Pray for the Wildcats (1974)

Please don't spend money on this.

i must have seen a different film!!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Sam Farragut (Andy Griffith) is a rich jerk who fully realizes how powerful this makes him. Instead of just allowing the advertising agency to handle his company, he controls them--insisting the three execs working for him MUST go on a long, long motorbike ride across Baja...or no contract. Once on the trip, Sam turns out to be a real piece of work...an amoral guy who drinks, brawls and womanizes-- acting nothing like the Andy Griffith we've all grown to love. He's a lot like Satan on a cycle!Among the three execs are Warren (William Shatner), Paul (Robert Reed) and Terry (Marjoe Gortner). All three are extremely flawed men and only Terry seems excited about making this trip. Paul is hiding a secret but Warren's is the darkest of all...he knows he's being terminated from his job and is showing hints that he might use this trip as a way to kill himself! What does come of all this? This is certainly one of the strangest made for TV movies of its era. That's saying a lot since "The ABC Movie of the Week" often featured weird plots--such as women impregnated by aliens, monsters living in the chimney and reincarnated witches! But this strange is because the folks play so against type...especially Griffith! But is this strangeness any good? Well, yes. Despite the plot being extremely difficult to believe and the actors playing so against type, the basic issues going on in the film are compelling-- especially when Griffith's character does some very horrible things. The only BIG bad thing about all this is the ending with Shatner in the surf--not THAT is amazingly stupid! All in all, well worth seeing just because of its novelty.By the way, if you are curious who Marjoe Gortner is, read him IMDb biography. This guy was VERY prolific on TV in the 70s but his life before this is really, really interesting. He's not particularly good in this film, however. Also, I think it is very likely NOT unintentional that the four men all sport shirts that look almost exactly like "Star Trek" shirts--red, blue and yellow! You really notice their Trekkiness in the cantina scene...complete with the black collars! Apart from missing the Enterprise emblem, they are almost dead ringers!

The coolest video store in the world, Movie Madness, has a VHS copy of this film here in Portland, I rented it one night a few years ago and was stunned at the wondrously awful hilarity it contained. The sight of Andy Griffith trying to erase his good guy image by hassling a young couple in a Mexican cantina, droning on about "hippies", Marjoe Gortner and his "main man" speech, Shatner and Robert Reed, at one point, having a conversation about what to do with Griffith, which just sounds like Captain Kirk and Mike Brady having a tete-a-tete. But the capper is Angie Dickinson doing absolutely NOTHING. She's supposedly married to Robert Reed, but having an affair with Shatner, yet there's no evidence of it, at all. Such a shame. GO find this film, have some friends over and soak up the bad-ness. - mh

My roommates & I nearly shorted out our TV from the numerous spit-takes we did while watching this hilarious piece of 1970s self important pseudo-zen dreck. I'd read about this campfest for ages and scanned my local late night TV listings for YEARS in search of this elusive turd. Several years ago our local ABC affiliate was known for showing cool flicks for its late night weekend flick (ie "Frogs", "Night of the Lepus", etc). Then one day it happened: at 1:40am on a Saturday night (over 5 years ago) there it was! We had over 15 folks over and the flick did NOT disappoint!See! Andy Griffith as the silliest & most unthreatening bad guy since Jaye Davidson in "Stargate"!See! William Shatner sport a variety of things atop his head that only faintly resemble human hair (or anything organic for that matter).Hear! jaw droppingly inane 1970s psychobabble that makes "Chicken Soup For The Soul" sound like BF SkinnerFeel! Content that any decade was better than the 70s.For those still reading...the plot surrounds a bunch of middle class mid level a--holes who decide to suck up to their s---head boss (Griffith) by joining him on a cross dessert race that spans California & Mexico. They all wear leather jackets, looking more Christopher Street than anything else. Along the way they stop at a Cantina, get drunk, smoke joints (the sight Robert "Mike Brady" Reed smoke a joint is an image you won't soon forget), start a fight, attempt rape, and just act like a bunch of suburban middle class jack offs. Although I have an excellent copy that I taped off TV I WISH this one would be released on video so the whole world could enjoy its half baked goofiness.

I thought Andy Griffith was unbelievably funny in this movie when he made an indecent proposal with a $20.00 Bill to a young couple thinking that they would actually agree to take him up on his offer!! It was amazing to me to see Andy Griffith act like such a twisted, dirty minded deviate who displayed violent sour grapes when he did not get his way.This movie was so funny and enjoyable because it was incredibly ridiculous with all its funky chemistry of Actors,Characters and the plot all combined to make a movie that me and my friends have been poking fun at for many years now. I often recommend this movie to people just because I want to see the look on thier faces and laugh when they see such a odd mixture of Actors and the Characters that they played in this flick.