Okay everybody, buckle up and strap yourselves in for one of the greatest car chases this perpetually-buzzed film critic has ever seen.

Bullit? Nope. Not even close. The Blues Brothers? Okay. Maybe this is the second greatest car chase movie ever made...

Actually, that particular honor probably falls on John Hough's Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, but the film I’m referring to today is the original Gone in 60 Seconds: a high-octane entry in the back-roads and muscle-car mayhem that thundered its way across the American Drive-In circuit in the mid 1970's. (And for heaven's sake, avoid the 2000 remake if it all humanly possible. Yeesh ... was that ever a giant turd-burger.) And though it may not have been the best overall car chase, it was definitely the longest sustained asphalt assault and paint-swapping rampage in cinema history. Shall we take a look?

Maindrian Pace (H.B. Halicki -- the star, writer, producer, director and lead stunt driver of the film --) is the top wheelman for a stolen car ring and illegal chop shop. Using the ruse of an insurance investigation firm as a front, Pace's crew can set their sights on any car and make it disappear in less than 60 seconds. Hence the title! And don’t worry, it's all explained in greater detail by the Good Year Blimp. Seriously. As for the plot, well, Pace & Co. has received an order from an Argentinean client to deliver 48 exotic cars in a week for a $250,000 payoff; and while Pumpkin (Marion Busia) coordinates the thefts from the garage, Pace, Atlee and Stanley (George Cole and James McIntyre) don a few awful mod wigs, paste on porno mustaches, and some of the worst leisure suits the '70s had to offer, and then set to work finding and pilfering the heap of cars they need. Each targeted make and model is given a code name, and the most elusive car on the list is Eleanor: a '73 Mach-One Mustang. The first one they steal brings too much heat from the cops, so they return it. Then, with the second one they steal, Pumpkin lays the guilt on Pace because the owner didn’t have any insurance, so he gives that one back, too. 

Well, you gotta love a car thief with a Robin Hood complex, even though all other indications peg Pace as a real asshole.

As the search for another Eleanor continues, turns out trying to fill out the rest of the order might prove just as tricky. And while most do go off without a hitch, others hit a few a snags -- like when Atlee finds a tiger[!] in the back of a Cadillac he tries to steal. But things really start to unravel when Stanley brings in an El Dorado that’s filled up to its dome lights in heroin. 

To make matters even worse, Pace’s police buddy shows up for an unannounced social call right at that inopportune time. Somehow, they manage to hide the evidence, and after he's gone, Eugene, their slimy boss (Jerry Dauginola), who wants to keep and sell the drugs, thinks they’ve hit the narcotics jackpot. Pace, meanwhile, wants nothing to do with the H because it's against their code -- and bad for business. And when Eugene reminds everybody that he’s in charge and to do what he says (-- for the record: these two have been butting heads since the film began), Pace gets the last word by taking the car and the drugs to an abandoned field, douses it all with gasoline, and then puts a torch to it.

This insubordination is the last straw for Eugene (-- apparently, he thinks Pace is a royal asshole, too --), who conspires with the authorities to get Pace caught and thrown in jail. Seems Pumpkin has tracked down another Eleanor; the last car they need to complete the massive shipment. And as Pace collects his gear and goes after it, seizing the opportunity, Eugene tips off the cops that Pace has been the one stealing all the cars and tells them exactly where and when the thief is gonna strike next.

The chase lasts almost a full forty-minutes, spanning seven different California towns, four car dealerships, two dispatch officers, and every single law enforcement division in as many jurisdictions are duly represented in the hot pursuit: City cops, County-Mounties, and the California Highway Patrol. (Hey! Where’s Ponch and John?) And according to the film's video box, 93 cars -- almost three wrecks per minute -- were totaled during the ensuing mayhem.

Incredibly, when the dust finally settles, Pace manages to engineer an escape -- an escape that stretches the plausibility-meter a little bit, sure, but, well, judge for yourself ... After circling back and jumping over a few wrecks he caused, Pace manages to distance himself from the pursuit long enough to spot another Eleanor entering a drive-thru car wash; exact same year, same paint, and detail job. Like I said, streeeeeeetched. Then, after forty minutes of carnage, his Eleanor beat all to hell, he still drives up and turns the wreck over to a carwash attendant. He then heads to the other end and spots the owner of the undamaged Eleanor. Posing as an employee, Pace says something’s happened to his car and directs the man to the manager’s office. And when the undamaged car comes out of the wash, he steals it and makes his escape.

Admittedly, the best part of Gone in 60 Seconds is that last chase scene. And the unfortunate part is, you have to sit through the first half of the film to get to that concluding, almost operatic, grand finale pile-up. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the film, but when you break it down from beginning to end, no matter how many cars got trashed, the end just can't save the beginning. And therein lies the main problem with the film: the stunts are spectacular, yes, but the plot stringing them together could have used a little more attention, meaning Halicki should have spent a little more time behind the typewriter before crawling behind the steering wheel. According to several sources, the completed script was a mere four pages or so long so, if it wasn't obvious enough, about 98% of the film was made-up, ad-libbed, and shot from the hip as they went along. The film's editor, Warner Leighton, who was tasked with hammering out this massive amount of improvised incongruity into a straight line, recalls a rewrite being given to him that consisted of a piece of cardboard with a circle drawn on it. In the same vein, that Halicki would just assume the viewer would know what he's talking about goes a long, long way in explaining why the whole insurance front scam and chop-stop stuff leaves most of the audience kinda befuddled. And unless you really paid attention in auto-shop class, you'll be left grasping at several plot-straws that will never, ever be connected. 

But in Halicki's defense, his target audience probably understood it perfectly. Luckily, I managed to have a gear-head to English translation of the mechanic stuff done for me by my friend Bill -- No, not that Bill. The other Bill. The one who keeps his clothes on, and who tuned me into this film while we were discussing the existential overtones in Vanishing Point and managed to clear a few things up.

For in the end, even if Gone in 60 Seconds isn’t an overall polished film, we have to give some credit where credit is due. This is one of the few, rare films of this genre where the camera pulls back from the chase to let us see the bloody aftermath in the wake of the speeding cars. There are plenty of scenes of ambulances, fire trucks, and bloodied victims pulled out of their wrecked vehicles. And I can’t recall any other film where the tragic ramifications of an ongoing car rampage are shown this extensively -- and Halicki deserves some major, major props for that.