The Daredevil (1972)

          Watching The Daredevil, it’s tricky to parse whether the people involved with the project thought they were making a real movie. On the surface, the story of a stock-car racer whose life unravels after his involvement with a crash that kills another racer is a compendium of high-velocity episodes, from daytime races to nighttime chases. Yet the picture also tries, weakly, to present a character study of its self-destructive protagonist, a nasty jerk who treats everyone he meets with contempt. As a result, it’s hard to determine the intended audience for this thing. By the time this picture was made, the drive-in demographic’s appetite for stories about hard-charging rebels sticking it to the man was well-established, and The Daredevil does not scratch that itch. Similarly, downbeat tales of everyday people meeting grim fates for the temerity of expressing individualism were familiar to devotees of arty counterculture cinema, but The Daredevil lacks the sophistication needed to satiate that appetite. And while some distinctive flicks found a sweet spot between these extremes—the previous year’s Vanishing Point comes to mind—that’s yet another niche into which The Daredevil does not fit. For all these reasons and more, The Daredevil deserves its obscurity. Bad ’70s cinema gets much worse than this, but The Daredevil neither tries to do enough nor excels at what it actually attempts.

          Faded ’40s/’50s he-man actor George Montgomery plays Paul Tunney, an asshole with a winning record on the Southern stock-car circuit. Returning to his home track, he faces off for the first time against a Black racer, who dies during the event. (Adding to his charm, Paul is casually racist.) The dead man’s sister, Carol (Gay Perkins), puts a sort of hex on Paul, who starts losing races not long after the fatality. Then Paul starts a distasteful involvement with Julie (played by ’50s pinup Terry Moore) even though Julie is dating Paul’s friend Huck (Bill Kelly), a one-armed mechanic. Once Paul’s racing career hits the skids, he takes a gig running drugs for a local crime boss. These slender threads intertwine predictably as the picture zooms toward its bummer climax. Had the premise of Robert Walsh’s script found its way to a more adept filmmaking team and stronger actors, The Daredevil could have become something interesting—not only is the downward spiral of the leading character a serviceable plot device, but developing the idea of Carol employing supernatural means to exact revenge could have lent novelty to the endeavor. As is, the picture is a cheap-looking affair riddled with flat dialogue, stilted performances, unpleasant characters, and way too much stock footage.

The Daredevil: FUNKY

The California Kid (1974)

          Never mind that the “kid” of the title is played by a 34-year-old Martin Sheen, because if that kind of logical disconnect ruins your viewing experiences, then you probably don’t have much of an appetite for dopey TV movies from the ’70s, and The California Kid will strike you as a non-starter. Flip side, if you’re willing to lower your standards in order to enjoy 74 minutes of formulaic escapism, then prepare yourself for an enjoyable fast-food snack brimming with empty calories. Hot-rod driver Michael McCord (Sheen) blows into the small town of Clarksberg, where Sheriff Roy Childress (Vic Morrow) is so mad for speed-limit enforcement that he occasionally pushes reckless drivers’ cars over a cliff in treacherous canyon terrain. One of Sheriff Roy’s victims was Michael’s kid brother, so Michael has come to Clarksberg in search of truth and, if necessary, frontier justice. That’s the entire plot, notwithstanding an anemic love story pairing Michael with seen-it-all waitress Maggie (played by lissome singer-turned-actress Michelle Phillips).

          Written and directed, respectively, by longtime TV professionals Richard Compton and Richard T. Heffron, The California Kid is competent but graceless, and the movie’s lack of character development is laughable, especially when the filmmakers try for angsty gravitas in the final act. Had the project not landed so many interesting actors (Stuart Margolin and Nick Nolte show up in supporting roles), it’s safe to assume that The California Kid would have been unbearably vapid. As is, the thing moves along at a more sluggish pace than you might imagine, given the high-octane subject matter, but Sheen is consistently watchable. He’s particularly compelling in moments when he glares at Morrow, the heat of his character’s rage smoldering from beneath a menacingly scrunched brow. And just when it seems that Morrow has phoned in a one-dimensional portrayal, the revelation of his character’s backstory—combined with a single scene in a dusty backyard—adds something like nuance. So even though one can’t help but wish this thing grew up to become the Roger Corman-esque thrill ride it so clearly wants to, The California Kid has its simplistic charms.

