Highway 61
		Year:1992 - Paramount - Shadow Shows Entertainment Director: Bruce McDonald Screenplay: Bruce McDonald, Allan Magee, Don McKellar Starring: Don McKellar, Valerie Buhagiar, Earl Pastko, Peter Breck, Art Bergmann, and Tracy Wright.

Highway 61 is Bruce McDonald's film about dreams, obsession, and redemption. Pokey Jones is a young barber in a small town in Ontario who dreams of becoming a great jazz trumpeter. Unfortunately for Pokey (Don McKellar) there are few outlets for his music in his small town except for playing in the local Bachman-Turner Overdrive cover band. His fear of playing in front of people, coupled with his lack of talent, are real obstacles to Pokey realizing his dream.

The discovery of a frozen corpse in his backyard one morning transforms Pokey briefly into a local celebrity. Other than a little notoriety, he does not suspect that the corpse would start him on the one great adventure of his life. A strange woman comes into his shop for a new hair style and color. A fugitive roadie and drug smuggler, Jackie Bangs, claims the dead man is her brother.  Jackie (Valerie Buhagiar) thinks the body would provide an easy way to sneak drugs into the U.S.  In a parody scene from Easy Rider, Jackie puts heroin in a hose and then conceals the hose in the corpse, just as Peter Fonda smuggled heroin in a hose hidden in the gas tank of his motorcycle. Like Fonda in Easy Rider, Jackie needs to deliver the drugs to New Orleans. After unsuccessfully trying to hitch-hike with a coffin, Jackie convinces Pokey to drive her to New Orleans to bury her brother. Pokey is reluctant to leave his shop unattended and finally decides that the trip would be justified on moral principles. After a hilarious encounter with US Customs, Jackie, Pokey, and the nameless corpse are driving that highway made famous by Bob Dylan.

Unfortunately for Pokey and Jackie, a man who claims to be Satan, Mr. Skin, wants the corpse for his own purposes. Mr. Skin, played by Earl Pastko, is one of the most original characters I have seen in a movie. Because his early sexual experiences coincided with the death of Kennedy and Elvis, Mr. Skin has convinced himself that he is Satan. Like all of the characters in the movie, except Jackie, Mr. Skin is looking for a way to distinguish himself from the rest of the world.  With the hard working determination of a traveling evangelist, Mr. Skin travels the US and Canada buying souls with the promises of dream fulfillment; or more mundane material goods such as beer, concert tickets, or twenty bucks. After having his clients sign away their souls in blood, Mr. Skin takes their picture. Some people feared, when photography was first introduced, that photographs were a way of stealing one's soul. Perhaps Mr. Skin is trying to do just such a thing.   The body traveling South with Pokey belonged to a man who negotiated his soul away to Mr. Skin. Now Mr. Skin wants the body to claim the soul. He sets out in pursuit of Pokey and Jackie. Along the way, McDonald ingeniously has Satan supporting himself on the road by winning money at church Bingo games.

As is common in all road movies, Jackie and Pokey are a contrast. Pokey was orphaned and has had to rely on a moral foundation he believes is consistent with what his parents would have wanted. Consequently, Pokey has a somewhat naive and reverent view of life. In his car, which he inherited from his parents, he is metaphorically being transported by his parent's moral legacy along his sojourn of awakening. Jackie on the other hand is a thrill seeking cynic. She has little regard for anyone outside of what they can do for her. Pokey sees the trip as a pilgrimage through America's musical heritage. Jackie sees it as just another drug run, with the added fun of bring Pokey down to her level. Jackie seduces Pokey sexually in a church cemetery leading to this exchange:  "Now I know why they call you Pokey." "Now I know why they call you Bangs". Jackie also seduces Pokey morally. Although he is appalled by Jackie's wanton unlawfulness and deceit, he does little to stop her. After a while, he starts to loosen up himself and actively participates in some of her exploits. When the couple runs out of money, Jackie steals cash and clothes from a traveling musical family - The Watsons. The Watsons are a father and his three little girls. Obsessed with the dream of show business stardom, Mr. Watson has left his wife and taken his daughters on the road as a christian singing and dancing act. So obsessed is Mr. Watson with his dream, he is blind to the obvious fact that his girls have no talent what-so-ever.

Before reaching New Orleans, Jackie and Pokey stop off to visit some friends of Jackie; a drugged out former rock star couple, Otto and Margo. Their wealth and hedonistic lifestyle has brought them nothing but a life of tedious boredom, filled with drugs, thoughts of suicide, and hunting chickens for sport. Jackie sees how pathetic and empty the lives of those she used to admire have become now that they no longer have something, like their music, to believe in.

In Memphis, Satan catches up with Pokey and steals the corpse. Mr. Skin burns Pokey's car so that he can't be followed. Pokey sees this as punishment for his moral straying. Symbolically his parents, represented by the car, burn in hell for his sins. This also frees Pokey from his parents and allows him to act independently. Fearing for Jackie, who has taken off after the body, Pokey attempts get to New Orleans himself to stop Satan. Pokey tries to raise money on the streets of a poor neighborhood by playing trumpet. He has no success until he unpacks his barber implements. As a barber he has no trouble getting what he needs to get to New Orleans. Pokey comes to the realization that what he is a best at is being barber, like his father, and not a musician.

In the climatic scene of the film, Pokey saves Jackie from Satan, who is trying to summon the soul from the corpse during a backyard performance for his neighbors. While retrieving the body, Pokey discovers the drugs. Disillusioned, he leaves Jackie. Mr. Skin discovers he is not Satan and in anguish destroys his home and himself in a fire. We find that Jackie is delivering the drugs to a woman who is probably her mother. Perhaps, feeling some kinship with the abandoned corpse; which was just a device to smuggle drugs, as Jackie had probably been so many times, Jackie gives the body a reverent burial in a swamp. She gives the stranger's body the respect it is due in death just as everyone deserves in death. In essence, Pokey really did save Jackie by showing her the respect that everyone deserves in life.