I’ve been thinking lately of starting a new occasional “column” here at thunderjetheaven.com, one that’s definitely related to cars, as nearly everything I blog about is. I mean, that’s why you’re here, right?
Like most people, I’m a movie fanatic, and if you are as well, you know that cars and movies often go together. There are so many fantastic flicks made over the last 60 years or so in which cars or trucks, or driving or racing, form the basis of the plot and the action, that I think it might be fun to do some little mini-reviews of the some of the more obscure ones that I’ve sought out over the years, but that many car fans may never have seen.
I bet that, right off the top of your head, you can rattle off the titles of a dozen or more great – or at least fun – movies about cars from the last several decades; everything from “Duel” to “The Car” to “Two Lane Blacktop” to “Gone In 60 Seconds” to “The Italian Job” to “Vanishing Point” to “Christine” to “Gone In 60 Seconds” again-all of which I have mentioned in passing in some capacity here on my blog; there are so many of them that everyone has seen, and everyone has their favorites.
I’m not going to talk about those. Nope. And it’s not because they’re not great films; they are, every one! It’s because you know them, you’ve seen them: everyone has. We all have our favorites, but I can promise you there are some obscure ones you haven’t seen, from almost the present day going all the way back to the 1950’s. Those are the ones I want to showcase, because I don’t want to tell you things you already know! Some of these films were fairly well regarded and widely seen when they were released, but have since passed into obscurity, while many others were obscure to begin with and most will never have heard of them. Since my affinity for the time and place I grew up in dictates that most of these films are domestic, they won’t all be; some originate from exotic locales and far-away lands.
The thing is, I want to focus on films that are really about cars (or trucks) and driving, not just a movie that features some great cars, or even those that are remembered primarily for the car sequences they contain. We all know the 1970’s and early ‘80s (your humble blogger’s formative years) were the golden era of the car chase, and if you consider all the cop and detective thrillers made in those decades that feature an awesome car chase, not just those made here in the good ol’ US of A but also those from England, Italy, and elsewhere, there are literally thousands of them. For that entertainment, I will gladly point you to the excellent YouTube channel Car Chase Wonderland, which excerpts the chases from an already countless yet ever increasing number of such flicks from around the world. Many of these feature some of the best stunt driving ever captured on film, although I don’t mind telling you that I sometimes find some of them hard to watch, as some of the cars destroyed in those movies were achingly beautiful and rare, not to mention that they would be worth fortunes today. So you can peruse that nearly endless catalog at your leisure, while I focus more on movies that really revolve around cars.
Since there’s no right or wrong way to do this, I’m going to try to write up the movies I want to talk about in chronological order of release from oldest to newest, but this is not a hard and fast rule; I’m sure I will jump around a little bit here and there, moving backwards and forwards through time, a luxury that “the internet age” has granted us. I will admit that some of the films I’ll review will be here out of nostalgia, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth watching.
I will also add, even though doing so may illicit some eye-rolls, that some of the flicks I’m going to revisit were made for the small screen; “made for TV movies” aren’t as common as they once were, but there were some mighty good ones back in my day, and I’m going to pepper my reviews with a few of them. Lastly, let me mention that not all the movies I’ll review are “good.” Most of them are, but there are a few low-budget “turkeys” in there too, and yet, I think you’ll agree, the “turkeys” can often be just as much fun as the really good, high-quality films.
Like most of what I do, my list will be eclectic and sometimes you may find it polarizing; my tastes are varied and that’s reflected in the movies I’ll mention. The good news, however, is that in almost all cases, these films have long since passed into the public domain, and thus are available to watch in their entirety on the interwebz for free. See, I guess there is some cool things about living in the information age after all!
I’m working on my list of flicks even as I write this, so buckle up, buckeroos, and get ready for some great auto-motive action you can enjoy from the comfort of your living room easy chair: the Drag City “Theatre of the Less Obvious” is about to hit your screen!
Well, well, I think this will be a VERY cool list. I know I keep perusing YouTube looking for mid-century movies having to do with cars, creature features, and other B movies from the era. Of course you can still see plenty of cool old cars in flixs from the 70’s and 80’s though like you mention, most don’t focus on the cars. The one hard thing to watch is if they get destroyed but taking into account the time, they were just old junk cars at the time. I’m looking forward to this!