The California Kid: FUNKY

Steel Arena (1973)

The debut films of prolific directors have a certain innate appeal, because it’s always interesting to see where a noteworthy filmmaker’s journey began. In the case of Mark L. Lester, whose subsequent affronts to cinematic quality include Roller Boogie (1979) and Firestarter (1984), watching his first feature-length project, Steel Arena, is illuminating albeit unsurprising. Very quickly, one notes baseline technical competence and even occasional evidence of visual style. Yet just as quickly, one marvels at laughable ineptitude with regard to acting, characterization, logic, and storytelling. Lester, who began his film career making documentaries, apparently befriended a group of low-rent daredevils who toured the south, then persuaded the daredevils to play fictionalized versions of themselves. Never mind that none of them could act, or that the “story” Lester imposed upon them is a flimsy frame connecting lengthy vignettes of demolition-derby carnage. One can almost feel the film straining every time Lester tries to add dramatic weight with a tragic moment, especially because most of the film is utterly bereft of interpersonal conflict. Nonetheless, Steel Arena offers plenty of guilty-pleasure signifiers common to vintage southern drive-in schlock—there’s a corpulent redneck sheriff, a car chase involving moonshine, a busty waitress with a thirst for adventure, and a hilariously overlong sequence in which people bitch about mosquito bites. Through it all, leading man Dusty Russell, sort of playing himself, manages to avoid forming a single facial expression. The cars he crashes give more convincing performances.

Steel Arena: LAME

Stingray (1978)

          Lighthearted action/comedy silliness with amiable young heroes, colorful villains, a fast-moving storyline, and a smidgen of nasty violence, Stingray hits pleasure centers without actually engaging viewer’s brains. At 100 minutes, it’s a big long for a dopey romp, and none would ever mistake leading man Christopher Mitchum—son of Robert—for a fine actor. That said, Stingray may well contain the most enjoyable performance ever given by Sherry Jackson, a ’50s child star who grew up to become an alluring starlet in TV shows and B-movies of the ’60s and ’70s. (Fans of a certain age may recall her eye-popping appearance in a barely-there costume during a goofy episode of the original Star Trek series.) In Stingray, Jackson plays an all-business criminal with a psychotic streak, and she leans into the role so winningly that it’s a wonder her work here didn’t lead to better opportunities.

          The simple plot begins when crooks dump something into a Corvette Stingray on a used-car lot just before they’re arrested. Two young guys, Al (Mitchum) and Elmo (Les Lannom), buy the car soon afterward, unaware of the illicit cargo. Enter Abigail Bratowski (Jackson), the crooks’ ruthless boss, who first appears disguised as a nun even though she’s smoking and swearing up a storm. Myriad episodes of high-speed pursuit ensue, with interludes of bar fights and shootouts and the like. Through it all, Abigail is consistently fierce, knocking off bystanders and enemies while spewing lines of this sort: “Roscoe, hand me that clip of explosive shells!”

          Some sequences in Stingray are dull and others are dumb, because every so often the filmmakers forget the sort of picture they’re making and try to present something serious. Happily, they usually snap back to form before too long. And while no one in the cast besides Jackson really pops, everyone hits the right one-dimensional notes, as when portly Cliff Emmich, playing one of the villains, freaks out in a forest and shoots his gun at irksome mosquitoes. Better still, Mitchum and Lammon get to play a cartoonishly suspenseful scene together in the finale. Until then, it’s all about Jackson incarnating a sexy badass.

Stingray: FUNKY

43: The Richard Petty Story (1972)

          At the time this biopic about NASCAR’s winningest driver was made, stock-car racing hadn’t yet vaulted from regional popularity in the South to nationwide notoriety. (Races didn’t find their way to national television until a few years later.) That might explain why only meager resources were brought to bear on this project, for which producers likely expected only limited exhibition opportunities. All of which is a polite way of saying that 43: The Richard Petty Story, which sorta-kinda stars Petty as himself, is a cheap-looking quickie with a dopey script, juiced only slightly by the inclusion of footage from real NASCAR races. It’s not much of a tribute to a sport’s reigning champ, but one gets the impression that no one involved took the project seriously, excepting of course Petty himself. As to the remark about him “sorta-kinda” starring, chances are the producers quickly realized that Petty had zero acting talent and not much more charisma, hence relegating him to a minor supporting role despite the presence of his name in the title. Much more screen time is devoted to seasoned actor Darren McGavin, who plays Petty’s father.

          The flick opens with a simple framing device. After Richard wipes out in a race, his father, Lee Petty (McGavin), gathers with family members at a hospital to await news of Richard’s condition. This triggers memories of the time when Lee stumbled into a career as a stock-car racer during the sport’s early days. Specifically, Lee tried to buy a car from a redneck, only to get trapped in the car—alongside young Richard—while the redneck, a moonshine runner, sped down country roads to avoid capture by police. Exposure to fast cars, combined with other circumstances (such as the family home burning down), prompted Lee to become a racer, albeit one prone to costly wipeouts and fierce competitiveness. Eventually, Richard joined the family trade, and in one scene Lee berates officials into changing the results of a race awarding Richard’s win to Lee. If there was an interesting drama, or even a lively comedy, to be found in this material, the folks behind 43: The Richard Petty Story missed those opportunities. Beyond its minor historical interest and the lively textures of McGavin’s performance, the movie comprises 83 minutes of noisy nonsense. Whether or not the title alone gets your motor running should provide  a good indication of how much you’ll enjoy the film.

