Summary
Our story about Preston Tucker opens with a newsreel-style montage about his personal life and career. Through voiceover narration, weathered footage, and old-timey wipe fades, we learn about Tucker's innovative new car and wholesome family life. A good deal of the montage is dedicated to Tucker's invention of a military vehicle, mimicking the newsreels from the front lines of World War II that moviegoers used to see play in theaters. The vehicle was turned down by the military for going too fast, but its gun turret was quickly adopted for the war effort.
The narrator mentions Tucker's current auto plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan and plops us right down in front of Tucker's home. This is where the story really begins. Preston Tucker pulls up in a shining black convertible, and a whole pack of Dalmatians jump out of the car as he sings the "Tiger Rag." The dogs run straight into Tucker's wife, kids, and employees, and we see that they are all one unit. He admits to his wife that he traded the old Packard for a dozen trained dogs.
Tucker takes advantage of everyone crowding around him, pulling a big envelope out from the backseat of his car to make his first pitch we'll see in the film. He asks if the troops returning from the war will want to buy the same old models that Detroit was churning out before the war, or something new. He unveils the drawing of his futuristic Tucker car with a slick, aerodynamic body and third headlight. He calls it "the car of tomorrow, today." He shows off drawings of luggage under the hood of the car and the engine in the trunk. When one of his engineers offers quick criticism, he ignores it.
After dinner, Tucker is sitting around with a couple of his engineers and his son, showing off his drawings for the car. A car pulls up in the dusk and Abe Karatz climbs out in a visibly grumpy mood. When Tucker comes out to greet him, Abe complains about being in the middle of nowhere, and we see a quick tension arise between the heartland folk and the city slicker. Inside, Abe shows disdain that Tucker is pitching him a car, talking about the prohibitive cost. Tucker is taken aback that Abe won't even hear out his idea, but Abe says he has no chance and starts on his way out. Vera, Tucker's wife, looks out at the window at a dejected Tucker.
She ambles out of the house with the kids in tow, calling out, "Preston? Preston?" when suddenly Tucker's strange military buggy pulls up. Everybody piles in and they zip away to get ice cream. He tells his family how Abe was so excited about the idea that Tucker found it pathetic, and says he's going to leave Abe hanging for a while. It's the first of many times in the film we'll see Tucker lie his way around a situation that didn't go to his favor. As he speeds through town, he attracts the attention of some motorcycle cops, who he quickly outruns.
At the ice cream shop, it's triple scoops all around. The soda jerk says to Tucker "ain't those prefab houses something?" as Tucker reads about Leavitt homes in a magazine. Tucker responds by asking how anyone can know they're any good if they're not even built yet, and a lightbulb goes off. The newsreel narrator returns, telling us that Tucker got the car featured in an article in Pic magazine, leading to 150 letters pouring in from all over the country.
We go to the office of an investment banker, where Abe Karatz is in the middle of pitching Tucker's car. The banker says they'll need a prototype—which the magazine article claimed already exists—and some big Detroit names for the board of directors, such as Robert Bennington, the current president of Plymouth. They have a little quibble over the possibility of Tucker letting someone else run the company, even if a bigger name from the auto industry would attract investors, but Abe ultimately promises that if the banker can get Bennington, he'll secure a factory. And with a handshake, the Tucker automobile gets its first real hope.
Analysis
We know from the get-go that Tucker: The Man and His Dream is going to be a nostalgia romp. Director Francis Ford Coppola decides to open the film with a throwback newsreel-style montage. That decision does two things. First, it places the movie in the World War II era, when newsreel footage was commonplace. Second, it gives Coppola the opportunity to put on the rose-tinted lenses and indulge in some old-timey aesthetics. We get a mix of sepia-toned shots of Christmas, grainy black-and-white war footage, and lush Technicolor photography shot at golden hour. Tucker, Coppola is telling us, will be a fun movie.
The newsreel also shows the overt influence of Classic Hollywood director Frank Capra. Most of Tucker will come to resemble Capra's feature-length optimistic morality tales about hearty self-reliance and the American dream, such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But with this montage, Coppola nods to Capra's prodigious newsreel production during World War II in the Why We Fight series. Perhaps Coppola remembers those newsreels more fondly than Capra himself did, as Capra would emerge as a staunch pacifist during the Vietnam War years.
The editing in this opening part of the film is lightning fast, sweeping us up in the story and Preston Tucker's personal charisma alike. One of the few times we get a still, tripod shot is when Tucker is unsuccessfully pitching Abe Karatz his automobile, but just a few shots later we're whisked into Tucker's odd military buggy, and know that his tenacious spirit will never leave viewers down in the dumps for too long.
There are a few non-naturalistic editing techniques that are introduced in this portion of the film which Coppola will come to use to great effect. We see several screen wipes, as one scene peels away and transitions into the next. It's not the type of transition you were likely to see in the cinema of the 1980s, or really in cinema since the golden age of Hollywood crested in the early 1960s. Coppola also employs some savvy trick editing, so that we can keep up with Tucker and his family.
That scene where the Tucker clan walks off the street and into the ice cream shop? There's actually a blink-of-the-eye cut that happens when we cross through the door, making it seem like the same shot depicts the two sets. For years, critics plagued Coppola with the complaint that his films were all style and no substance, but this is a great example of Coppola finally striking the perfect balance between the two, using an editing trick to keep us captivated with the film, the man, and, soon, his dream.
