Though Sissy Spacek’s film career started with 1972’s Prime Cut, 1973’s Badlands became the first time she gained notoriety. Spacek would progress toward stardom via 1976’s horror hit Carrie.

Surprisingly, Spacek didn’t appear much between those two noteworthy flicks. For her sole cinematic acting credit over that time span, we go to 1974’s Ginger in the Morning.

Middle-aged architect Joe Maroni (Monte Markham) arrives in New Mexico after a business trip. Newly divorced, his pushy – and horny – airplane buddy Fred (David Doyle) encourages him to dive back into the sexual pool, but Joe seems reluctant to take that step.

As Joe drives home to Denver, he picks up hitchhiker Ginger Brown (Spacek). The conservative Joe’s life gets turned upside down via his association with the free-spirited young woman.

Although my intro implies that Spacek shot Morning after Badlands, she actually made it first. The film sat on the shelf a couple years before it finally earned a release.

Expect to find something of a period piece here, as Morning feels very much of its era. Actually, 1974 might seem a bit late for a film with this one’s tone, as its emphasis on the hippie lifestyle and ethos feels more like a fit for a few years earlier.

Again, that’s because it was made a few years earlier. Nonetheless, the gentle hippie vibe already seemed somewhat quaint during the blooming cynicism of the Watergate period.

Period issues aside, Morning doesn’t click. An awkward combination of comedy, melodrama, romance and hippie platitudes, the film meanders and fails to hit the mark.

Poor Spacek gets stuck in a dud of a role. Ginger exists as a form of Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a character we meet mainly to shake Joe out of his doldrums.

This means Ginger gets little to do beyond look cute and create drama among the other participants. I guess the movie wants us to view Ginger as refreshing and delightfully frank, but instead she comes across as something of a dip.

The screenplay sticks Spacek with silly lines such as “if I’m gonna throw a bomb, it’s gonna be a love bomb. And if I’m gonna trip out, it’s gonna be a love trip.” Somehow she manages to read these with a straight face.

Ginger comes across as a hippie character written by a 50-year-old man who saw something about the early 70s counterculture in Newsweek and knew nothing else. She never rings true.

Even as the focus of the story, Joe fares little better. He feels like a generic role with little actually agency who simply meanders aimlessly wherever the script takes him.

Honestly, Morning lacks much actual plot, as it instead focuses on the contrived experiences of its characters. This means primarily Ginger and Joe, though it introduces Joe’s rowdy buddy Charlie (Mark Miller) and his ex-wife Sugar (Susan Oliver) mid-film to spice up the tale.

I guess even the screenwriter realized how dull Ginger and Joe were, so we meet bickering Sugar and Charlie to bring some bitter Virginia Woolf energy to the movie. It doesn’t work, as the story fails to integrate them well.

Instead, they feel like they come from an entirely different movie. They help send Ginger onto awkward tangents as it seeks a logical resolution that never comes.

Despite the limitations of her role, Spacek seems reasonably charming, and it’s fun to see small appearances from “names” like Slim Pickens and a pre-Charlie’s Angels David Doyle. Nonetheless, Morning delivers a weird mix of cheap sentiment, broad drama and goofy comedy that just doesn’t succeed.

Ginger in the Morning appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. For the most part, this became a positive presentation. <

In general, the movie offered appealing accuracy. Sporadic soft shots materialized, but the film boasted good delineation the majority of the time.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed light but acceptable, and outside of a bobbing vertical line at the 47-minute mark, I witnessed no source flaws.

The film opted for a fairly natural palette, albeit with a bit of a brown/amber vibe. The Blu-ray reproduced the colors well and gave them nice punch.

Blacks felt dark and dense, while shadows offered positive clarity. Outside of some softness, I thought the image held up well.

In addition, the DTS-HD MA monaural audio of Morning matched expectations given the movie’s age. Speech always remained intelligible, though the lines could seem a little edgy and sibilant at times.

The score and songs boasted reasonable range, while effects offered adequate accuracy, albeit with some roughness at times. Nothing here impressed but the track seemed satisfactory for its era.

As we move to extras, we find an audio commentary from film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Amanda Reyes. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and crew, genre domains, various production notes and their thoughts on the film.

Expect a pretty solid chat here, as Reyes and Joyner combine well. They cover a nice range of topics to turn this into an informative conversation.

In addition to three trailers, we get Remembering Ginger in the Morning. It spans 18 minutes, 25 seconds and involves actor Monte Markham.

The performer offers notes on how he came to the film as well as aspects of the shoot and thoughts about his collaborators. Markham provides a nice overview of his experiences.

The set concludes with a booklet that provides art and an essay from Susan King. It finishes matters on a positive note.

As a very early effort from Sissy Spacek, Ginger In the Morning boasts some historical value. Unfortunately, it fizzles as a character story. The Blu-ray comes with largely positive visuals, acceptable audio and a couple informative bonus features. Expect a dated and problematic movie here.