Your favorite car movie
OK, I decided to start this after watching Driven on DVD the other night. What an absolutely terrible movie! There is nothing good I can say about it. Nothing! So, that started me thinking about other car movies I liked (a little or a lot) and figured I'd through this out to the world and maybe hear of some I haven't seen. I'll throw a couple out for starters.
LeMans - Maybe the best racing movie ever. Thin story, great racing and camera work. The in car scene driving into the rain squall raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
Grand Prix - Also maybe the best racing movie ever made, even if they did use dressed up F3 cars.
American Grafitti - an all-around great car movie, great cars, great actors, great music.
The Italian Job - Watch it and you'll have to get a Mini. I also like the mafia types driving Fiat Dinos and the Italian cops in their Alfa Berlinas. Throw in the Miura, the Aston and the Jag and Benny Hill and you can't miss. Best if you like quirky British humor.
Genevieve - A British comedy film done in the early '50s about 2 couples driving in the London to Brighton Run who make a side bet and it all gets out of hand. Very successful when it was new, this movie is sometimes credited with starting the vintage car craze in Britain.
The Fast Lady - Another British film about a kind of a nerdy guy who buys a car and learns to drive to impress the daughter of the local nobleman. The car that's foisted off on him by his friend the slimey used car salesman is a Red Label Bentley. There is a great dream sequence where he drives the Bentley in the British Grand Prix and beats Graham Hill.
The Lively Set - James Darrin and Doug McLure. Lots of hot rods and a race sequence with Darrin driving a Chrysler Turbine.
The Big Wheel - Mickey Rooney is the son of a driver killed at Indy. Great dirt track and Indy footage. I really like the scenes in the garage where they work on the race cars. Killer iron.
I could list 10 more easily but I'll let other people chime in.
LeMans - Maybe the best racing movie ever. Thin story, great racing and camera work. The in car scene driving into the rain squall raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
Grand Prix - Also maybe the best racing movie ever made, even if they did use dressed up F3 cars.
American Grafitti - an all-around great car movie, great cars, great actors, great music.
The Italian Job - Watch it and you'll have to get a Mini. I also like the mafia types driving Fiat Dinos and the Italian cops in their Alfa Berlinas. Throw in the Miura, the Aston and the Jag and Benny Hill and you can't miss. Best if you like quirky British humor.
Genevieve - A British comedy film done in the early '50s about 2 couples driving in the London to Brighton Run who make a side bet and it all gets out of hand. Very successful when it was new, this movie is sometimes credited with starting the vintage car craze in Britain.
The Fast Lady - Another British film about a kind of a nerdy guy who buys a car and learns to drive to impress the daughter of the local nobleman. The car that's foisted off on him by his friend the slimey used car salesman is a Red Label Bentley. There is a great dream sequence where he drives the Bentley in the British Grand Prix and beats Graham Hill.
The Lively Set - James Darrin and Doug McLure. Lots of hot rods and a race sequence with Darrin driving a Chrysler Turbine.
The Big Wheel - Mickey Rooney is the son of a driver killed at Indy. Great dirt track and Indy footage. I really like the scenes in the garage where they work on the race cars. Killer iron.
I could list 10 more easily but I'll let other people chime in.
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One thing I never understood though, was that the movie was about machines taking over the world. Well how come, then, the cars never really joined in on the fun? For instance, there's these two obnoxious newlyweds in a 1980 Malibu that get chased all over the place by various rigs, and ultimately get flipped over by one. What I wanna know though, is how come the Malibu never tried to kill them?! I know, because it was in the script ;-)
I've got a few others I like, but I figured I'd just throw this one up for starters...
(cousin) to GP driver Maurice Trintingant.
Not really a great car movie but just enough car stuff to make it worth taking your GF to see.
IMO "LeMans" is the best car movie ever. I like most of the others mentioned in Post #1 but he left out McQueen's other great car movie "Bulitt"
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
How about Marianne Faithful in "Girl on a Motorcycle"? She says things like "My black motorcycle devil makes love beautifully". It's very very silly.
