> Hi all: I just found a poster on Ebay of this movie and does have
an Amphi on it. A red one.
Marc - Great find!! I have placed a pic of one poster on the
amphicar.com site. Here is the text from the July/Aug 2002
newsletter about the movie...
"That's the name of a movie?"
Such was my initial reaction when I first heard about a flick that
would, over time, become synonymous with country music,
Amphicars, incredibly bad films, and for me at least, a beautiful
warm Saturday afternoon in the Spring of 1968. On that day,
Dad, Uncle Bert, my little brother, and I, all piled in the station
wagon for a trip downtown, where the Sunrise Theatre was
having the movie's "World Premiere" showing.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's back up a few months.
Christmas had come and gone, yet in the little seaside town
of Ft. Pierce, there was suddenly enough electricity in the air to
just about run some of the leftover holiday lights. All this on the
news that a local movie company had wrapped production on a film
shot entirely in and around town. Titled, "Cotton Pickin'
Chicken Pickers", company execs hoped it would be the first of many
such projects.
To further generate interest, they hired a stuntman to take an
Amphicar, one of two purportedly used in the movie, and send it
careening madly off of a five foot high seawall and out over the
Indian River, where it eventually came down with a tremendous
splash. A photographer with the News Tribune was waiting, camera in
hand, to capture all of the drama for page one.
Being the only other Amphicar owners in town, this certainly
generated our interest.
So now here we all were, the four of us, sitting in the darkened
theater, eagerly awaiting more scenes of leaping Amphicars!
What we got instead was the story of some chicken rustlers (Hence,
the title), and the efforts of the dim-witted sheriff and his
deputies to bring them to justice. Yep. Lots of good ol' boys, car
chases, and guitar playing.
Sound familiar? It should. An entire genre was born right here. Only
none of the imitators would succeed quite as badly.
I'll never forget one chase sequence: As the deputy closed in on the
bad guys, he suddenly called off the pursuit. Why? Well, I
guess this must have looked to be just as good a place
as any to stop and take his turn on the guitar.
By now, a steady stream of theatre patrons were shuffling towards
the exits. One of them was Uncle Bert. "I'll wait for you
outside", he announced.
Determined, the rest of us weren't leaving until we saw what we came
for. Finally, in the film's last half hour, two Amphicars,
decked out as police pursuit vehicles (I can hear you laughing now),
roared out onto the screen for what could have been no more
than a thirty second cameo. Their only contact with water involved
the crossing of a shallow creek bed!
"Chicken Pickers" never made it much beyond Ft. Pierce. What became
of the prints is anyone's guess. As for the film's two
Amphis, they later turned up for sale at a local strip mall. The
outline of the sheriff's emblems were still evident on the doors.
Each looked rust-free, though I'm told, the stunt car suffered major
frame damage. Both could be had for a song.
Hmmm. Even a country one?
Such is, THE AMPHICAR EXPERIENCE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GORDON IMPORTS INC.. The world's largest source of Amphicar parts and accessories. Visit our new website today.
Linear Mode