43: The Richard Petty Story: FUNKY

1980 Week: Herbie Goes Bananas

The silly Walt Disney Productions franchise that began with The Love Bug (1968) ground to a halt with this enervated installment, which was the final big-screen appearance of sentient VW Bug “Herbie” until the 1997 remake of The Love Bug. In Herbie Goes Bananas, the titular car is bequeathed to Pete (Stephen W. Burns), whom we’re told is the nephew of the character played in previous flicks by Dean Jones. For convoluted reasons, Pete must travel to Mexico so he can retrieve Herbie from storage. Traveling with his buddy D.J. (Charles Martin Smith), Pete falls victim to Paco (Joaquin Garay III), a street urchin who steals Pete’s wallet. The plot also involves a trio of criminals seeking to rob gold from an Incan ruin, as well as D.J.’s horny aunt Louise (Cloris Leachman), who Pete to marry her nerdy niece Melissa (Elyssa Davalos). There’s even room in the storyline for bumbling seaman Captain Blythe (Harvey Korman), who endures Louise’s manic sexual overtures. Improbably, Herbie ties these disparate characters together. Most of the picture depicts Herbie’s adventures with Paco, hence a montage set to a ghastly song about friendship. In a typically overwrought sequence, Herbie zooms through the cargo hold of Blythe’s ship while trying to free Paco from a cage, causing so much damage that Blythe buries Herbie at sea. Later, Herbie surfaces in the Panama Canal, then reunites with his buddy Paco. Yeesh. The comedy vets in the cast strain to make slaptsick bits and verbal gags work, and the pros playing the villains (Richard Jaeckel, Alex Rocco, John Vernon) strive for Keystone Kops-style choreographed ineptitude, but Herbie Goes Bananas is all about bombarding the audience with changes of scenery, familiar faces, and FX, as if spectacle can compensate for the lack of a proper storyline.

Herbie Goes Bananas: LAME

Death Driver (1977)

Earl Owensby, an enterprising actor/producer who made a string of successful pictures for the drive-in circuit during the ’70s and ’80s, rarely aimed for high art. Yet even by his low standards, Death Driver is a shabby piece of work. Bogusly billed as “The True Story of Rex Randolph,” it’s actually a fictional story set in the world of thrill shows, with Owensby playing a dude who became famous by attempting to drive a car through a flaming house while crowds watched. The general shape of the piece is that of a redemption saga, with Randolph (Owensby) searching for new forms of income and validation in the years following his brush with death. Viewers are asked to believe it’s a tragedy that Randolph can’t find anything more satisfying to do than attempting the same incredibly dangerous stunt again, even though he’s well past his prime and therefore unlikely to survive. Had Owensby and his collaborators demonstrated any measurable skill at characterization and drama, this storyline could have been poignant. Unfortunately, Randolph comes across as a backwoods scumbag. He steals cars and demolishes them in stunt shows. He cons a woman into sex by pretending he’s acquainted with a Hollywood talent agent. Et cetera. Instead of telling the sad story of a man who is only good at one thing, Owensby and his team tell the pointless story of an adrenaline junkie who feels entitled to whatever gratification he desires, no matter who gets hurt along the way. Death Driver is so vapid and wrongheaded that the only enjoyable aspect of the movie is sarcastic commentary spewed by the yahoo speaking over the PA system during race scenes. When a nameless guy who never appears onscreen delivers a film’s most dynamic element, that’s a sure sign something major is lacking.

Death Driver: LAME

Funny Car Summer (1974)

          It’s a shame so few ’70s trends were the subjects of full-length documentaries, because it would be thrilling to explore definitive vintage docs on, say, disco, est, pet rocks, roller derby, and other wild subjects. Hell, even two of the most commercialized pop-culture phenomena of the ’70s, daredevil Evel Knievel and rock band Kiss, lack full-length nonfiction explorations from back in the day. The reason for this preamble is to set appropriate expectations for the sports-themed doc Funny Car Summer. Had every ’70s fad earned an in-depth exploration, Funny Car Summer would be disposable. Things being as they are, those eager to explore as many facets of the ’70s as possible make do with what’s available. In that context, Funny Car Summer is okay. It’s got some period flavor, and the slice-of-life scenes capture a bit of what it must have felt like to live in Squaresville, USA, during the longhair era.

