Vitals

Kris Kristofferson as Martin “Rubber Duck” Penwald, maverick trucker

Arizona to New Mexico, Summer 1978

Film: Convoy
Release Date: June 28, 1978
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Costumers: Carol James & Kent James

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today would have been the 90th birthday of the late Kris Kristofferson, likely best known as a pioneering singer-songwriter in the 1970s “outlaw country” movement alongside friends and fellow “Highwaymen” Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. After writing and recording hits like “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down”, Kristofferson embarked on an acting career that began with Dennis Hopper’s offbeat The Last Movie (1971), his titular starring role in Cisco Pike (1972), and his first collaborations with director Sam Peckinpah in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) and a more limited role in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Following Kristofferson’s string in more romantic roles, Peckinpah again tapped him to play an adventurous anti-hero as the trucker Martin “Rubber Duck” Penwald in Convoy (1978).

Melissa: Why do they call you the Duck?
Rubber Duck: Because it rhymes with “luck.” See, my daddy always told me to be just like a duck. Stay smooth on the surface and paddle like the devil underneath!

Over the course of a day, Rubber Duck emerges as a regional folk hero with Melissa (Ali MacGraw) by his side, fighting back against police brutality and corruption as exemplified by Arizona sheriff Lyle Wallace, aka “Cottonmouth” (Ernest Borgnine).

Kristofferson stars opposite Ali MacGraw, returning from a six-year screen hiatus after her previous collaboration with Peckinpah, The Getaway (1972), during which she fell for and eventually married co-star Steve McQueen. Her return to the screen prompted the end of the marriage; MacGraw and McQueen were divorced less than two months after Convoy premiered in June 1978—first in Japan on June 10th, followed by its North American release on June 28th. Convoy was a global box-office success, even in the Soviet Union, as Soviet censors approved of its message of workers’ resistance against Western institutional corruption.

Based on C.W. McCall’s novelty country song of the same name, Convoy followed the CB craze taking over America thanks to contemporary movies like the box-office hit Smokey and the Bandit (1977). Perhaps due to these themes, it overcame a lukewarm critical reception and the director’s battle with addiction to become Peckinpah’s most commercial successful film of his career, grossing $45 million against a $12 million budget—which had already doubled during production. Over!

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What’d He Wear?

We meet Rubber Duck pushing his Mack truck through the Arizona desert, stripped down in the southwestern summer heat to just a plain white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt, yellowing with sweat. After he rolls up to a favorite truckstop, he pulls on a black western-yoked long-sleeved shirt, its lightweight cloth reflecting a subtle sheen suggesting synthetic fibers in its construction like a cotton/polyester blend. The shirt has seven white-finished nickel snaps up the front, matching the triple-snap cuffs and the single snap closing each pointed flap over the twin chest pockets.

Rubber Duck’s tight brown flat-front trousers have a low rise, where he holds them up with a caramel-brown leather belt that closes through an oversized brass-finished single-prong buckle. Despite the lack of back pockets, these casual flat-front trousers reflect some jeans-informed styling like their curved front pockets and hem-stitching around the plain, flared bottoms.

The flared trouser bottoms fit easily over the calf-high shafts of Rubber Duck’s weathered two-tone leather cowboy boots built on brown hard leather stacked heels. Shaped into a pointed toe, the tan vamps feature the classic bug-and-wrinkle stitching and contrast against the slightly darker brown shafts with their decorative stitchwork.

After the convoy crosses east into New Mexico, Rubber Duck again strips down to an undershirt—also a sleeveless ribbed cotton tank, but in a light slate-gray. He briefly gives it to Melissa as she cleans off that night following a long, hard drive through the desert.

Rubber Duck wears a thin silver box-chain necklace with an entirely different bird represented on the pendant: a left-facing eagle, perhaps representing the trucker’s all-American freedom to fly.

As one may expect of any 1970s trucker, Rubber Duck often peers through a set of aviator-style sunglasses. His are framed in silver, with the traditional teardrop-shaped lenses echoing the American military standard established for fliers ahead of World War II.

Rubber Duck’s wristwatch also echoes the ’70s crave for tool watches on bulky bands, sporting his stainless chronograph on a dark-brown leather bund strap of such significant width that it requires a steel dual-prong buckle to close it. The watch’s mirrored silver dial features two matching sub-registers at the 3 and 9 o’clock positions.

For the finale at the Texas border, Rubber Duck now wears an indigo denim over-shirt with a large collar, six dark-blue plastic buttons up the front placket, two chest pockets with single-button scalloped flaps, and two-button cuffs. Not as prominently seen on screen as his other costumes, the shirt is better seen in behind-the-scenes and production photography that reveal the familiar Levi’s tab sewn along the left chest pocket.

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The Truck

Cottonmouth: Breaker one-nine, breaker one-nine. This is the bear in the air, officer Lyle Wallace calling Rubber Jerk in that rattlin’ piece of black crap at your side door. Come on!
Rubber Duck: Please don’t be using that kind of language on the air, Lyle. Especially don’t be using it regarding my beautiful black truck. Over.
Cottonmouth: That thing you call a truck is the worst pile of garbage I ever had the misfortune of writing a citation on.

Rubber Duck’s “beautiful black truck” is specifically a 1977 Mack RS-712 LST, VIN #35492, reportedly custom-built for EMI Films according to the IMCDB entry. Three other Macks from the RS-700 L series appeared as stunt and stationary doubles, including a 1973 (VIN #13182) used as a pull-along prop for dialogue scenes on the highway and two 1970 RS-731 LST models (VIN #6646 and #6648) for second-unit shots.

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How to Get the Look

Rubber Duck exemplifies ’70s trucker cool in his black western shirt over sleeveless undershirts, bulky bund-strapped chronograph, and cowboy boots under flared trouser bottoms.

• Black lightweight cotton/polyester western-yoked shirt with 7-snap front placket, two chest pockets with single-snap pointed flaps, and triple-snap cuffs
• White or pale-slate ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirts
• Brown flat-front low-rise casual trousers with belt loops, curved front pockets, no back pockets, and boot-cut plain-hemmed bottoms
• Caramel-brown leather belt with brass-finished oversized single-prong buckle
• Tan-and-brown leather cowboy boots
• Silver-framed teardrop-shaped aviator-style sunglasses
• Silver box-chain necklace with eagle-relief pendant
• Stainless steel chronograph watch with mirrored silver dial (with matching sub-registers) on wide dark-brown leather bund strap (with dual-prong buckle)

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

You ever seen a duck that couldn’t swim? Quack, quack!