How true is this movie?

hi, yes it is true ,i personally know these people and was raised around them and went to school with her brother.they are on the crazy side. in fact i just saw her brother roy ,real name and her's is faye. it really was a sad way he was killed .they said the sheriff that shot him was a bad bad cop. the husband was giving up and coming out and was blasted. this is what everyone said. talk to you later, ken

I happened to live in the town, during the time this occured. My older sister worked for the Crone family ( Kenneth and Carolyn) and the bulk of the movie is all show. Kenneth Crone, the hostage trooper, didn't make friends with the characters in real life at all. As a matter of fact, he later said he would have done what was necessary if he had been given the choice. This includes putting a slug in both of them. The chase never went on as long as the movie, although I enjoyed the movie. People didn't fall in love with these criminals.
As for the fate of Roy. We were shown private photo's of the action, by the then JP Mary Dougat. She came to our Government class in the 70's and we looked at 18 X 20, Black and White, gruesome photos of Roy dying. He was still alive when the photos were shot. He had worked his way around the house, with blood covering the body. Bullet holes were very evident. He finally falls to his knees near a Hose bid on the bottom of the home. The photo shows him reaching in his mouth and pulling something out and tossing it on the ground before the last photo of him dying.
When students asked the JP why no-one called for emergency help, she gave her own opinion. She replied "they did, help just didn't arrive in time" Scuttlebutt was that Troopers denied the paramedics access to the scene,...on purpose. The last question concerning the pictures was what he was doing reaching in his mouth. JP replied, " he had been shot, soo many times that some of the rounds had shot off his tongue. He had pulled it out of his mouth trying to keep from choking on it." To see the pictures was gruesome. I can assure you, there was no love lost for this guy.

I was an extra in Sugarland Express when I worked for the Texas prison system in 1974. The movie is basically factual but Hollywood always changes some aspect to make the story flow better. Some of the movie was actually filmed on the prison grounds (outside the security perimeter) and a number of guards were extras. The special effects made one of the guard dormitories the bathroom where the inmate changed into civilian clothes. The visiting area in the movie was actually a recreational area for the guards that lived there (including me). Goldie Hawn was hilarious, beautiful, and made everyone laugh. Unfortunately, she would crack up laughing when she was supposed to be crying, and some scenes were shot over 20 times. I had no idea who Spielberg was at the time, other than he was running the show, and was bright and witty (no surprise about that 30 years later).

The escaped prisoner was actually shot to death on the front porch of the home where the foster parents had his children; the police and FBI were waiting for him. He died on the porch and the real incident was over - he never went past the porch as the movie portrayed. As I recall, Bob Wiatt (then an FBI agent) shot him with a pistol, and it was over.

There were a lot of police cars in the chase, but only from Texas and nowhere near the number in the movie. The real life characters were not hailed as heroes or treated with respect by the community; they were hard core criminals and dangerous.

So, how true is it? More accurate than most, but alot of changes to make the characters sympathetic and a more dramatic ending.

Pete Heckler
Houston, Texas

Dear pajam

They did not cheer like that? I know this for a fact.....It was my brother in law sister, that this happen too........

I was a radio news reporter in Houston, and I was in one of the many media cars in the Sugarland Express chase. Contrary to what Wikipedia says, the chase came nowhere near Port Arthur, which is on the Texas-Louisiana line. Nor did it, as shown in the movie, ever get anywhere near the Mexico border. Mexico is nearly 400 miles from where the chase began.

It started in the town of Sugarland, a Houston suburb, wound its way counter-clockwise around the outskirts of Houston, into east Texas to the town of Dayton -- about 50 miles northeast of Houston. From there it turned west to the Navasota area, which is about 75 miles northwest of Houston near Texas A&M, and ended in a small farming community outside Navasota. The whole thing took just several hours, and it covered -- maybe -- 150 miles -- tops.

Also, contrary to what another poster says, the man who was shot at the end of the chase did not die because law officers kept paramedics away. He bled out quickly and died because nothing resembling a paramedic was available.

This incident happened in 1969, when there was no such thing as a "paramedic" in Texas. In fact, the concept of training people as "paramedics" didn't make it to Texas until the mid 1970s. Before then, on-scene emergency medical care was provided by ambulance drivers and their helpers, most of whom had little or no medical training because it wasn't required. As bad as on-scene emergency care was in urban areas, it was 50 times worse in rural areas.

Worse, in those days, ambulances were owned by commercial operators who demanded proof of insurance or cash up front. It was common for ambulance drivers to "refuse a haul" if they determined a patient couldn't pay for the ride. The film Mother, Jugs and Speed gives a very clear picture of what that sorry business was like back then. It was so bad it led to the rise of city-owned ambulances with trained EMT's and paramedics.

All in all, Sugarland Express was your typical Hollywood glorification of people who did not deserve to be glorified. They were small time white trash criminals -- not the folk heroes Spielberg turned them into. They kidnapped a state highway patrolman, and had a gun to his head the whole time threatening to kill him. No one in the chase doubted that they would have killed him, along with the dozens of cops chasing them if they could.

That aside, it was still a good movie.

I remember seeing the car chase on television. I was very saddened that this had to happen this way. Someone said that they were just plain white trash. Well, I didn't know the girl or anything about her, but I did know the boy. Bobby was his name. I had known him since I was a child and I knew his family. He started getting into trouble young. He started out as a petty theif. I do remember hearing that he stole money from laundry mats and bought presents for his mother. (she didn't know he was stealing at the time) I know that they didn't have alot of money, but in those days I didn't know many people in Port Arthur, Texas that did.

I don't know what made him do these things, but he definantely got caught and punished for them. I do know that he went to a prison in Louisiana, I am not sure what for, but I did see him in shackles at his father's funeral. It was a very sad affair.

I never knew of any violence in their family. He and his sister were raised by good catholic parents. I personally believe that going to jail so young probably changed him into the person he became. I am sure that this event was a very sorrowful/shameful time for his family. I always thought that it could have been handled differently, but I wasn't there. It was very tragic for everyone.

The film is based on the true life story of Robert and Ida Fae Dent who kidnapped Texas DPS Trooper Kenneth Crone took his patrol vehicle, lead Law Enforcment officers on a chase throught the stae passing through Port Arthur, Houston, Navasota and Wheelock were the baby of the 2 was living with foster parents. FBI Agent Bill Wiatt, (not Texas Rangers) shot and killed Robert Dent who was armed, then arrested Ida Fae.

Based on a true incident, and highly fabricated in Speilberg's screenplay (nothing wrong with that as its not a story of historical importance). The story took place no where near Sugarland, TX. The newspaper account from the Bryant, TX newspaper (just north of where the chase finally ended) can be found from the Goggle News Archive link below.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lyoJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=H0gDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6651,1837477&dq=ila+dent