Returning from a stint in the Air Force, clean-cut young Carrol Jo Hummer (Jan-Michael Vincent) borrows money to buy a second-hand truck, hoping to make enough money hauling produce as an independent trucker (like his late father) to marry his childhood sweetheart Jerri Kane (Kay Lenz) and set up house together.
He discovers that the Arizona long-haul business is run by racketeers – everyone from his father’s old friend and onetime partner, Duane (Slim Pickens) down to an old police buddy is in the pay of John Cutler (Don Porter) and his shady associates – and decides to fight the corrupt forces that control the trucking business.
Hummer can stand being beaten up, locked in his cargo van face-down in cow manure, being run off the road or threatened with a trumped-up murder charge – but when attacks are made on his truck (“Blue Mule”), his home and his pregnant wife, the mad young trucker takes his revenge.
In the end, though – in a pointless scene which seemingly exists just to suggest his bravery and honesty has earned him the support of everyone in town – the film finishes inconclusively with only an implied positive result from his reckless heroism.
Carrol Jo Hummer
Jan-Michael Vincent Jerri Kane-Hummer
Kay Lenz Duane Haller
Slim Pickens Buck Wessle
L.Q. Jones Lucy
Leigh French Josh Cutler
Don Porter Pops Dinwiddie
Sam Laws Carnell Dinwiddie
Johnny Ray Mcghee Clem
Martin Kove Jamie
Jamie Anderson Deputy Sheriff
Ron Nix Birdie
Dick Miller Tattoo
Neil Summers Hy
Swede Johnson Norman Miller
John David Garfield Red
Tiny Wells Sam Nedrow
Frank Kennedy Sunglasses
Nate Long Jamie’s Girl
Dawn Jeffory-Nelson Vogel
Henry Kendricks
Director
Jonathan Kaplan
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