IN 1974 AMERICAN THEATERS WERE briefly graced by a movie called The Sugarland Express. Based on a true story, the film proposed the adventure of a fugitive Texas convict and his spunky harebrained wife. The two hijack a rookie state trooper in a desperate attempt to keep the state from declaring them unfit parents and putting their infant son in a foster home. Along the way, the captors and captive become buddies, and there are all sorts of other action-picture clichés—car chases, wrecks, explosions, a convincingly bewildering gunfight. But the movie stands out because the director had the good sense to slow it down. The old rodeo cowboy and character actor Ben Johnson played a highway patrol captain doing his best to rescue his dumb…
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