          That said, how much you’ll dig this picture ultimately depends on how interesting you find drag racing. And, frankly, even the film’s treatment of its main subject might not be enough to hold your attention. As some disgruntled viewers note on IMDb, they saw this picture as car-crazy kids and were bitterly disappointed that racing footage comprises only a small portion of the picture’s running time. In lieu of shots on the track, most of the film concerns the day-to-day existence of professional drag racer Jim Dunn and his family. In a word, he’s boring, a dad with a colorful hobby. Documentarian Ron Phillips obviously spent a lot of time tracking Dunn’s competitive activities and family life, but Phillips was not rewarded for his investment. In the picture’s most absurd sequence, which is also the one revealing how little slam-bang material Phillips collected, the picture cuts between Dunn shaving and his wife, Pat, doing housework. Set to a cornball ballad with lyrics to the effect of “where would you be without me,” the scene trudges along for several pointless minutes.

          Not everything in Funny Car Summer is quite so dispiriting. While insufficient for purposes of entertainment, the racetrack shots are pretty good, especially when Phillips turns his camera onto fans and novelty vehicles. And though juicing crash shots with melodramatic music was unnecessary, the appearance of dynamic visuals helps rouse the movie from its stupor. Some perverse rep-house programmer would be wise to screen Funny Car Summer in tandem with the equally low-energy Derby (1971), about roller derby, just to see how many attendees could make it through both movies without falling asleep.

Funny Car Summer: FUNKY

Burnout (1979)

Sadly, this isn’t a character study of a Jim Ignatowski-style drug casualty, since the title stems from another use of the term “burnout.” Apparently, in the world of high-stakes drag racing, a “burnout” is a pre-race ritual during which drivers rev their wheels in order to get the treads hot for improved traction. Said ritual is shown in this film about 10 zillion times. Also repeated endlessly are shots of blue methane jets sparking from engine blocks, parachutes deploying after races are completed, and, of course, top-fuel dragsters blasting down tracks at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour. Burnout seems very much like a movie that was constructed around available footage, either because the filmmakers got access to a vault of racing shots or because they got permission to film a season’s worth of high-test action. However it came together, Burnout is vapid in the extreme. A good 60 percent of the movie comprises generic racing scenes that the filmmakers try to enliven with voiceover in the form of play-by-play commentary. The remainder of the film tells the uninteresting story of a spoiled rich kid from California named Scott. who decides for no special reason to become a drag racer. (The character is lifelessly portrayed by Mark Schneider, star of yet another vehicular dud, 1977’s Supervan.) Scott’s dad buys him a custom-made car, but Scott washes out in his first race, so he abandons the car and takes a job on a pit crew, eventually subbing for a driver during a big race. Give or take a few details, that’s the whole plot, and it’s delivered by way of laughably emotionless acting. Offering nothing in the way of characterization or dramatic stakes, Burnout will appeal only to those with a fetish for drag racing, but even those viewers are likely to get bored after a while.

Burnout: LAME

Supervan (1977)

Considering how much fun people had in the ’70s customizing their vans and using them for makeout sessions, it’s a bummer that none of the many flicks made about van culture is any good. Even Supervan, the emphatic title of which suggests it should be apex of its subgenre, is a superdud. Employing the familiar elements of an I-gotta-be-me hero, a semi-illicit road race, and a villain determined to suppress innovative new technology, Supervan is so enervated in terms of characterization, plotting, and style that it’s excruciatingly boring. The hero is Clint Morgan (Mark Schneider), a suburban kid obsessed with prepping his pirate-themed van, the Sea Witch, for competition in the “Second Annual Non-National Bicentennial Invitational Freakout ’76.” While heading to the race, Clint overhears an attempted gang rape on his CB radio—yes, really!—and rescues the would-be victim. She’s Karen Trenton (Katie Saylor), who just happens to be the daughter of T.B. Trenton (Morgan Woodward), an evil oil executive. He hired a scientist to create a customized gas-guzzler van. Instead, the scientist created “Vandora, the Supervan,” a solar-powered vehicle that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. After losing the Sea Witch in an accident, Morgan becomes the driver of Vandora, with Karen at his side. Never mind asking what the scientist was planning to do before a driver conveniently crossed his path. Supervan is filled with dreary montages of vans driving down highways, plus sleazy shots of ladies in revealing clothes at the base camp for the road race. Other affronts to good taste include the film’s dorky theme song, an offensive portrayal of gay characters, and Schneider’s lifeless performance.

Supervan: LAME

Speedtrap (1977)

          Action-packed nonsense about an insurance investigator chasing a resourceful car thief, Speedtrap stars the jovial Joe Don Baker and features several noteworthy supporting players, plus oodles of ’70s trash-cinema texture. We’re talking artless photography, cheesy original songs, ghastly fashions, synthesizer-infused background music, and enough vehicular mayhem to fill a dozen Burt Reynolds movies. The characterizations are vapid, the story runs the gamut from stupid to trite to unbelievable, and the whole thing lumbers along for an unnecessarily long 113 minutes. In sum, if you take your ’70s exploitation flicks with a dollop of anarchy and a pinch of kitsch, Speedtrap might be your, well, speed. When the story begins, cops are baffled by a series of brazen car thefts, because the criminal uses a gadget to start car engines by remote, then steers them clear of prying eyes before hopping behind the wheel for high-speed getaways. Enter Pete Novick (Baker), a swaggering PI with adversaries and buddies throughout the police force. In particular, Pete shares a semi-romantic bond with a uniformed cop nicknamed “Nifty” Nolan (Tyne Daly). But never mind that, because like most of the story elements in Speedtrap, the relationship with Nolan is of little consequence throughout most of the film’s running time.