Or how about "Eat my Dust", the most interesting part of which is that the highly attractive teenage vamp Darlene is played by an actor named Christopher Norris, or so say the credits.
1) OFP-857
2) BDR-529
Can anyone name the movies and the cars? Don't cheat and look them up online :-)
-Andrew L
The first great car movie I saw was Thunder Road. Directed by Robert Mitchum, who also starred in it. Lots of late '50s teen-age angst and some good bootlegger-revenuer chase scenes.
The early Bond movies had some good chase scenes. These were more-or-less faithful to the Ian Fleming novels, which have some good writing about cars. There's the chase in the first novel, Casino Royale, between Bond's blower Bentley and the bad buy's Traction Avant. There's a chapter in Diamonds Are Forever called "Studillac to Saratoga" in which Bond finds out what a Cadillac-powered Loewy coupe can do (eighty in second!).
BTW I'm proud to say that I remember watching the first episodes of My Mother The Car and Car 54 Where Are You? For those of you under forty these were early experiments in trash TV. Now they'd win an Emmy.
Then again, we've got a cowboy in a sportscar with a pretty girl, an 18-wheeler full of bootleg beer, a floppy-eared dog, and a bad-guy sherriff way out of his Jurisdiction. Sounds like it would be more popular in Dixie than other parts of the country. (It also sounds like a "Dukes of Hazzard" episode)
I guess "Smokey and the Bandit" is out on DVD by now. I also have to confess to having part II and III on tape too. Those two suck in comparison, although it's kinda funny in the finale of part II, seeing all those brand new LeManses magically turn into old Mopars, Pontiacs, and AMC products when they get wrecked!
They are, of course, Herbie (1966 VW Beetle) from The Love Bug, and the Bluesmobile (1974 Dodge Monaco) from The Blues Brothers. Nothing can top those two for being good car movies and just good movies in general. Smokey and the Bandit and the rest of the 1970s car-chase genre are fun to watch once in awhile, but to me they don't have a whole lot of redeeming values other than the car chases. Aykroyd and Belushi make The Blues Brothers so much funnier than it would be if it were just a traditional car-chase movie.
-Andrew L
The 55 Chevy in this movie was also used in American Graffitti.
James Taylor and Dennis Wilson proved that as actors, they really made good musicians.
I saw Bullitt when it first came out in the theatres and I'll tell you that watching it on TV doesn't do it justice. The engines revving, the long smokey burnouts, the cars bottoming as they slammed down the hills--and heck, that was just us on our way to the theatre ;-).
Gone In 60 Seconds was outstanding too. A little bleak at the end, where he slams into the roadblock at full speed, but outstanding. "This is California, and we don't call them suckers."
of Mitchum's Ford, complete with 'shine-tank and oil dispenser in the trunk.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Vanishing Point - Anti-hero Kowalski in his Dodge Challenger. I saw it 3 times in the theaters when I was in high school. I still like Challengers.
The Love Bug movies - not so much for Herbie but for all the other cars in the background. Apollos, Jags.
Several Elvis movies - Spinout where Elvis races a 427 Cobra and tows it with an SJ Duesenberg. The love interest drives a Ferrari 250 California into a river in the beginning. It was a TR4 that actually got wet. Viva Las Vegas with Ann Margaret in a TR3 and Elvis stuffing an Offy into his Elva (?) to win the big race.
On The Beach - a depressing movie about a bunch of people in Australia waiting for the radiation fallout from a nuclear war to kill them. Fred Astaire drives a Ferrari 750 Monza in a sports car grand prix where everyone seems to be trying to kill themselves. The race sequence was shot at both Paramount Ranch and the newly opened Riverside. In a few scenes there is a black sports car behind Astaire, trivia alert!!!, it is a Buick powered Swallow Doretti driven by Max Balchowsky. Fred wins the race and then locks himself in the garage with the Ferrari, starts the engine and lets the CO do him in.
