Movie Title: The Cross and the Switchblade
Written by: Don Murray and James Bonnet
Directed by: Don Murray

Starring:

Pat Boone ... David Wilkerson
Erik Estrada ... Nicky Cruz
Jackie Giroux ... Rosa
Jo-Ann Robinson ... Little Bo
Dino DeFilippi ... Israel

I first heard about The Cross and the Switchblade when I saw the comic book adaptation. Yes, there was one. (The curious can find the whole comic here as a PDF file.) On the front cover, a gang thug named Nicky Cruz is threatening preacher David Wilkerson: "I could kill you, Preach." Wilkerson counters, "Yes, you could, Nicky! You could cut me up in a thousand pieces! And every piece will say I love you!"

Actually, every piece wouldn't say much of anything. Every piece would sort of sit there and eventually become rat shit. But that's neither here nor there.

That dialogue exchange also turns up in the 1970 movie version, which offers the rare sight of Pat Boone saving Erik Estrada's soul. Boone, who actually isn't terribly bad, plays fish-out-of-water Pennsylvania preacher Wilkinson, who hits the slums of New York after reading about young drug addicts and gang violence. (The real Wilkerson went there in the late '50s; the movie is decidedly set in 1970.) Estrada is Wilkerson's nemesis and chief spiritual target, Nicky Cruz, feared member of the Mau Maus. Every time Nicky turns around, it seems, Wilkerson is all up in his grill saying that God loves him. Nicky wields the switchblade. Wilkerson's got the cross. Guess which portable bit of metal wins?

Wilkerson is still around today, spreading the Good Word, and on his website there's this amusing line regarding this piece of cinema: "The movie was dismissed by secular critics as uninteresting." How dare they?? Those goddamn secular critics! Actually, The Cross and the Switchblade is anything but uninteresting and is actually more enjoyable the more "secular" you are. It's bad but highly watchable, mainly because it tries so very, very hard to be "hip" and "with-it" in 1970s terms. I mean, the soundtrack alone has quickly shot to the top of my list of music I must have on my iTunes right now. Ralph Carmichael perpetrated it, and whether it's funkadelic '70s cop-show music accompanying gang activity (the track "Rumble," I'm ecstatic to learn, is available on a comp disc called Cinema de Funk Volume 1) or hilariously explicit lyrics describing the spiritual struggles of the various characters (you haven't lived till you've heard the climactic song with the lyric "God loves Nicky Cruuuuz!"), it's perfect retarded party music. Shuffle it with the Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack for maximum dissonance.

And didja know that "cross" in Spanish is "cruz"? Subtle, that.

The Cross and the Switchblade was co-written and directed by Don Murray (best known among geeks for his role in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes). I'll say this for Murray -- he knows how to funk up the camera angles whenever gang members are having one of their many conferences. (He is, however, hopeless when it comes to staging realistic-looking violence.)

Considering that the movie was meant to be shown to kids worldwide (and has been) to bring them to Jesus, I was surprised that there's some mild profanity ("bastard" and "bitch," and there's a scene where Nicky tries to get his junkie ex-girlfriend to neutralize Wilkerson: "Kill him, ball him -- I don't care") and some bloodshed, as well as a heroin-fix scene that rivals Bad Lieutenant in the amount of time we spend watching the shit getting prepared. But, y'know, you gotta show the reality of the streets, baby, before you can show the Power of Gawwwd.

And you see that, too. Nicky sees the light and calls a halt to an incipient gang rumble. (He, too, is still alive and kicking ass for the Lord. On the DVD you get to see some '70s footage of Cruz giving a sermon in South Africa; in the clip, he's a compelling if mush-mouthed speaker.) Pat Boone more or less underplays, in a humble performance; Erik Estrada pretty much eats the walls, showing how Evil and Unreachable he is -- until Nicky hears that God knows how bad he is but loves him anyway, at which point Nicky turns on the waterworks and gives it up for Jaysus. Hallelujah.

And I haven't even scratched the surface of the dialogue, rich with gems like "I'm not a soft touch; I'm a man of God." Or how Nicky's now clean-and-sober ex-girlfriend tells him that he's "bright and shiny" since accepting the Lord. Oh, Lord, please do see this movie, if for no other reason than to introduce yourself to the groovy musical stylings of Ralph Carmichael. God loves Nicky Cruuuuz!