          After the usual predictable clashes with police-department boss Captain Hogan (Morgan Woodward), Pete chases a few cars to no avail before enlisting the aid of his buddy, ace mechanic Billy (Richard Jaeckel). Meanwhile, the mysterious thief pisses off a gangster named Spillano (Robert Loggia) by stealing a car containing a suitcase full of drugs. More car chases ensue, leading to a series of goofy plot twists during the final act. The scene-to-scene continuity of Speedtrap doesn’t merit attention, and in fact the overall palatability of the movie is dependent upon each viewer’s tolerance for repetitive car-chase sequences. On the plus side, the action is virtually incessant, zesty actors spew campy dialogue during the rare occasions when the movie slows down, and Baker makes the whole thing feel like a party by wearing a shit-eating grin in virtually every scene. Watching Speedtrap will almost certainly cost you a few hundred brain cells, but if you dig what this ridiculous movie is selling, that might be a fair trade.

Speedtrap: FUNKY

1980 Week: Smokey and the Bandit II

          Discussing the frothy action/comedy hit The Cannonball Run (1981), a snide critic once said that the picture seemed like an incidental byproduct of an enjoyable party, as if playing characters and telling a story was a secondary consideration for those involved. To a certain degree, the same observation could be made of all the lowbrow movies that stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham made with his buddy, leading man Burt Reynolds. The duo’s first effort, Smokey and the Bandit (1977), is a goofy romp made somewhat tolerable by lighthearted performances and spectacular car jumps. Their second and best movie together, Hooper (1978), comes dangerously close to having a heart, since it’s a loving homage to stuntman. But then comes the slippery slope comprising Smokey and the Bandit II, The Cannonball Run (1981), Stroker Ace (1983), and Cannonball Run II (1984). Each is dumber and lazier than the preceding. The problem, of course, is that Needham never really left his identity as a stuntman behind, so he offers little except the ability to stage automotive disasters and fistfights. Smokey and the Bandit II, for example, so enervated that the plot is virtually the same as the original picture’s narrative.

          While trucker Cledus “Snowman” Snow (Jerry Reed) and his escort driver, Bo “Bandit” Darville (Reynolds), haul illegal cargo through the Deep South, redneck Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) follows them “in hot pursuit.” Meanwhile, Carrie (Sally Field) once again leaves Justice’s idiot son at the altar in order to join her once-and-future lover, Bandit, on the road. The “twists” this time are as follows: the cargo is an elephant, a wacky Italian doctor (Dom DeLuise) tags along to care for the elephant, and Justice enlists his two brothers (both played by Gleason) for aid in the final showdown. Smokey and the Bandit II comprises 100 mindless minutes of car crashes, country-music performances, drinking scenes, redneck clichés, slapstick, and (thanks to Gleason) unbearable overacting. It’s hard to know whether Field and Reynolds returned for the party or the paycheck, or simply out of loyalty to Needham, but even describing their participation as half-hearted would require exaggerating. The elephant probably gives the picture’s best performance. Incredibly, Smokey and the Bandit II made enough money to warrant a third installment, the execrable Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983), which was produced without Needham’s participation, and in which Reynolds makes only a brief cameo appearance. A decade later, Needham somewhat pathetically resurrected the franchise with a quartet of TV movies (all originally aired in 1994) featuring Brian Bloom as “Bandit.”

Smokey and the Bandit II: LAME

Cannonball! (1976)

          Despite an inconsistent tone that wobbles between action, comedy, drama, and social satire, the car-race flick Cannonball! is periodically entertaining. As cowritten and directed by Paul Bartel—whose previous film, Death Race 2000 (1975), provided a more extreme take on similar material—the picture tries to capture the chaotic fun of the real-life Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an illegal trek from New York to L.A. that attracted speed-limit-averse rebels for several years in the ‘70s. (In Cannonball!, the race is reversed, starting in Santa Monica and ending in Manhattan.) Bearing all the hallmarks of a Roger Corman enterprise (the picture was distributed by Corman’s company, New World), Cannonball! has a strong sadistic streak, seeing as how the plot is riddled with beatings, explosions, murders, and, of course, myriad car crashes. Yet while Death Race 2000 employed a body count to make a sardonic point, Cannonball! offers destruction for destruction’s sake. Shallow characterizations exacerbate the tonal variations, so the whole thing ends up feeling pointless. That said, Bartel and his collaborators achieve the desired frenetic pace, some of the vignettes are amusingly strange, and the movie boasts a colorful cast of B-movie stalwarts.

