I
noticed something peculiar at the
beginning of this week’s film: You can
physically hear someone drop the needle on
the record of the spaz-jazz soundtrack
before the credits roll. A thud, and then
a hiss and a pop and away we go...
Well,
we open at the
local dragstrip, where the equally local
teens race each other in their souped-up rails (--
that’s a tripped-out jalopy to all you
squares...). But we haven’t quite
reached the age of Big Daddy Roth and the
T-Bucket yet, as the only thing that
appears to be modified are the engines;
and as the final few heats wind down, Lisa
Vernon (Lori Nelson), our little
hot-rod gal, puts her T-Bird into action (--
Nelson's own coupe, and with Lee Iacocca
as my witness, she barely breaks 15mph --)
and wins her race -- much to the delight
of her boyfriend and mechanic, Jeff
Northrup (John
Smith). A local hot-rodding legend, it
was Jeff's
idea
to start up the dragstrip club and
organize these races. And with the help and
guidance of officer Ben Merril (Chuck
Connors),
Jeff's
brainstorm helps to keep the young
speed-freaks on the racetrack and off the
streets. Still in its infancy, the
dragstrip hasn’t won the complete
approval of the mayor, the city council,
or most of the citizenry yet, but juvenile
traffic incidents are noticeably down
since it opened, so hopefully, it's only a
matter of time before everyone comes
around.
With
the
meet completed, Lisa and Jeff, along with
Jeff's brother, Steve (Del
Erickson), and friend Flat-Top (Frank
Gorshin), decide to head to Yo-Yo’s
-- the hot-rodders favorite hang out.
Asking Jeff to ride with him to diagnose a
nagging engine problem, along the way, we
find out that the brothers were orphans
when Steve asks to live with Jeff instead
of their oppressive aunt. Steve also
whines that every time he really wants to
go fast, somebody's always around to slow
him down. (Oh
yeah, this guy will die horribly in a car
wreck before the final reel. Or maybe a
little sooner...)
Almost on cue, another dragster roars up and, despite Jeff’s protests, Steve is
goaded by the other driver into a race.
Cut
to police headquarters, where we find Merril conversing
with his boss about the merits of the
dragstrip -- and yeah, you're supposed to
notice the
HUGE picture of a car wreck adorning the
wall behind his desk. The conversation is
a tad one-sided until Merril's boss waves
him off, saying he’s preaching to the
choir, when they’re both interrupted by
a phone call ... Seems there's been an accident.
Merril
arrives on scene just as Steve’s body is
pried out of the wreckage. (Jeez,
I thought he’d last longer than that.)
Turns out Jeff was thrown clear and
escaped injury, and when Merril breaks the
news that Steve didn’t make it, quite
understandably, Jeff doesn’t take this
very well and is inconsolable. And since
Steve was a minor under
his direct supervision, Jeff's drivers
license is suspended -- and it would have
been much worse, but Merril went to bat
for him. Also, the deadly wreck causes a
massive public backlash against the dragstrip.
With the city threatening to close it
down, Merril asks for Jeff's help to try and
save it; but completely overcome with survivor's
guilt, Jeff flatly refuses to have
anything more to do with hot-rods.
Mindlessly
throwing himself into his work, Jeff tries
to forget about the wreck and cars
altogether. (Did
I mention the guy is an auto-mechanic?)
Lisa tries calling the garage where Jeff works
several times, but he's reluctant to talk
to her and refuses an invitation to meet at Yo-Yo's. Lisa
goes anyway and meets up with Flat-Top
and Two-Tanks (Ed Reider),
and their respective girls, Judy (Carolyn
Kearney), and the ditzy L.P.
(Roxanne Arlen), who won’t shut
up. (L.P. -- Long-Playing record.
Get it?) Once inside, we’re
entreated to an uncomfortably long
rug-burning, toe-tapping and
finger-snapping shindig sequence,
accompanied by a familiar spastic jazz
band. Above the din, when Lisa asks the
others why they've
all
been cutting out on the drag-races,
Flat-Top admits it’s just not the same
without Jeff there; and when Two-Tanks
challenges him to a race out at Dry Lake,
Lisa heads to the garage to warn Jeff that
the kids are acting up again, hoping he'll
stop them, but he still refuses to
help.
