T.o.t.L.O. E8: “The Cars That Ate Paris” (1974)

In the annals of car movies, there are famous flicks and cult classics, and some garbage that was best left on the cutting room floor; there are some great movies, and there are some serious misfires. And then, there is one movie that turns the genre on its head like no other, and this is that movie! This installment of Drag City’s Theatre of the Less Obvious lives up to its promise with a dive into the seriously obscure, because the spotlight is on a feature that, without question, is one of the weirdest movies ever made! This is T.o.t.L.O.’s second review of a foreign film, but while its Australian origins surely influenced some of its myriad themes, much of the core idea is likely to appeal to-or, perhaps just as likely, to repel-car enthusiasts the world over.

It is also a highly polarizing film: over the years I have read other people comment and review this as “the worst movie I’ve ever seen” or even “the worst movie ever made.” And yet, Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, listed this as one of his favorite movies. As Peter Weir’s first feature length effort, there is no denying that T.C.t.A.P. is a low-budget film made by a fledgling director who, despite the talent he would later demonstrate, was not yet fully in command of his craft.

However, while it is poorly paced at times and shows some clumsy editing, this amateurish feel almost seems to enhance the creepiness of the subject matter rather than detract from it. I first saw this movie at the age of 18 on a hot summer night in June of 1989, when the local CBS affiliate in SoCal ran a version of it recut for the American market and retitled “Cars That Eat People.” I sat down to watch it knowing nothing about it, expecting to see an amusing low budget dark comedy. What I got instead was an insane ride operating on multiple levels of the psyche, which crawled under my skin and would not let go! And it still hasn’t, to this day!

To some observers, it is a low budget dark comedy about the potential dangers an “outsider” may face in an isolated close-knit community. Yet, I am convinced that people who are truly passionate about cars will see much more than that; watching it as a car lover, it manifests as a sinister and deeply disturbing horror film, for it is the only movie I have ever seen that successfully manages to turn cars into objects of fear, in a way that is very different from so many “possessed car” movies you may have seen (think “The Car” or “Christine”). The movie is scored with tinkling, high-pitched circus-like music, which only serves to heighten the strangeness of it all. Due to its multiple simultaneous sub-plots, even describing what T.C.t.A.P. is about is difficult, so buckle up, buckeroos, because I’m going to give it my best shot!

*** WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! ***

THE CORE PLOT: “Bad Day at Black Rock” meets “Mad Max”

Deep in the wilds of the Outback, the small town of Paris, Australia (population 148 according to one movie poster, though this is never stated in the film) has hit upon a novel form of economic activity: the townspeople season the highways and byways in the area with welcoming signs inviting travelers to come to their town for food, fuel, sundries, repairs, rest; anything a weary motorist could want.

Those who accept these invitations are unlikely to be seen again, because the roads leading to Paris are riven with ambushes and booby traps that result in cars leaving the road and tumbling into nearby ravines. Once a “kill” is scored, the wrecked vehicles are brought into town, where the populace descends upon them like a pack of starving hyeanas, stripping the cars of all useable parts; suitcases and travel bags are opened and gone through, and corpses are stripped down to their socks. All of these goods will later appear in town stores, or be used as barter with other townspeople. Once anything and everything of value has been taken, the carcasses of the wrecks are set ablaze to hide the crime. Anyone unlucky enough to survive one of these wrecks is handed over to the local hospital, where the doctor in residence experiments on them, ultimately turning them into lobotomized “veggies.”

One such accident victim is down-on-his-luck drifter Arthur Waldo, who is traveling across the country looking for work with his older brother in a 1961 Holden EK Hydromatic with a small house trailer in tow. Arthur’s brother is killed in the encounter with the Parisian traps, but Arthur himself escapes uninjured save for a slight case of amnesia. A man of obviously nervous constitution and weak will, we soon learn that Arthur is unable to drive due to an accident some years earlier, in which he ran down and killed a man. Although acquitted of any wrongdoing, this incident has created in Waldo a “fear of driving, a fear of cars.” Trapped in an isolated town where the only way out is by road, Arthur is initially allowed to leave on his own volition, but has no way of doing so other than on foot. Attempting to do just that, however, someone appears to change their mind and decide it might be best not to let him leave after all; perhaps he has already seen too much.