          David Carradine, who also starred in Death Race 2000, stars as Coy “Cannonball” Buckman, a onetime top racer who landed in prison following a car wreck that left a passenger dead. Eager for redemption—and the race’s $100,000 prize—Coy enters the competition alongside such peculiar characters as Perman Waters (Gerrit Graham), a country singer who tries to conduct live broadcasts while riding in a car driven by maniacal redneck Cade Redman (Bill McKinney); Sandy Harris (Mary Woronov), leader of a trio of sexpots who use their wiles to get out of speeding tickets; Terry McMillan (Carl Gottlieb), a suburban dad who has his car flown cross-country in a brazen attempt to steal the first-place prize; and Wolf Messer (James Keach), a German racing champ determined to smite his American counterparts. Some racers play fair, while others employ sabotage, trickery, and violence.

          Carradine is appealing, even if his martial-arts scenes seem a bit out of place, while Bartel (who also acts in the picture), Graham, McKinney, and Dick Miller give funny supporting turns. Thanks to its abundance of characters and events, Cannonball! is never boring, per se, but it’s also never especially engaging. Additionally, much of the picture’s novelty value—at least for contemporary viewers—relates to cinematic trivia. Cannonball! was the first of four pictures inspired by the real-life Cannonball race, since it was followed by The Gumball Rally (also released in 1976), The Cannonball Run (1981), and Cannonball Run II (1984). Providing more fodder for movie nerds, Bartel cast several noteworthy figures in cameo roles, including Sylvester Stallone (another holdover from Death Race 2000), Corman, and directors Allan Arkush, Joe Dante, and Martin Scorsese.

Cannonball!: FUNKY

Double Nickels (1977)

The main conceit of this brainless action/comedy movie is that a California Highway Patrol officer is such a speed demon during his off-hours that he’s lax about enforcing traffic laws, making him susceptible to coercion by a crook who claims to do repossession work, but is actually a car thief. Had cowriter-director Jack Vacek invested even a modicum of effort into contriving dramatic tension and fully rounded characters, Double Nickels could have become undemanding fun in the vein of Burt Reynolds’ innumerable movies about likeable rascals blowing past speed limits. And, indeed, Double Nickels has a few moments of pleasant distraction, such as elaborately photographed car-chase scenes. But sitting through the film’s entire 89-minute running time? That takes more patience than most people will be able to muster. The movie is so repetitive and shallow that it feels like the plot is turning in circles, with nearly identical scenes recurring throughout the flick, and Vacek loses control of the picture’s tone quite frequently. While vignettes involving the main character and his waitress girlfriend have a casual bickering-lovers vibe, sequences featuring the car thief feel not only serious but also painfully flat. Were one to view Double Nickels from an extremely generous perspective, one could say that some scenes have a documentary feel thanks to long-lens photography and unrehearsed-seeming dialogue. However, naturalistic doesn’t necessarily mean interesting, and in this case, the looser the scene is, the less it commands attention. Plus, even the “good” scenes, such a long bit in which a cop cruiser tails a dune buggy, underwhelm because they drag on too long. The cast of largely unknown actors—some of whom also worked on a slightly higher-profile car movie from the same era, Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)—delivers unmemorable work, giving Double Nickels the flavor of something that a bunch of buddies made on weekends for kicks. Nothing here is offensive, and car-chase junkies might dig some of the action scenes, but in terms of generating excitement, Double Nickels never gets out of first gear.

Double Nickels: LAME

Van Nuys Blvd. (1979)

Occupying some queasy transitional space between the nostalgic cars-and-kids milieu of 1973’s American Graffiti and the sleazy style of ’80s teen-sex comedies, Van Nuys Blvd. offers an uninteresting ensemble story about young adults hooking up for sexual misadventures in and around the San Fernando Valley during the disco era. The film’s fleeting documentary-style shots of real Van Nuys Blvd. cruisers offer some interest—simply because viewers can eyeball vintage cars and fashions—but nearly everything else onscreen is beyond trite. The story begins when Bobby (Bill Adler) leaves his life in a rural trailer park and heads for Van Nuys Blvd. in his tricked-out van. Immediately after arriving in the Valley, he gets laid with a carhop named Wanda (Tara Stroheimer). Then he becomes friends with fellow small-town escapee Greg (Dennis Bowen). Eventually, Bobby dates perky blonde Moon (Cynthia Moon), and Greg hooks up with wholesome brunette Camille (Melissa Prophet). Meanwhile, the clique expands to include “Chooch” (David Hayward), an older guy whose characterization represents the dangers of arrested development. Rounding out the film’s principal characters is Officer Zass (Dana Gladstone), a putz of a cop who hassles kids until he gets his comeuppance. Writer-director William Sachs executes Van Nuys Blvd. with technical competence and zero artistry. His characters are clichéd and one-dimensional, his jokes aren’t funny, and his sex scenes are tacky. Sachs relies on such tired devices as close-ups of would-be lovers licking their lips in anticipation, and the closest thing Van Nuys Blvd. has to a unique erotic moment is the scene in which Bobby and Wanda slather each other with condiments while screwing. Worse, Van Nuys Blvd. is padded with lengthy scenes of repetitive action (e.g., disco dancing, go-cart racing, etc.), and Sachs’ idea of humor involves misunderstandings like Camille’s father mistakenly molesting Greg because he thinks he’s actually molesting one of Camille’s female friends. The performers in Van Nuys Blvd. strive mightily to generate sincerity, which suggests Sachs ran a nurturing set, but after a while, watching these folks struggle to enliven lifeless material becomes exhausting. So, even though Sachs’ movie is a bit less exploitive than most ’70s movies preoccupied with teen sex, Van Nuys Blvd. is a dead end.