Dejected,
Lisa returns to Yo-Yo's, and in the
parking lot finds a rather greasy looking
character in a black leather jacket riding
a tripped-out Olds. Bronc
Talbott (Mark Andrews) is
his given name, but I’ve affectionately
dubbed him Greasy, who constantly
revs up his engine, trying to impress the
chicks --
and you know what the say about guys with
ostentatious cars, right? That's right: they're
over compensating for the size of their
*ahem* "stick shifts". Greasy
gives Lisa the big-eye, but she gives him
the big brush-off. Following her inside, he firmly establishes himself
as the bully and the antagonist for the
rest of the film. He also needs a mechanic
for his wagon, so Two-Tanks steers him in
the direction of Jeff's garage. And from
their initial meeting we can already tell
that Jeff and Greasy will fight before the
end of the film.
Later,
after giving Two-Tanks a citation for
peeling off some rubber at an
intersection, a patrolmen heads to the
nearly deserted dragstrip, where Merril
and Lisa barely have enough cars for a
single heat. His fellow officer warns Merril that bad
things are coming; with reports pilling
up, and ticket citations on the rise, the
mayor wants to do more than just shut down
the dragstrip -- he wants to ban all
hot-rods outright. Things are getting
desperate, and knowing he needs Jeff back
to salvage things, Merril asks Lisa to try
again. She does, and Jeff finally agrees
to meet her at Yo-Yo's.
While
she waits,
Greasy stirs up more trouble by unplugging
the jukebox in the middle of a dance. Jeff
arrives just as Flat-Top answers Greasy's
challenge to a game of chicken. When Jeff
tries to stop this, Flat-Top shrugs him
off. Refusing to watch, Jeff is left
behind as Lisa goes with the distraught
Judy to watch her boyfriend try and kill
himself. Outside, after a brief Mexican
standoff, the accelerators are punched,
the cars roar toward each other, and
Greasy wins as Flat-Top quickly chickens
out and puts his car in the ditch.
Luckily, he isn't hurt, and when they all
return to Yo-Yo’s, Jeff and Lisa try to
patch things up. On their way out,
Flat-Top confesses that Jeff was right and
he will never do anything stupid like that
again. Taking
Lisa to his apartment, Jeff apologizes for
his recent behavior. And as they kiss and make-up,
he finally agrees to help revive the
dragstrip.
Meanwhile,
back at Yo-Yo's, Merril shows up since someone
reported the chicken-run. (My
money's on Jeff.) But no one is
talking now, and as he reads everybody the
riot act, Greasy isn’t all that
impressed and plugs the jukebox back in,
drowning the frustrated Merril out. Upon
returning to the police
station, Merril discovers that Greasy has
a rap sheet a mile long, but being the
softy that he is, convinces his boss to
let him handle things his way. Tracking
Greasy down, he offers an ultimatum: he
can either come to the dragstrip and see
how the good kids do it, or he’ll
incarcerate his greasy ass. Then, after
a brief mini-documentary on how the
dragstrip works, Jeff inspects Greasy’s
car and disqualifies him when it doesn’t
meet safety requirements. Alas, Greasy
doesn’t like being made to look the fool
and threatens to get even with Jeff. After
he leaves, Merril regrets not running
Greasy in -- but on a happier note, he
also tells Jeff his probation is over and
returns his drivers license.
Later,
while Jeff and Lisa drive home, Greasy
roars up out of nowhere and tries to force
them off the road. Failing to lose him on the long and winding road, Greasy forces
Jeff's into the wrong lane as they round a
curve. Seeing a fifty-year old
"kid" on a bike coming from the
other direction, Jeff swerves to miss him
and crashes into a tree. But Greasy also
loses control and runs this poor
"kid" over.
According
to legend, the kid in question was
played by legendary AIP F/X man, Paul
Blaisdell.
When
the police arrive, Jeff and Lisa, who were
both knocked out, can’t remember clearly
what happened. Covering his own ass,
Greasy says they were driving on the wrong
side of the road and that Jeff ran the kid
over. The skid-marks back this up (--
thank you, C.S.I.), and Jeff is
placed under arrest for manslaughter. And
he's not the only one in hot-water: the
mayor wants Merril's badge and the
dragstrip shut down immediately. Not
believing Greasy's version of events,
Merril asks for a little more time before
turning in his badge. Asking the chief to
call Lisa and Jeff (--
who's
out on bail --)
and have them to meet him at Yo-Yo’s in
one hour, Merril goes back to the
crash-site. On closer inspection, Merril
notices that the skid-marks actually
contradict Greasy's story.
