Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Dick RichardsRelease Date(s)
1975 (October 14, 2025)Studio(s)
Warner Bros. (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: B+
- Extras Grade: D
Review
Road movies throw together distinctive characters—sometimes friends, sometimes strangers—in a vehicle of some kind where they reveal themselves to each other as they travel from one destination to the next. The characters develop relationships as they cope with often comic adventures and misadventures, face up to demons that plague them, and confront the future. Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins is a road comedy with touching overtones featuring an amiable alcoholic and a pair of offbeat hitchhikers.
Gunny Rafferty (Alan Arkin) served in the Marines for twenty years and now works for the Los Angeles Department of Motor Vehicles as a driving examiner. Maintaining calm as he tests one nerve-wracking applicant after another, Rafferty is bored by his job and his life and has taken to drinking. Having his liquid lunch in a park one day, he’s approached by two young women—Mac (Sally Kellerman), a free-spirited aspiring singer in her twenties, and Frisbee (Mackenzie Phillips), a 15-year-old runaway. They ask him for a ride into Hollywood and he agrees, but once in the car, they force him at gunpoint to drive them to New Orleans.
Rafferty manages to outsmart them and speed off. Stopping to drink from the contents of several bottles tucked away in his car and toss his abductors’ gear, he comes across a box of blank cartridges and realizes the oddly matched pair are no criminal masterminds. So when he sees them down the road, he pulls over and offers to drive them to New Orleans. Reasoning that he’s likely lost his job for not showing up and with no other responsibilities, he claims he’s ready for something new.
Along the way, they stop in Las Vegas for some fun and meet Vinnie (Alex Rocco), a flashy freeloader who befriends the odd trio, invites them to dinner, and avoids paying the bill by setting a tablecloth on fire, causing a panic.
Back on the road with Rafferty’s beat-up car low on gas, Frisbee uses her well honed grifter skills to turn back the gas meter as Mac distracts the station attendant with her feminine wiles. Later, she hustles crippled Vietnam veteran Billy Winston (Harry Dean Stanton) at pool and slips some cash away from Alan Boone, a lonely soldier (Charlie Martin Smith) on leave. In a casino, Frisbee and Mac do a quick switch with containers holding quarters for the slot machines. A puzzled gambler stares at his once-full, now empty container as Frisbee and Mac make off with his coins.
As the trio travel the country, they take advantage of whatever comes their way and look for happiness, which is elusive. In the process, they develop emotional relationships with each other that make the film more than just a jokey road picture. Humor derives from the unlikely collision of these ill-sorted characters and the scrapes they get each other into and out of. Although the film is reminiscent of other road movies, its quirky nature makes it an original.
The film takes on a kind of bittersweetness when we learn about the character’s backstories. Rafferty is good-natured underneath his prickly manner and depression at feeling like one of life’s losers, and when he speaks dispassionately about his rather sad upbringing, we empathize with him. Arkin’s performance is appropriately deadpan and he never overreaches for a laugh.
Sally Kellerman projects a zany charm as Mac and has a smile that can mean different things, depending on the moment. She conveys that Mac is a somewhat ambivalently free spirit untethered to adult responsibilities but otherwise doesn’t make much of her role. As an aspiring singer, Mac wangles an opportunity to sing with a bar band, and Kellerman delivers an adequate if uninspired song.
Mackenzie Phillips provides the film’s stand-out performance. She plays Frisbee as a young Al Capone—tough, foul-mouthed, and audacious. Frisbee disregards boundaries, common decency, and the law to get what she wants. Having run away from an orphanage many times, she’s reveling in her freedom. With an expression that warns you to keep your distance, Phillips brings the character to life with a kind of pathological exuberance.
Rafferty, Mac, and Frisbee are all life’s outliers who don’t fit into easily defined roles. Bonded by their nonconformist eccentricity, they find comfort and companionship with each other in a world that hasn’t been generous to them. There’s an underlying sense of despair that’s balanced by funny if dangerous situations. These people may laugh and have some good times, but at heart they’re lonely and unfulfilled. John Kaye’s script has an uplifting ending that encourages hope for the characters’ futures.
Alan Arkin appeared in feature films and TV episodes from the 1960s through the 2020s. His best known roles include Wait Until Dark, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and Little Miss Sunshine. Sally Kellerman is best known for playing Margaret “Hot Lips” O’Houlihan in M*A*S*H, and Mackenzie Phillips portrayed Julie Cooper for nine seasons on TV’s One Day at a Time.
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins was shot by director of photography Ralph Woolsey on 35mm film, finished photochemically, and presented in the aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The Blu-ray features an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. Clarity is very good, but lacks the razor sharpness of other Warner Archive releases. It’s clean with no scratches, embedded dirt specks, or emulsion clouding. The color palette is muted, with few bright primary hues. Blacks are deep and velvety. Details are well delineated in the dents, dirt and missing door handles of Rafferty’s car, character lines on Harry Dean Stanton’s face, casino slot machines, a Stetson cowboy hat, Boone’s crisp army uniform, and decor in a dingy hotel room.
The soundtrack is English 2.0 mono DTS-HD Master Audio. English SDH subtitles are an available option. Dialogue is clear and distinct. Louis Prima sings You Can’t Have Everything with a small musical combo in a Las Vegas dive, but the balance between his self-parody and the club’s ambient noise muddy his performance. Sally Kellerman sings the country tune It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels and its lyrics come across more clearly than the Prima song’s.
The only bonus material on the Blu-ray release from the Warner Archive Collection is the following:
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2:56)
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins contains a series of offbeat adventures and engaging performances by Alan Akin, Sally Kellerman, and especially Mackenzie Phillips. Arkin plays the title character on a single note throughout. There’s no difference between Rafferty sober or drunk, since Arkin either didn’t get proper attention from director Dick Richards or he made unfortunate acting choices of his own. At 91 minutes, the film moves briskly from one episode to the next. Supporting actors Rocco, Stanton and Smith portray colorful individuals in various episodes, some comically larcenous, others bittersweet.
- Dennis Seuling