I hadn’t intended to watch this just now but a couple of coincidences made it inevitable – once again, Vic Morrow has a featured role (it’s chilling how the actor feared that, having to spend about half the running-time inside a chopper in this case, would be the end of him!) and it re-united director Hough and co-star Susan George from EYEWITNESS (1970). This is among the most popular road movies from an era full of such efforts, complete with a memorable title and matching theme tune; Peter Fonda and Adam Roarke, both of whom had flourished in biker movies during the late 1960s, here exchange their typical vehicle for a racing car. In this respect, it resembles most closely VANISHING POINT (1971) – as per one of the trailers on the Anchor Bay SE DVD, the two were even re-issued as a double-bill! – though largely eschewing that film’s philosophical overtones.
As can be expected, it’s generally fast-paced, tyre-screeching and stunt-heavy fun; the film (Englishman Hough’s first in the U.S. and which manages to capture that peculiar mid-American flavor), however, provides more than just the obvious kind of thrills. To begin with, the narrative opens with a supermarket caper (the one scene in which an uncredited Roddy McDowall, fresh from the same director’s scary ghost story THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE [1973], appears) but we also get plenty of confrontation scenes (and not just between fugitives and law enforcers, but within each individual group). This occasions some hilarious dialogue exchanges, such as when George rejects Fonda’s advances – he quips that the night before she had no qualms about it and, in fact, kept begging for more…but she retorts that that ought to have clued him in about just how little she was actually getting! Similarly, veteran cops Morrow and Kenneth Tobey often clash about how to approach the manhunt: at one point, the former argues that the latter’s obsession with apprehending the fugitives is merely a middle-aged man’s grasping to hold on to his job but he’ll only be physically worn-out by the experience (Morrow, then, believes that Tobey doesn’t want to put all he’s got into the chase simply because he’s been promised a new set of police cars – which, most likely, won’t be forthcoming if he proves overly efficient!).
As a matter of fact, one of the reasons the film (which, according to the accompanying featurette, was partly improvised) works so well is because each of the principal roles is perfectly cast – thus ensuring that characterization isn’t lost amid all the hair-raising action; incidentally, the IMDb lists additional footage (extending a couple of scenes) that was utilized for the film’s network showings. Among the most notable stunts are: the one in which an impulsive young police officer’s car (which he has “souped up” – after the original engine overheated – in order to keep up with Fonda et al) is crushed by a falling telephone pole; another flies through a billboard; one more runs off the road backwards and ends up in a stream; the fugitive’s own ‘classic’ Dodge Charger (which they exchange midway through the chase) leaping across a drawbridge; and, of course, its climactic crash into a speeding train – giving the whole a fashionable, yet appropriately sobering, downbeat ending (ominously, Morrow’s relentless chopper itself often looms perilously close to its quarry before ultimately running out of gas!).
I haven’t listened to Hough’s full-length Audio Commentary, but the half-hour documentary was nonetheless a pretty solid affair which covered most of the bases; highlights included Fonda’s declaration that he idolized former sci-fi/B-movie hero Tobey (despite sharing no scenes with him in the actual film!), as well as the star’s surprised admission that DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY out-grossed even his signature effort EASY RIDER (1969), not to mention the expected (albeit brief) but well-deserved tribute to Morrow – of the three titles I’ve watched with him over the past week or so, his contribution in this one was clearly the most substantial and satisfactory (definitely proving him worthier of greater attention than merely for his acclaimed debut performance as the disaffected punk in BLACKBOARD JUNGLE [1955] and his ill-fated swan song). Finally, having enjoyed this so much, I was reminded that I’ve probably got scores of other films from the iconoclastic and eclectic 1970s in my collection which I’ve yet to go through…
As can be expected, it’s generally fast-paced, tyre-screeching and stunt-heavy fun; the film (Englishman Hough’s first in the U.S. and which manages to capture that peculiar mid-American flavor), however, provides more than just the obvious kind of thrills. To begin with, the narrative opens with a supermarket caper (the one scene in which an uncredited Roddy McDowall, fresh from the same director’s scary ghost story THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE [1973], appears) but we also get plenty of confrontation scenes (and not just between fugitives and law enforcers, but within each individual group). This occasions some hilarious dialogue exchanges, such as when George rejects Fonda’s advances – he quips that the night before she had no qualms about it and, in fact, kept begging for more…but she retorts that that ought to have clued him in about just how little she was actually getting! Similarly, veteran cops Morrow and Kenneth Tobey often clash about how to approach the manhunt: at one point, the former argues that the latter’s obsession with apprehending the fugitives is merely a middle-aged man’s grasping to hold on to his job but he’ll only be physically worn-out by the experience (Morrow, then, believes that Tobey doesn’t want to put all he’s got into the chase simply because he’s been promised a new set of police cars – which, most likely, won’t be forthcoming if he proves overly efficient!).
As a matter of fact, one of the reasons the film (which, according to the accompanying featurette, was partly improvised) works so well is because each of the principal roles is perfectly cast – thus ensuring that characterization isn’t lost amid all the hair-raising action; incidentally, the IMDb lists additional footage (extending a couple of scenes) that was utilized for the film’s network showings. Among the most notable stunts are: the one in which an impulsive young police officer’s car (which he has “souped up” – after the original engine overheated – in order to keep up with Fonda et al) is crushed by a falling telephone pole; another flies through a billboard; one more runs off the road backwards and ends up in a stream; the fugitive’s own ‘classic’ Dodge Charger (which they exchange midway through the chase) leaping across a drawbridge; and, of course, its climactic crash into a speeding train – giving the whole a fashionable, yet appropriately sobering, downbeat ending (ominously, Morrow’s relentless chopper itself often looms perilously close to its quarry before ultimately running out of gas!).
I haven’t listened to Hough’s full-length Audio Commentary, but the half-hour documentary was nonetheless a pretty solid affair which covered most of the bases; highlights included Fonda’s declaration that he idolized former sci-fi/B-movie hero Tobey (despite sharing no scenes with him in the actual film!), as well as the star’s surprised admission that DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY out-grossed even his signature effort EASY RIDER (1969), not to mention the expected (albeit brief) but well-deserved tribute to Morrow – of the three titles I’ve watched with him over the past week or so, his contribution in this one was clearly the most substantial and satisfactory (definitely proving him worthier of greater attention than merely for his acclaimed debut performance as the disaffected punk in BLACKBOARD JUNGLE [1955] and his ill-fated swan song). Finally, having enjoyed this so much, I was reminded that I’ve probably got scores of other films from the iconoclastic and eclectic 1970s in my collection which I’ve yet to go through…