Back Roads, Dirty Blouse
Roger Corman's third film as a producer, The Fast and the Furious (1955), is a drive-in type movie with dialogue blunted in its potential sharpness by its ridiculousness. The novel premise works, since Corman was able, with his typical small budget, to fit his plot (involving race cars, a kidnapping, an accused murderer running for Mexico) into file footage of a California speedy roadster race to Baja California.
Connie Adair (Dorothy Malone, two years before she won an Oscar for Written on the Wind) has a beautiful white Jaguar two-seater. On her way to enter the race, she stops at a cafe for an egg salad sandwich and a glass of pineapple juice. She gets neither, having seated herself next to Frank Webster (John Ireland), a sullen dude in a black leather jacket scanning a newspaper. The waitress and another customer get nosy about Connie and then about Webster. They take their silences, their desire to mind their own business as an affront; escalating tension leads to Frank belting the man, knocking him unconscious. He takes the man's revolver, too, forcing Connie to her Jaguar. On the road they go, Connie still hungry, hungrier as the movie goes on, fast and furious.
She hates Webster at first, but after she finds out his background, that he was framed for a murder he didn't commit, she softens towards him and wants to help. An implied sexual encounter occurs in an abandoned shed.
The cops seem particularly unable to connect dots in this case, allowing Webster and Adair to make their way into the race she was originally planning on participating in. The rules committee has made a change, disallowing women drivers--this is never explained, but it makes a convenient plot element allowing for Webster to drive the white Jaguar, affixed with the racing number 55 (also the year the film was released, making it now, man).
Webster is able, thus, to make his escape for Mexico inside the long string of race car drivers, none of whom will be stopped by roadblocks.
Good plan, but problems arise.
One of the film's best shots shows Dorothy Malone in a high speed shot driving a different car to catch up to Webster. It's really her driving it, so it made me want to see more real driving in the film, rather than the frequently relied on rear screen projections.
Malone, an A list actress acting in a B movie, classes up the joint quite a bit. John Ireland is competent, glowering appropriately as the grim man on a mission. He co-directed the film with a movie editor named Edwards Sampson. The film's shortness helps the viewer digest it. For me, Malone's sexiness and gorgeousness encouraged me to maintain interest.
The film's depiction of a female abduction victim doesn't mesh with reality. She's fortunate that, quite unrealistically, she's taken by a man who, despite his looks, is actually innocent of murder, but he does display aggression towards her, towards the man he punches out in the cafe, and it's likely he would shoot a state patrolman who pulls them over if that lawman had said the wrong thing. He needs to get to Mexico, nothing will stop him, except that something unexpected does, in the end.
Connie Adair, the love and faith of a good woman who drives a cool car. These simplistic story elements might be seen in a popular series of contemporary films I haven't seen except in trailers, the Fast and Furious franchise. Roger Corman, at least, was the first to use the title.
Vic Neptune
Roger Corman's third film as a producer, The Fast and the Furious (1955), is a drive-in type movie with dialogue blunted in its potential sharpness by its ridiculousness. The novel premise works, since Corman was able, with his typical small budget, to fit his plot (involving race cars, a kidnapping, an accused murderer running for Mexico) into file footage of a California speedy roadster race to Baja California.
Connie Adair (Dorothy Malone, two years before she won an Oscar for Written on the Wind) has a beautiful white Jaguar two-seater. On her way to enter the race, she stops at a cafe for an egg salad sandwich and a glass of pineapple juice. She gets neither, having seated herself next to Frank Webster (John Ireland), a sullen dude in a black leather jacket scanning a newspaper. The waitress and another customer get nosy about Connie and then about Webster. They take their silences, their desire to mind their own business as an affront; escalating tension leads to Frank belting the man, knocking him unconscious. He takes the man's revolver, too, forcing Connie to her Jaguar. On the road they go, Connie still hungry, hungrier as the movie goes on, fast and furious.
She hates Webster at first, but after she finds out his background, that he was framed for a murder he didn't commit, she softens towards him and wants to help. An implied sexual encounter occurs in an abandoned shed.
The cops seem particularly unable to connect dots in this case, allowing Webster and Adair to make their way into the race she was originally planning on participating in. The rules committee has made a change, disallowing women drivers--this is never explained, but it makes a convenient plot element allowing for Webster to drive the white Jaguar, affixed with the racing number 55 (also the year the film was released, making it now, man).
Webster is able, thus, to make his escape for Mexico inside the long string of race car drivers, none of whom will be stopped by roadblocks.
Good plan, but problems arise.
One of the film's best shots shows Dorothy Malone in a high speed shot driving a different car to catch up to Webster. It's really her driving it, so it made me want to see more real driving in the film, rather than the frequently relied on rear screen projections.
Malone, an A list actress acting in a B movie, classes up the joint quite a bit. John Ireland is competent, glowering appropriately as the grim man on a mission. He co-directed the film with a movie editor named Edwards Sampson. The film's shortness helps the viewer digest it. For me, Malone's sexiness and gorgeousness encouraged me to maintain interest.
The film's depiction of a female abduction victim doesn't mesh with reality. She's fortunate that, quite unrealistically, she's taken by a man who, despite his looks, is actually innocent of murder, but he does display aggression towards her, towards the man he punches out in the cafe, and it's likely he would shoot a state patrolman who pulls them over if that lawman had said the wrong thing. He needs to get to Mexico, nothing will stop him, except that something unexpected does, in the end.
Connie Adair, the love and faith of a good woman who drives a cool car. These simplistic story elements might be seen in a popular series of contemporary films I haven't seen except in trailers, the Fast and Furious franchise. Roger Corman, at least, was the first to use the title.
Vic Neptune
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