Also known as On the Run and One for the Money, Two for the Show, Country Blue has the balls to rip off a Janis Joplin song for its tagline, “For Bobby Lee and Ruthie, Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”

I like this one more: “Young and in love, she broke the law…the law broke her.”

Bobby Lee Dixon (Jack Conrad, who also directed, co-wrote, produced and edited this film; he’s not the only Hicksploitation director to make an auteur project as the entire genre is predicated on movies like Billy Jack) has just been released from jail and wants to make a better life for his lover Ruthie Chalmers (Rita George). But she can’t even afford to leave her husband, so her father, J.J. “Jumpy” Belk (Dub Taylor) and Arneda Johnson (Mildred Brown) convince them that crime is the easy way to get what you want.

IMDBS says “Negotiations with Jeff Bridges and Robert Blake to play the role of Bobby Lee broke down because of budget limitations, so Jack Conrad had the choice of canceling the shoot or playing the role himself.” I bet Conrad brought it up to them at a bar. They said, “Call my agent.” That was it.

This was filmed in the least affluent parts of the U.S. and has a hard scrabble, doomed feel about it. It’s not a great find, but it’s still interesting, made at a time when Bonnie and Clyde and essays on the downtrodden and their ruined lives were big screen fodder. Bank robberies, bad decisions, short tempers…you know how the song goes.

You can watch this on YouTube.