everyone calls it "pot."  Even when there are scenes involving radio and television news reports, the reporters always say "pot."  When have you ever heard a newscaster call a shipment of marijuana "pot?"  They always refer to it as marijuana.  You never hear reporters say things like "police intercepted the largest shipment of pot in the history of the city."  They always call it marijuana.  A small point, I agree, but it just sounded stupid throughout the movie.

This movie is bad in every way, but somehow it never really gets boring.  I guess I would describe it as a mindless, painless 90 minutes.  This movie is included in the DRIVE-IN CLASSICS 50 MOVIE PACK.

[Yaddo 42]

I've heard "pot" used in local news reports on drug busts or during the yearly helicopter-bourne crop roundups/seizures. It's usually into the news story a good bit when they want variety in the writing. Also since time, and therefore space, is valuable in news copy writing, "pot" is quicker and easier to use than "marijuana", one syllable instead of four and only three letters. I know I've heard news reports aling the lines of "A major pot bust in Marion county this afternoon...." as well as "A routine traffic stop turned into a drug arrest for two men. Police netted several dozen rocks of crack cocaine as well as a small amount of marijuana, a handgun, and a large amount of cash...."

I am surprised that it's ONLY called that in the movie from what you wrote. I would figure "grass" would get used quite often in a movie from the 70s.

[The Burgomaster]

Yaddo, you make a good point when you say:

"pot" is quicker and easier to use than "marijuana", one syllable instead of four and only three letters.

Maybe the guys who made this movie were trying to save money by having a shorter running time . . .

[Yaddo 42]

I meant from a news writing perspective, when I took journalism classes and we worked on news writing for TV or headline writing for newspapers the economy of words, letters, and syllables mattered a great deal. I can remember writing news copy for class for radio broadcasts or ads or PSAs for radio or TV that had to be exactly 30 seconds. And I recall reading them for time, and making changes to lengthen or shorten them to fit the time needed.

While I doubt the makers of the film were trying to depict realistic news reporting (since the film itself sounds kind of slapped together), the news copy in most movies is usually in service of the plot rather than an attempt to sound like real news reports.

But hey, whatever works. I knew a guy who wanted to make a movie about herbal alternatives to grass. He was insistent about working the word "herbal" into the movie as often as possible. It never got past the wild idea in his head stage AFAIK.