Trucking in the 70s: Flatbed Annie & Sweetie Pie

Buy Flatbed Annie & Sweetie Pie Lady Truckers on Amazon

Ahhh the 70s. Hollywood became enamored of the freedom and frivolity of independent truckers all over the nation. They made them TV stars, movie heroes and even villains. But Hollywood also did something new with truckers – they made them into women.

Currently, women account for just over 8% of North America’s truck driving community. Back in the 70s, it was nearly half that number. Lady truckers were rarer than hen’s teeth (but way more useful, we think). Hollywood set that trend on its ear and created two unlikely trucker heroes with beauty and brains, played by veteran actresses Annie Potts (you may know her from Designing Women) and Kim Darby (who created a cult following among 80s teens as the bumbling mother in Better Off Dead).

Ginny turns herself into Sweetie Pie the trucker, when hijackers shoot her driver husband so they can stash drugs in his semi. To avoid getting the truck repo’d while her hubby is in the hospital, she stays one step ahead of the bank and the law by taking freight contracts with the street-smart Flatbed Annie. Along the way they meet a crazy cast of characters like Harry Dean Stanton, Arthur Godfrey, and OH MY GOD IS THAT PRESIDENTIAL BROTHER / SOUTHERN GOOFBALL Billy Carter? Yes. Yes it is.

Billy Carter stars as some sort of bucktoothed law enforcement type. Remember, his brother was still a sitting President while this was on TV.

Nothing serious is presented here – aside from a drug shooting of course – it’s mostly light-hearted 70s kitsch with funky country music, bad hairstyles, screwy comedy and happy endings.

So if you have a Netflix membership, you can watch the entire movie by clicking on the big pic below. If you don’t yet have the free Android OS app for watching movies on the go, you can find it right here.

We hope you enjoy the movie, truckers! They don’t make ‘em like this any more!