Dusty and Sweets McGee

{{Infobox film

| name = Dusty and Sweets McGee

| image = Dusty and Sweets McGee poster.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = Floyd Mutrux

| producer = Michael Laughlin
Floyd Mutrux

| writer = Floyd Mutrux

| starring = Clifton Tip Fredell
Kit Ryder
Billy Gray
Bob Graham
Nancy Wheeler
Russ Knight

| music = Jake Holmes
Van Morrison
Ricky Nelson

| cinematography = William A. Fraker

| editing = Richard A. Harris

| studio = Warner Bros.

| distributor = Warner Bros.

| released = {{Film date|1971|7|14}}

| runtime = 92 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget = $350,000Call the Cops: It's Time to Call the Cops

By A. H. WEILER. New York Times 7 Mar 1971: D11.

| gross =

}}

Dusty and Sweets McGee is a 1971 American drama film written and directed by Floyd Mutrux.[https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/dusty-and-sweets-mcgee The New Yorker] The film stars Clifton Tip Fredell, Kit Ryder, Billy Gray, Bob Graham, Nancy Wheeler and Russ Knight. The film was released by Warner Bros. on July 14, 1971.{{cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/73774/dusty-and-sweets-mcgee |title=Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971) - Overview |publisher=Turner Classic Movies |date= |access-date=April 18, 2015}}{{cite news|author=Howard Thompson. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A02E0DF1E3FE63ABC4D52DFB166838A669EDE |title=Movie Review - Dusty and Sweets McGee - Dusty and Sweets McGee' at Coronet |newspaper=The New York Times |date=July 15, 1971 |access-date=April 18, 2015}}

Production

In the alternative Hollywood of the 1970s, director Floyd Mutrux got the green light to produce a film about young drug addicts. Eager to tap into the youth market, and without a clue of how to do it, studio heads signed off on the film despite it having no viable script. It was instead based on some interviews with actual drug addicts.[https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2020/dusty-and-sweets-mcgee-panic-needle-park Dusty and Sweets McGee / The Panic in Needle Park|Hammer Museum]

Plot

Dusty and Sweets McGee follows the two young addicts of the title as they idly spend their days in early 1970s Los Angeles. The camera rolls as the addicts roam the streets of LA from downtown to the beach. Car radios play the hits of the day as they aimlessly go about their drug-addicted lives. Eating hot dogs at Pink's, committing petty crime, scoring drugs and cruising the sunset strip are lovingly documented by Mutrux.

There is no plot, but what evolves is a portrait of lost, young souls adrift in a failed consumer society.[https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2015/12/04/dusty-sweets-mcgee UCLA Film & Television Archive] Affluent America is all around them, shiny and sun-drenched like a beautiful California orange, but there is something rotten at the core of this fruit. Vietnam rages on, the Watts riots were still smoldering in people's minds to the South as the big, shiny convertibles rolled majestically down the endless freeways. Many neo-realist films, including this one, indict society for failing to provide for its citizens economically; Dusty and Sweets McGee seems to point a finger at spiritual deficit.[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/15-great-american-movies-influenced-by-italian-neo-realism/ 15 Great American Movies Influenced buy Italian Neo-Realism — Taste of Cinema]

Cast

Clifton Tip Fredell as Tip
Kit Ryder as Male Hustler
Billy Gray as City Life
Bob Graham as Little Boy
Nancy Wheeler as Nancy
Russ Knight as Weird Beard
William A. Fraker as The Cellist

Reception

Filmmaker Thom Andersen praised the film for its "lyricism, sense of wonder and humor".[https://www.filmlinc.org/films/dusty-and-sweets-mcgee/ Film at Lincoln Center]

=Controversy=

In 1998, film critic Leonard Maltin settled a libel suit brought by cast member Billy Gray, whom Maltin had identified in his review of the film as a real-life drug addict and dealer. The statement had appeared in print for nearly 25 years in Maltin's annual movie guide before Maltin publicly apologized for the error.[https://www.sfweekly.com/news/father-knows-bud-didnt-use-heroin/ Father Knows Bud Didn't Use Heroin - SF Weekly]{{cite news|title=Maltin now knows it's best to apologize|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/maltin-best-apologize-article-1.818055|access-date=20 March 2016|work=New York Daily News|date=15 July 1998|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160320082204/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/maltin-best-apologize-article-1.818055|archive-date=20 March 2016}}