Van Nuys Blvd.: LAME

Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

Despite having built enough of a cult reputation to earn a glossy remake in 2000 (starring Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie), the car-chase movie Gone in 60 Seconds is a wobbly piece of work. Created as a passion project/vanity piece by first-timer H.B. Halicki—who served as writer, producer, director, star, and stunt driver—the picture is about a car thief’s epic quest to steal one particular model of Ford Mustang in order to fulfill a bulk order from nefarious clients. Owing to Halicki’s inexperience, virtually every aspect of the film’s execution contributes to overall sloppiness. The script was more or less made up as Halicki went along, so it’s often hard to tell how scenes relate to each other, and the production sound is terrible, so dialogue is either indecipherable or terribly dubbed. The acting is just as bad as the filmmaking, with wooden non-performers delivering lines flatly. Furthermore, because the crooks in the movie wear disguises to look alike, it’s often difficult to tell which character is appearing in which scene. Given these egregious shortcomings, Gone in 60 Seconds lives and dies entirely on the strength of its money shots. Happily for Halicki, large-scale automotive spectacle flows freely throughout the picture—in addition to lengthy scenes of cars zooming down city roads and highways at crazy speeds, Gone in 60 Seconds features an outrageous number of car crashes. According to the lore surrounding the movie, Halicki was an avid car collector who provided dozens of vehicles for onscreen destruction, often repairing vehicles after crash scenes so they could be slammed again and again. Halicki also performed many dangerous stunts, resulting in moments like a heart-stopping crash during which the main car—a Mustang that Halicki’s character nicknames “Eleanor”—spins into a light post after tapping another car while blazing full-speed down a highway. Halicki walked away from that one, but his luck didn’t last forever. After making two more features, neither of which gained the notoriety of his debut, the director was killed in 1989 while filming a stunt for a planned sequel to Gone in 60 Seconds.

Gone in 60 Seconds: FUNKY

Checkered Flag or Crash (1977)

This car-race picture comes awfully close to qualifying as entertainment, but dodgy editing and vapid storytelling eventually become so distracting that it’s hard to classify Checkered Flag or Crash as anything other than a dud. Set in the Philippines, the movie depicts a 1,000-mile road race that attracts sportsmen driving cars, dune buggies, and motorcycles. Part demolition derby, part endurance test, and part speed trial, the race scenario offers great potential for action, comedy, and drama. Alas, writer Michael Allin and director Alan Gibson mostly substitute shots of cars driving through dirt patches and thick jungles for actual cinematic content. Joe Don Baker stars as champion driver “Walkaway” Madden, a bearish American, and Susan Sarandon costars as C.C. Wainwright, a car-magazine reporter who rides shotgun in Madden’s rig during the race. The other significant characters are Bo Cochran (Larry Hagman), the race’s good-ol’-boy organizer, and “Doc” Pyle (Alan Vint), Madden’s ex-partner and a rival driver. The movie largely comprises so-so racing footage, interspersed with cutesy romantic-banter scenes involving Baker and Sarandon. While both actors display their considerable innate charm, there’s no chemistry between them, and the characters are underdeveloped to the point of barely existing. Furthermore, there’s no tension in the movie, since Madden’s first-place finish is never in doubt. (After all, most of the other drivers are portrayed as losers and/or nincompoops.) The picture has decent production values, but these don’t count for much because the shooting and cutting of racing scenes is sloppy—camera angles are so close that it’s hard to distinguish details, and the editing relies on blur shots for connective tissue. Considering that Checkered Flag or Crash is a race movie, the presence of substandard racing footage pretty much scotches the whole deal. Yet the movie’s most galling element, by far, is the atrocious music score, which has a cornpone Nashville-meets-Vegas quality. Some of the cues seem pulled from old Hee-Haw sketches, and the title song is the worst kind of truckstop earworm.