Red Line 7000 - A really bad stock car racing movie from the mid 60's. Opening scene is cute girl picks up cute guy and gives him a ride to town because he put his COBRA DAYTONA COUPE! in a ditch avoiding a stray dog.
License plate trivia - THX 138 anyone, anyone, Beuller?
I KNOW I've seen a car somewhere on tv with THX-138 on it though! Just can't place it. However, years ago, on "Dennis the Menace" (the '80 cartoon, NOT the tv show), I remember there was a delivery van that had "THX-138" for the license plate. I just happen to remember it because I had seen the movie right around that time, so it stuck in my mind!
One more word..... Gumball!
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Duel - Spielberg's first movie. Dennis Weaver as a Casper Milktoast salesman in his Dart (or was it a Duster?) stalked by the faceless 18 wheeler. Great movie!
The Kalifornia Kid - Before he was president, Martin Sheen confronted psycho cop Vic Morrow and his hopped up 58 Plymouth cruiser. Sheen's ride was one of the nicest (IMHO) deuce coupes ever, chopped and flamed just right. I've read that this movie helped reignite the popularity of hot rodding.
The Challengers - Another movie of the week with Darren Mcgavin as a Grand Prix driver. I haven't seen this in 25 years and can't remember how good (or bad) it was.
Here's another word..... Rendevous
About 10 years ago, I was in California for Spring Break, and just riding around, happened to stumble upon some of the roads they used to film "Duel" (along with episodes of Charilie's Angels, CHiPs, etc. It was actually kinda spooky the way it happened, because I was just riding around, and all of a sudden, it's like I knew what was around every corner!
Oh yeah, and as a "stupid souvenir", there was a sign in the movie that said "Private RR Crossing, No trespassing", that was at the entrance to a junkyard on the other side of the railroad tracks. That sign was still there, although the junkyard was long gone. I actually went so far as to park my rental car in some of the same spots that Dennis Weaver's Valiant was in, and took some pics! I'll have to post them sometime, if I can find them.
And yes, sometimes I even scare myself ;-)
OK, two more movies, well a movie and a short.
Gumball Rally - The real movie about the Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Run, not those pieces of trash with Burt Reynolds. 427 Cobra, Ferrari Daytona Spyder, E-type Jag. Great scenes, at the start from New York the Daytona goes screaming down an empty a Manhattan boulevard, V12 sounds echoing off the buildings, past two street cops. One cop turns to the other and says "It's gonna be a lovely f......in' day."
Later, Raul Julia who plays an italian GP driver hired to drive the Daytona is being chased by another racer. The co-driver says the guy is cathing up. Julia tears off the rear view mirror, throws it over his shoulder, nails the throttle, and says "In Italy, whats a behind you is not important!" Look for driver John Morton as the passenger in the Jag that won't start at the beginning. "It must be the electrics, maybe they're damp" "But it's damp in England".
Now, a real cult film. Claude Lelouch who directed A Man and a Woman was a car guy. He made a short film called Rendevous. This film is legendary and as such there are lots of stories around it. One is he used his own Ferrari 275 GTB and drove himself. The other is he used a Matra LeMans car modified with a camera mount just above street level and had a French GP and endurance Jean Pierre Beltoise drive it as fast as possible accross Paris at the crack of dawn. Great stuff, dodging delivery vans, up on the sidewalk on a narrow street, 150+ down a boulevard. At the end the car pulls to a stop just as a young lovely comes up some stairs. You hear the driver's door open and see them embrace. Rendevous! The whole thing is one continuous take, no cuts.
It's available on VHS for $49.99 (yikes) and it's like 12 minutes long.
I know Adam 12 ran for a long time. They started off using '68-69 Satellites, then had early '70's ones, then switched to AMC products at some point. I'm sure that, eventually, they goofed up and spliced the wrong stock footage together from time to time! I just never happened to catch it.
