Critic Reviews

Director John Hough packs the film with stunning car stunts filmed in California backwaters. Though he sacrifices meaning for trashy thrills at every opportunity—and winds it all down with a brain-damaged variation on the end of Easy Rider—the way Fonda slowly loses his initially unflappable cool throughout the film makes it worth a look.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is the rare exploitation film whose few redeeming qualities make up for its numerous shortcomings.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is a classic heist chase picture driven by a somewhat dated premise and paper-thin characters. But the film makes up for its faults with dazzling stunt work and great action.

Although it's unlikely that Englishman Hough has connected with the auto culture that has made his latest film the darling of the drive-ins, Hough at the same time has connected with the perfect vehicle for his mechanized, dehumanized concerns. [01 Aug 1974, p.70]

The script, about small-timers who wished they were bigger, is soon totally undermined by Fonda's most complacent performance to date and Susan George's sub-Goldie Hawn antics. By way of compensation, the locations are quite pretty and the car stunts are handled with a certain verve.

With more than a third of the footage devoted to spectacular chases and collisions deftly staged by stunt coordinator Al Wyatt, there’s little time left to hint at the reasons for Fonda’s increasingly unappetizing monomania.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is as aimless as its dimly seen characters, who talk a lot of dreadful, cute-tough dialogue but are never recognizable except as the actors who play them. Even that factor isn't much help in enjoying the film.

There is practically no plot, and even less character development, but the script is based on a novel, most likely a thin one.