'Scarecrow': Hackman at his best
By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

To prepare for their roles as drifters in 1973's Scarecrow, Gene Hackman and Al
Pacino bummed around the streets of San Francisco. His favorite role: Gene Hackman,
and Al Pacino are two drifters who take to the open road from California to Detroit in the 1973
movie. "We literally dressed in old raggedy clothes and hung out on Market Street," Hackman
says. As a test of how believable they were as street people, Hackman asked one man directions
to the Salvation Army. "He says, 'It's back two blocks down Market and in the middle of that block,
and can I have your autograph?' Even with a beard and raggedy clothes, I couldn't get away with it."

Gene Hackman's four favorite roles, all on DVD:

Bonnie and Clyde
1967, Warner, R
The crime classic starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway got Hackman, as gang member
Buck Barrow, an Oscar nomination. "It was a great opportunity for me to work with (director)
Arthur Penn."

The French Connection
1971, Fox, R
The role of New York drug cop Popeye Doyle won Hackman an Oscar and made him a star.
"(Popeye) was a man who was very driven," says Hackman, who returned as Doyle four years
later in The French Connection II.

The Conversation
1974, Paramount, PG
Hackman plays a wiretapper who fears that two people he is spying on will be killed. "You
see that this compulsion to do this has left him a shallow guy in ways, and troubled. (He's)
not a leading man but a character. Unfortunately, we don't see those anymore."

Mississippi Burning
1988, MGM, R
FBI agents investigate the disappearance of three civil rights workers. "I remember someone
high in the civil rights movement telling me how disappointed they were in the movie that it didn't
tell all the truth," Hackman says of his Oscar-nominated role as an FBI agent. "I told them that
movies are compromises."

Not as well known as many of his films, which include the classics The French Connection and
Bonnie and Clyde, Scarecrow arrives on DVD for the first time Tuesday with two other Hackman
rarities, Night Moves (1975) and Twice in a Lifetime (1985, $20 each).
Winner of two Academy Awards for Connection and Unforgiven, Hackman considers Scarecrow,
which won the Golden Palm at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, his favorite of more than 80 films.
"We started filming in Bakersfield, Calif., and traveled cross-country, shooting all the way to Detroit
in absolute continuity," says Hackman, 75. "That's something you almost never get to do."
Each of these movies showcases Hackman's ability to embody likable leading men. These roles run
counter to the memorably vile villains Hackman played, such as Rankin Fitch in The Runaway Jury
(2003), Little Bill Daggett in Unforgiven (1992) and Lex Luthor in Superman (1978).
In Scarecrow, he plays a just-released convict, Max, who finds a kindred soul in the optimistic sailor
Francis (Al Pacino). As detective Harry Moseby in psychological thriller Night Moves, Hackman is
an ex-NFL player who is in over his head, investigating what he believes is a typical missing-person
assignment.  "It was a terrific script," he says. "Of course, I took it to work with (Bonnie and Clyde
director) Arthur Penn again." A decade later, as steelworker Harry MacKenzie in Twice in a Lifetime,
Hackman drew on his own divorce to play the father of three who separates from his wife (Ellen Burstyn)
to live with his new flame (Ann-Margret). "Gene Hackman is the perfect image of a blue-collar working guy,"
says the film's producer and director, Bud Yorkin. "I put it in one of the top three performances of his whole
career." Also recently divorced at the time, Yorkin worked with screenwriter Colin Welland (Chariots of Fire)
to personalize the events with his own recollections. Hackman would chime in, too. "We used to sit and
talk about scenes, and he'd say what his wife said, and I'd say what my wife said, and he'd talk about what
he was thinking at the time, and so would I," Yorkin says.  Says Hackman: "We were two men working
closely together, going through that same experience." These days, Hackman is not actively seeking film
roles. "Reality stares you in the face when you get to be my age," says Hackman, whose most recent
film was last year's comedy Welcome to Mooseport. "You are playing the grandfather or the great-grandfather,
and you're not used to playing those roles, and although I could, it just doesn't appeal to me." 
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