THE SUBPLOT: Clown Cars from Hell!

Overlaying these sinister goings-on is a rising power struggle between the town’s tyrannical mayor and his inner-circle, and its rebellious teenagers, and it is this subplot which gives the movie its title. A gang of thugs referred to as “The Cars” hoon about town in homemade hot rods, a gaggle of Aussie-built 1950’s sedans composed principally of Holden FJs, FCs, FE’s, and EJ’s, with a Chrysler Royal, a Ford Zodiac, and a tiny Austin A30 thrown in. You won’t recognize them, however, for when these hot rods first appear on screen, we see the red flag that something is seriously wrong in Paris!

Instead of treating their cars with reverence like typical teens and seeking to modify them in ways that make them cool or beautiful, they intentionally mangle them to make them as ugly as possible: they are shorn of doors, fenders, and glass; weird, deviating parts and bits of tools and scrap metal are welded onto the bodies at odd angles, they run on mismatched tires and wheels, and they are all coated with insane clown-like spray-can paint jobs that seem to change slightly every time we see them. The gang dresses like Australian cowboys, with outback hats and tall boots with spurs; their oilskin coats are decorated with the badges and logos of wrecked cars, worn like trophies from previous kills.

These stylings invoke the traditional Western theme of the reluctant outsider facing down the corrupt influences of a small town, because it is indeed Arthur Waldo’s arrival that serves as the catalyst for the film’s final confrontation with “the bad guys” and their horses of steel, a theme emphasized by the scene leading up to the climax, in which a nervous Arthur confronts the gang on the street while Ennio Moricone-style music rises over the proceedings.

THE VIOLENT, DESTRUCTIVE CLIMAX

The tension between the mayor and the gang comes to a head when two members of “The Cars” decide to attack the mayor’s house by driving across his yard, damaging the property and shouting out obscenities about his inner circle not “sharing enough of the wealth,” i.e. the spare parts gleaned from the kills on the inbound roads. In response the next day, the Mayor has one of his underlings set fire to one of the hot rods in the public square, which sets up the retaliation that will be the final showdown.

As night falls and a festive town celebration begins in a ramshackle barn, the gang coat their hot rods with “war paint,” streaking the grilles and fenders with enormous bloody mouths and gleaming white teeth as a signal of their rage: they assemble on a hilltop like an army looking down on the town, and it is here that the movie’s most iconic image is revealed: the “hedgehog,” a VW Bug covered with massive sharpened spikes and painted entirely in metallic silver including the windows and tires, leads the procession into town to unleash their fury. The sordid little hamlet is about to get its comeuppance: the town that lived by the car shall die by the car!

It is in the penultimate scene where our hapless anti-hero will finally face his fear in the form of a horrifically made-up Holden FJ that traps him in the garage where the Mayor’s candy red and white 1958 Desoto Fireflite is stored, and it is here that that gorgeous finned Mopar takes a beating. As the Mayor arrives on the scene to escape half the town trying to kill him, he winds Arthur up to attack, and he does so, dispatching the evil Holden and its driver to that great junkyard in the sky. This scene ends with the premise that the audience will either find the most ridiculous, or the most distressing; viewing the bloody corpse hanging out of the smashed car, Arthur smiles for the first time in the film, and says triumphantly: “I can drive!”

LEGACY: Themes and the Takeaway

Over the years, I have read some of analyses of this film that center on things like Australian national identity or paranoia; these are things your humble blogger is, clearly, not qualified to opine on. Some critics have made much of the “sordid small town” aspect of the movie, and seen in such a context, it could be an Australian take on “Deliverance,” but I am not a fan of stereotyping and scapegoating rural peoples, no matter where they are in the world. I watched this movie as a car enthusiast, and reacted to it thusly.