Here's another little bit of "Duel" trivia. There was an episode of "The Incredible Hulk" that used a bunch of stock footage from "Duel". Only problem was they still needed vehicles for the closeup shots using the actors. The truck actually wasn't a problem, because they still had a truck around that they had used to shoot some additional scenes in 1973 or so to inflate "Duel's" running time for big screen release. For the Valiant though, they found a nasty old greenish one and painted it orange! You can really tell, towards the end, when the Hulk kicks a door off of it, and you can see green paint in the doorjamb area where the orange paint didn't get!
Also, since Dennis Weaver wore a blue shirt in "Duel", they had to make all the actors in that episode who would end up driving the Valiant wear blue shirts. So Bill Bixby, the lady trucker, and the bad guy the Valiant belonged to all matched! Wish I knew sometimes, why all this trivia stuff sticks in my mind, but more useful info often goes in one ear and out the other!
I don't remember the Duel scenes in the Incredible Hulk but I remember scenes of the Minis from The Italian Job being cut into McGuyver. I think it was even in the opening sequence. They steal scenes like that all the time. There are flying scenes from Top Gun all through JAG.
I used to drive by a body shop in Van Nuys that had two or three General Lees in it at any one time. They went through Chargers like crazy in that show. I used to love the slo mo jumps where the thing would land and you could see the whole body rippple from one end to the other. John Morton, the driver who won the 2.5 Trans Am championship for Datsun and drove the Nissan GTPs in IMSA was a regular stunt driver on Dukes.
How about Mr. Majestic. A ford F-100 gets an unbelievable beating. They really only bent one rim. Ford used that in a commercial.
Phantasm - horror movie, but a shot or two of a HemiCuda. They actually give you a hood shot in the second movie. Then they wreck the car, not a real HemiCuda of course.
TRIVIA - As the Cuda flipped over, how did I know it wasn't a HemiCuda???? Anyone? Anyone?
Then there are a whole string of '50s B movies. One of my favs is Girls Town with Mel (the Velvet Fog) Torme and Mamie Van Doren. Mel drives a Triumph TR2 and wears a leather jackey and cool shades. There is a hands off drag race between Mel and a guy in a T-bucket hotrod. It's real easy to steer a TR2 with your knees!
Anyone???
I read the book "Christine", and Stephen King actually tried to explain away the red Fury thing. Supposedly the guy who originally bought her special-ordered that color. I think he called it "Autumn sunset" or something like that. I believe though, that somebody pointed that error out to him, and he added it into the book at the last minute. Another minor goof in the book...at one point, they pick up a hitchhiker, and he hops in through one of Christine's BACK doors! I think somehow, the producers knew that there were no '58 Furys though, because if you look at the opening assembly line sequence, all the other cars in the line are creme, except for Christine!
I wonder how much, if any, "Christine" sparked an interest in Forward Look era Mopars. I was 13 when it came out, and it made me take notice, and start lusting!
I had to stop watching the movie cause I would get
in this trance and life would stop til it was over. Definitely a classic.
"It's alright Christine, everything is the same ok? Everything is the same."
Up to that time, Hollywood really hadn't cast the car as an Evil Spirit, but surely at their worst moments cars can be as bad as giant lizards and brain-eating spiders.
Then maybe there's the Biblical overtones. It's pretty common knowledge that God drove a Plymouth. Says right so in the Bible, concerning Adam and Eve, that He "drove them out in his Fury" ;-)
There was a movie before "Christine", about an evil car. Remember this classic 1977 gem?
This was a bad, baaaad movie, but I have to admit as a kid it actually gave me nightmares, something Christine never did! Besides, Chrstine really wasn't THAT evil. She only killed those that hurt her or the ones she loved. This thing killed just for the fun of it!
Andre, I'm glad all those years of Sunday school paid off :-).