Checkered Flag or Crash: LAME

The Van (1977)

It’s no mystery why most teen sex comedies are awful, since the producers of such films prioritize raunchy humor and sleazy scenarios over more high-minded storytelling considerations. Nonetheless, generating a few cheap laughs (and a few cheap thrills) from a simple premise shouldn’t be the most difficult task in the world. Therefore, upon encountering a dud like The Van, one can only marvel at how completely the filmmakers in question failed to vault such a low hurdle. Built around the most rudimentary of ideas—a high school graduate buys a tricked-out van to use as a bachelor pad on wheels—the movie churns through one unfunny scene after another, the inherent nothingness of each sequence exacerbated by choppy editing. Naturally, the acting is terrible, with the lone exception of future star Danny DeVito, who appears in a smallish supporting role. The picture begins when Bobby (forgettable redhead Stuart Goetz) graduates from high school and cashes in the money he’s made working at a car wash to buy a rig that he christens “Straight Arrow.” (Those words, accompanied by a phallic graphic, appear on the side of Bobby’s van.) Although Bobby is in love with classmate Tina (Deborah White), he spends the summer wooing various women into his van for sex. The comedic “highlight” of his carnal campaign involves sleeping with a heavyset girl whose weight breaks the waterbed Bobby installed in the back of the vehicle. The narrative is disjointed, with subplots introduced and discarded arbitrarily, and whenever the filmmakers run out of ideas (which is often), they cut to a montage and play the tacky soft-rock song “Chevy Van”—notwithstanding the fact that the Straight Arrow is a Dodge. The Van is so enervated that at one point, Bobby and Tina spend an entire lengthy montage attending a beachside van show, looking at other people’s tricked-out rigs with admiration. And as if failing to deliver in every other way wasn’t bad enough, The Van strikes out in the smut department, since there’s virtually no nudity in the film. So, unless ogling vehicles that are adorned with airbrushed murals raises your temperature, leave this wreck on the side of the highway where it belongs.

The Van: LAME

Death Race 2000 (1975)

           When is a bad movie a good movie? Death Race 2000 falls short of any serious standards, because it’s campy, cartoonish, and silly, with one-dimensional characters cavorting their way through absurd adventures. Yet the film’s exuberance and lack of pretention manifest as a crude sort of charm, which works in tandem with breakneck pacing—the movie’s like a piece of candy you don’t realize you shouldn’t be eating until it’s all gone. Science fiction delivered by way of black comedy, Death Race 2000 presents a future in which the United States has become the United Provinces. The supreme ruler of the United Provinces, Mr. President (Sandy McCallum), has eliminated many personal freedoms and keeps the population narcotized by presenting an annual blood-sport extravaganza called the Transcontinental Road Race. A small group of drivers, each of whom has an oversized persona and a colorful costume to match, competes not only by racing each other from one coast to the next but also by running over pedestrians for points. During this particular iteration of the race, however, leftist rebels subvert Mr. President’s authority by sabotaging the event.

          The main racers are Frankenstein (David Carradine), the reigning champion whose body comprises replacement parts after years of racing injuries; “Machine-Gun” Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone), a gangster-styled competitor determined to replace Frankenstein as the crowd’s favorite; “Calamity” Jane Kelly (Mary Woronov), who works a Western-outlaw motif; Herman “The German” Boch (Fred Grandy), the league’s resident ersatz Nazi; and Ray “Nero the Hero” Lonagan (Martin Kove), a vainglorious putz with a Roman Empire shtick. Each racer is paired with a navigator, so most of the film comprises standoffs in which teams try to beat each other’s racing times and score points by nailing innocent victims. Also woven into the film are running gags related to announcers and fans. Plus, of course, the violence of the rebels.

          Based on a story by Ib Melchior, Death Race 2000 was produced by Roger Corman and co-written by longtime Corman collaborator Charles B. Griffith, whose sardonic touch is audible in the film’s playful dialogue. Director Paul Bartel, the avant-garde humorist who later made the cult-fave comedy Eating Raoul (1982), does a great job throughout Death Race 2000 of balancing goofy humor with sly social commentary—every gag is a nudge at consumerism, egotism, sensationalism, or something else of that nature. The movie is never laugh-out-loud funny, but the tone is consistent and the story (mostly) makes sense. Plus, this being a Corman production, there’s plenty of gore and nudity to keep l0w-minded fans happy. Carradine makes an appealing antihero, his casual cool suited to the role of a seasoned killer, and Stallone is amusing as his hotheaded rival. Meanwhile, Woronov lends a touch of heart, Don Steele (who plays the main announcer) sends up showbiz phoniness, and leading lady Simone Griffeth (who plays Frankenstein’s navigator) blends likeability with sexiness. Best of all, Death Race 2000 runs is course in 80 brisk minutes—all killer, no filler.

Death Race 2000: GROOVY