United States

TWO ON THE ROAD - THE LONG LONELY ROAD
Max (GENE HACKMAN) and Lion (AL PACINO) meet on a deserted road in northern California. Max has just been released after serving several years in a prison for assault. He's on his way to Pittsburgh where he plans to open a hand car wash business. Lion has just returned from sea after six years and is heading for Detroit to see Annie (PENNY ALLEN) the wife he deserted, and his five year old son whom he has never seen. Max, a tough brawler, finds Lion, not yet thirty and a natural clown, to be amusing and in fact one of the few people in the world he might be able to trust. After the pair have travelled many miles Lion accepts Max's offer of a full partnership in his car wash. As they journey, each man learns from the other. Max starts to learn to control his explosive temper and Lion learns about real responsibility. They make a stop in Denver in order to visit Coley (DOROTHY TRISTAN), Max's sisters and only relative. It's a happy interlude as both men relax and try to forget about the hardships of the road. They plan to go to Detroit next, but a drunken farewell party turns into a fiasco. fiasco. Both Max and Lion are arrested and given thirty days on the county work farm. In jail, Riley (RICHARD LYNCH), fellow inmate and first-class hustler, befriends Lion but is rebuked by Max. One night Riley gets Lion drunk then makes homosexual advances. Lion fights him off but suffers a brutal beating. A guard has witnessed the event, and Riley is sent to the pig farm, where Max takes just retribution. Completing their term, the pair commence the highway trek to Detroit, Lion covered with stitches and nursing a broken nose. Once in Detroit, Lion makes for a telephone booth to call Annie, never dreaming that the hostility of his wife's reaction is to change his life.