Mid to late 1970s movie suspense/thriller

[zelmo73]

Okay, bear with me on this one. Another faint memory from my childhood and late Friday or Saturday night 1970s TV matinee. This movie involves a Native American woman, off the reservation, maybe a hitchhiker. She's picked up by this white dude who gets romantically involved with this woman.

I don't remember a whole lot from this movie, mostly the ending. Somewhere along the way, the crazy Native American woman attacks this guy with an axe and messed up his leg, before or after she kills another poor guy who was trying to pick her up too or something.

The first guy is limping after her on his bum leg that she messed up with the axe, chasing after her as she's running away. She flags down a state trooper who is patrolling along the highway. The cop runs out and tries to help her as the guy is limping after her, and she screams at the cop "he did it! He did it! He killed my boyfriend!" And then I think the cop shoots the guy off-screen. End credits.

Does this movie sound familiar to you?

[zelmo73]

I believe I saw this movie on late night TV in 1981, if that helps any.

[zelmo73]

I've checked some of the "teenage runaway" movies from that era, and it's not Born Innocent (1974), Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker (1979), or Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (1976). This one seems to be a play off of those, but one where the hitchhiker ends up being the manipulative perpetrator rather than the defenseless victim living in a harsh world. A nice going against the grain of established cliche that a lot of those "message" movies from that era were guilty of, which is part of the reason why I really want to see this one again.