Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry

According to Unekis' son, the rights to the book were originally bought for very little money by director Howard Hawks, who had Steve McQueen in mind for the title role of a future film project.

Hawks commissioned three scripts, from Antonio Santean, who turned a male character into "Mary", from Leigh Brackett, and from Leigh Chapman.[5]

Hawks elected to opt out of the project when he was offered US$50,000 for the film rights by two wealthy English industrialist partners, Sir James Hanson and Sir Gordon White.

White and Hanson (who, at the time, owned Eveready Batteries and Ball Park Franks) had purchased the book to read on their plane while flying to the U.S.. They both felt The Chase would make an entertaining film and presented the idea to personal friend Michael Pearson, who had produced an earlier successful car chase cult movie, Vanishing Point.

After pitching their project to their movie mogul friends, who not only included Pearson but Albert R. Broccoli, Harold Robbins, and Sam Spiegel, they soon discovered the movie business was not as easy as they had suspected. In addition, they were saddled with an out of date book - and no screenplay - for which they grossly overpaid. With no interest from anyone in picking up the project Sir James and Sir Gordon soon lost interest in making movies.

Over dinner one evening at Hanson's estate in Palm Springs, California they told their plight to friend and neighbor Jimmy Boyd. Boyd read the book and agreed with Hanson and White that it would make a great car chase. Boyd, a race car enthusiast, had successfully built and raced cars along with his friend Lance Reventlow, and had come very close to pursuing race car driving as a career. He guaranteed Hanson and White their fifty thousand dollars in return for the rights to the book.

Boyd wrote the screenplay himself along the lines of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, updating the dialogue and humor for an early 1970s audience. He also changed the two main characters from the escaped convicts in the book into a slightly larcenous - but likable - NASCAR dreamer and his Mechanic, nicknamed Fast Floyd and Dirty Deke. Boyd then incorporated the one-night stand female stowaway and the added dimension of a NASCAR-engined getaway car capable of 165 miles per hour (266 km/h). Except for the tires and wheels, it was a stock-appearing Ford built by the famous race car builders Traco Engineering.

On the strength of his script Boyd had raised $2 million for the budget (large, at the time). Boyd had two young, then-unknown actors, David Soul and Sam Elliott, in mind for the lead roles.

Boyd got a phone call from James Nicholson, president and partner of Sam Arkoff at American International Pictures, a major producer of "B Movies". Nicholson was leaving AIP to form his own company, Academy Pictures, in partnership with 20th Century Fox: Fox would finance and distribute his films and give him complete control. Nicholson told Boyd he had read his script for Pursuit and wanted it for Academy Pictures. Boyd decided to enter into a partnership with Nicholson's Academy Pictures.

In June 1972 Nicholson announced that Academy would make six films for Fox over two years.[6] Nicholson said the films wouldn't be "exploitation quickies" but would be "good entertaiment."[7] Nicholson's widow, Susan Hart, later said it was five films: The Legend of Hell House, Blackfather, Street People, The "B" People, and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry. She says the latter was originally called Pursuit but Nicholson - who had an excellent reputation for coming up with titles - thought Dirty Mary Crazy Larry "was kitschier - and he was right, as usual."[8]

Nicholson decided to make Legend of Hell House first, because its script was ready to go. It was directed by John Hough in England.[9]

In October 1972 Nicholson had a seizure that was revealed to have been caused by a malignant brain tumor. He died of complications from an operation for the tumor in December 1972.[10]

Following his death, Academy Pictures was taken over by the other two men in the company, Norman Herman and Mickey Zide.[11] Herman went on to produce the film, but Nicholson received no credit.[12]

Fox got Peter Fonda interested in the project and Nicholson hired English director John Hough. Hough had directed a horror film for Nicholson and could bring English actress Susan George into the mix, providing one of the male leads would be rewritten for her.

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry was released by Fox in the spring of 1974 and was a surprise sleeper hit[17] earning North American rentals of $12.1 million, making it Fox's most successful film of the year.[18] By 1977, it earned an estimated $14.7 million in theatrical rentals.[19]

Fonda said the film "made a shit pile of money. More money than any film Dennis [Hopper] ever made."[20] He added, "I couldn’t believe that so many moviegoers had seen the film four or five times. I could understand them seeing Easy Rider four or five times or maybe even The Hired Hand, but why Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry? Heck, I was even embarrassed by the tide."[16]

Nonetheless the film established Fonda as a draw on the exploitation circuit and most of his films over the next few years were action movies.[21]

On February 18, 1977, the film came to broadcast television (with several scenes cut prior to theatrical release reïnserted to extend the film's length to the minimum required to fill a standard 2-hour time slot). These added-for-TV scenes have never been released to home video.[22]

The film received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 50% rating based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7/10.[23]

Edgar Wright said the film influenced Baby Driver. He said he "always felt sorry for the actor Adam Roarke in it who plays Deke. He’s in the movie for the entire thing. You assume in the movie that Adam Roarke is going to die at some point, but he’s there right to the end, so it really should be called Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Deke. Why does this guy get left off the title? He’s been there the whole time."[24]