Arthur Waldo’s “fear of cars” both traps him in Paris, and leads to additional friction with the gang of youths. Their hideous cars could be seen as vehicular extensions of their driver’s personalities, and of the dark heart of the town they inhabit: distorted beyond recognition. Yet, although two of the gang members are named characters, most of them remain mere shadows behind the steering wheels, making it feel as if it is the cars themselves, operating autonomously, that are leaving trails of wreckage and chaos wherever they go. In this way, the cars become a threatening presence, lurking around town like bullies, always on the verge of exploding into violence and mayhem.

This sense of threat by cars extends even to the finest ride in town, the Mayor’s ‘58 Desoto, which is an interesting sight to see with right-hand steering: in one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, the Mayor pursues Arthur’s rapid walk through the brush as the camera plays along close ups of the Mopar’s grille and headlamps and long tailfins, as if it is a predator on the attack. Another scene in which the gang rolls and batters their hot rods for fun while the townspeople attend a church service further emphasizes the perversion, turning the beauty of classic 1950’s cars into something that feels corrupt and evil.

After the car-nage, we see the townspeople rushing to gather their belongings and flee in whatever vehicles they can find still running, as its clear that “the jig is up.” Arthur jumps into the now repaired and drivable ’61 Holden he arrived in and hits the road himself with a smile on his face, having just brutally killed another man with a car (presumably this Holden EK survived its wreck so well that it was left in-tact and repaired rather than stripped and burned). One can’t but wonder what the message is here: that one can only overcome a “fear of cars” when one successfully uses one to kill? Man, that is really….eff-ed up!!!

In T.C.t.A.P., cars are neither a means of transportation nor objects of desire; they begin as death traps, escalate into threatening monsters, and peak as murder weapons. It is this aspect of the movie that I find to be the most unsettling, the true element of horror; and it is this aspect that I feel sure will affect someone who loves cars differently than it will someone who does not.

Granted, this is not a complete analysis! There are numerous additional sub-plots and almost countless “sight gags” throughout this movie, all of which I could comment on: the opening sequence that was filmed to look like a cigarette ad at first, the mad doctor’s experiments, the role of the Reverend and his subsequent doing-in, the cop who dresses like a character out of a gay porn flick, even the revelation that the Mayor’s two daughters were “salvaged” from one of the town’s “accidents!” I only have so much space on this blog, though; like I said, this is a film that operates on multiple layers simultaneously. Yet, even after seeing it probably a dozen times over the years, I still wonder what the filmmaker’s intended message really was! It’s easy to imagine that Peter Weir is no fan of the automobile, and was making this film to comment on his perception of the car as a threat. But then again, I can also imagine that he’s enough of an enthusiast to see the dark side of what he loves, and have some devious fun forcing his audience to confront it.

Whatever was in his heart, he made a movie that, once seen, is not easily forgotten. Criticize its ramshackle production and bad music if you must, but no movie has been made before or since that is anything like it; it is a totally unique film, and whether it disturbs and infuriates you or makes you laugh, or both, it is worth seeing on the strength of its eccentricity alone!

SO, Where can you see it?

“The Cars That Ate Paris” is one of the few reviewed here at Theatre of the Less Obvious that is not available to watch in its entirety on the interwebz for free. There are several clips from it floating around, but despite its age, someone must still be holding copyright on it. The movie was once almost impossible to find, having only been initially released on VHS in the early 80’s in its re-edited “Americanized” form as “Cars That Eat People.” I would suggest avoiding this release if possible. Sometime in the late 80’s it received another release on VHS in its (mostly) original theatrical form under its proper title, but this, too, went out of production quickly. I managed to grab a DVD release of it by an outfit called HVE sometime around 2005. This is the original version, and the quality of the transfer is good, yet the release is thin in the way of extras or bonus material. It does include an interview with the director, but I was surprised at how lacking in insight that interview was. A recent search of the web for this article revealed few copies for sale, some of them quite expensive, meaning that it may already be out of production again. To this day it remains maddenly difficult to track down.

Somehow it seems fitting that such a strange movie is so hard to come by! I think it deserves a deluxe Blu-Ray release, but whether or not we’ll ever get it, it is my contention that it’s worth seeking out, and some people like the idea of seeing something no one else has! So if you can find it, strap yourself in and prepare for a ride unlike any you’ve taken!

ENJOY, FELLOW GEARHEADS!