Moving on to Yo-Yo’s, he scrapes some
paint samples off the cracked front panel
of Greasy's Olds to compare with the paint
marks on the dead kid’s bike. Confronted
with the mounting evidence against him,
Greasy smashes a bottle over Merril's
head, knocking him out, but when he tries
to escape, he runs right into Lisa and
Jeff -- who proceeds to kick the crap out
of him -- and if you watch closely, you
can see the Vitalis fly with each
landed punch.
Merril
recovers and places what's left of Greasy’s
under arrest, saying his actions are as
good as a confession. He then asks Jeff
and Lisa for help because even though they’ll
have to start over from scratch, Merril
wants to try and reopen the
dragstrip. Thinking that's a great
idea, the couple happily agree.
The
End
Once
again, a lurid title promises us one thing
but delivers us something completely
different. Our Hot-Rod
Girl
runs a race at the beginning -- again, at
speeds barely breaking 15mph -- and then
never gets behind the wheel again!
Instead, we get a tale of some dopey slab
of beef struggling with his inner demons,
brought on by his brother’s accidental
death. There’s also the subplot of
Greasy -- who's only interested in the
glamour aspects of hot-rodding and not the
spiritual side of the link between man and
machine ... And methinks I've slipped my
clutch and be digging a little too deep
here, so I’ll stop grinding gears and
say to ya’ll -- Never mind that last
part.
One
of the few films that I can think of where
the police are pro-teen, Hot-Rod
Girl is by no means a terrible a
movie -- but it isn’t all that great
either. The plot is standard and
predictable, but there are enough likeable
characters to carry the film. But those
likeable characters, I have to point out,
were all supporting
characters as Lisa and Jeff are the film’s
least interesting ingredients.
Unfortunately, they are the stick and the
fulcrum that move the plot along. The film
also falls into a familiar trap as our
"teens" appear to be in
there 20s and 30s. I neglected to mention
the fact that in High
School Hellcats, aside from the
Connie character, most of the actors
appeared young enough to be teenagers.
Unfortunately, Hot-Rod
Girl’s
players are so obviously long-in-tooth
that I couldn’t forget. Also, watch the
fight at the end between Jeff and Greasy
and see that Two-Tanks is obviously Greasy’s
stunt double.
Aside
from the main characters, the film’s
weakest points are in the racing sequences
themselves. If we aren’t being subjected
to cars shot against a rolling matte,
where the car is static while they
run moving footage behind it, giving the
*ahem* illusion of motion, the film is
being sped-up to hide the fact that the
cars are barely moving -- this was usually
done by skip-framing or removing
film frames, resulting in a comical,
herky-jerky speed-o-vision. Flat-Top
and Greasy’s chicken-run combines both
methods with some pretty hilarious
results. Now I know power-steering hadn’t
been invented yet, but I just love the way
the actors over-crank their steering
wheels. When they rightfully should be
bouncing from ditch to ditch, they instead
maintain a steady course thanks to the
projected film behind them.
Story-wise,
John McGreevy's script lacks the bite and
social commentary of his peers Charles B.
Griffith, Lou Russoff, and Stanely Kallis.
Couple that with the pedestrian direction
by Leslie Martinsen, and it's no wonder
the film is strictly from Dullsville.
Martinsen had a long and storied career
directing television shows. His resume
includes: Airwolf,
Manimal, The Powers of Matthew Star, The
Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, Buck
Rogers, Diff’rent Strokes, Dallas, The
Love Boat, CHiP’s, Fantasy Island,
Quincy, Bigfoot and Wildboy (does
anyone else remember this show besides me?
"Biiyaaaaabbaaaaaa!!!!!!"),
Wonder Woman, The Six
Million-Dollar Man
and The
Bionic Woman, Barnaby Jones, Mannix, Mission:
Impossible, Maverick, Batman and --
and I think it might have been easier to
just list the shows he didn’t
have a hand in.
And
big thanks to Bill Peetzke -- motorhead
extremis, and fellow Canadian enthusiast
-- for the loan of Hot-Rod
Girl,
as all attempts to get a copy of Dragstrip
Girl
wound
up twisted and wrecked in the ditch. Thanks
for the save, buddy!
|