T.o.t.L.O. EPILOGUE: “Yank Tanks” (2002) + Recap

At the end of our journey through the Theatre of the Less Obvious comes a recap of my choice of 18 films from the past that I believe have either “fallen through the cracks” or are not on the radar of most gearheads when they probably should be. Naturally my list was “U.S.-centric” since some of these films are better known in other parts of the world than they are here, but that’s what comes of looking at a variety of flicks made across the world!

Before our recap, I want to point out one last film that I think is worth mentioning, but fell outside the standards set by the series; while the films I chose to cover were all traditional fictional movies, there’s a documentary that I think is worth your time that I believe is not as well known here in the U.S. as it should be, but has garnered a lot of praise throughout the rest of the world, and particularly in the land where it was filmed. The 2002 documentary Yank Tanks is a 70-minute look at the cultural phenomenon of American classic cars in Cuba. Things have changed since it was made, as the Obama admin’s removal of the 50-year embargo not only flooded the island with new stuff but also created renewed interest from around the world in these cars as they were suddenly able to be exported, resulting in many of the best pieces tragically leaving the island for new owners in Europe and Asia around that time.

Cuba is the world’s largest living Automotive museum. You’re about the meet the curators…

I would assert that attempting to restore any of these cars that are still running around the island after 70 years would be a daunting task, and this film shows why, with an in-depth look at the ways and means clever and resourceful Cubanos used to keep their old cars running without being able to obtain parts for them from the States. That so many of these cars remained in running condition for so many years is truly a testament to the American industry, but things only last for so long, and by the turn of the century-around the time this film was made-a lot of these cars had simply run all the mileage they were capable of, and the island’s mecánicos turned to far less conventional means to keep them going, such as repurposing the smokey 2 and 4 stroke diesel engines from Russian-made Ladas and other Soviet-era cars as replacement power plants.

While unwilling to delve too deeply into politics, I have to question one of the film’s opening assertions: how “brutal” was the “regime” of Fulgencio Batista in comparison to that of the Castro regime? Naysayers will opine that Cuba was little more than a US colony in 1959, to which I will respond, “And the problem was….?” That’s jingoistic, of course, and I won’t pretend to have all the details, but I don’t see that the “Revolucion” did the Cuban people much good. There’s a lot to unpack there, but despite a few mentions here and there, the film mostly avoids the pitfalls of such political mires while making the valid point that the US embargo did the Cuban people no favors either! Credit is due to filmmaker David Schendel for doing so!

What his documentary principally focuses on is how these beautiful cars became a part of the Cuban culture as symbols of freedom and individuality in a collectivist society. They became so valued that they were treated as family heirlooms, passed down through generations and rarely changing hands via sale, and how their owners would do almost anything to keep them going in the face of almost impossible odds! Naturally the majority of the film is in Spanish so if you don’t speak the language you have to read the subtitles, but its very much worth it to get a glimpse behind an iron curtain that-back in ‘02, at least-most Americans were never able to see. Definitely worth a look, not only for the beauty of the cars and the interest in history but also as as an example of the striving and ingenuity of the human spirit! The best place to view this film as of this writing is at Vimeo On-Demand, so click on it while it lasts, because this is another one that isn’t as easy to find as it should be!

Now then, to the “tape!” As I stated in my introduction to the series, Theatre of the Less Obvious was intended to showcase more obscure films, so obviously some of the best known and most famous gearhead classics out there didn’t make the cut because those are movies so well regarded and so well reviewed that I probably couldn’t add much to the info that’s already out there. There is still a lot of data to mine, however! One thing I’ve mentioned multiple times is the immense popularity of the car chase from the late 1960s through the 1980s, not only on the big screen but the small screen as well! I’m sure there are some readers that may take issue with some of my selections, but I’m keenly interested to hear from Y-O-U on which movies you feel I shold have included that were left out, since I’m open to doing another round of T.o.t.L.O. in the future if you’d like to see one, so please contact me if you’ve found yourself saying “How could you have left out _____________?”

As a recap, here are the links to all the installments of Theatre of the Less Obvious from start to finish, which is to say, in terms of their production and release dates: oldest to newest!

Johnny Dark (1954)

Checkpoint (1956)

The Devil’s Hairpin (1957)

The Choppers (1961)

Fireball 500 + Thunder Alley (2x feature) (1966, 67)

Hot Rods to Hell (1967)

Pit Stop AKA The Winner (1969)

The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)

The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (1975)

Crash! (1976)

Speedtrap (1977)

Hot Rod AKA Rebel of the Road (1977)

Road Games (1981)

Repo Man (1984)

Black Moon Rising (1986)

The Wraith (1986)

Crash (1996)

Super Hybrid (2010)

There’s a surprisingly long gap between “The Wraith” and “Crash” and another long from between “Crash” and “Super Hyrbid” which reflects the decline in popularity of car themed movies in that era, however there are countless examples of movies with great car chases in that span! But really, that’s a whole ‘nuther topic, though it is one I’d be glad to explore if you like! (here, for example, is just one of countless such “top 10 lists” on the topic, this one from the popular “WatchMojo” site, which is hard to argue with: Top 10 Greatest Car Chases in Movies)

There are some leave-outs that I struggled with: it was hard to cut one of my all-time favorites, Vanishing Point, from the mix, but I did so because in spite of lingering in obscurity for decades, the movie experienced a resurgence in interest in the early 2000’s and became the subject of a full restoration, a remake, and even a homage in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, so it no longer qualified even at the margins as “obscure.” Of course, the same argument could be made for a couple of the choices I did include, particularly Hot Rods To Hell and Repo Man, both of which have undergone a similar renaissance of interest in the last couple of decades, while The Wraith, perhaps, is so well remembered that it barely ever qualified as “obscure.” As for The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, one of the very things that makes that film so interesting is that it is massively famous throughout most of the world while still being almost unknown here in the U.S.!

So yeah, it’s not a perfect list: no such list is ever going to be. But I had my reasons for each. Even so, some of the other leave-outs are films that are old enough that some people may never have seen them despite their fame, and I would be remiss if I didn’t give at least a passing shout-out to two other all-time favorites of mine, Duel (1971), famous in part for being a young Steven Spielberg’s first-ever movie, and The Car (1977), the movie that some will claim is the father of all “haunted/possessed car movies” that followed!

And what about others? Where is One Deadly Owner (1974), a British TV installment about a haunted Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, or Dark of the Night (1984), a strange romp of Kiwi origins about a Jaguar Mk II with a few un-optional extras? Perhaps those are coming for T.o.t.L.O. Part Deux! So again, send me your favorites, dear readers, and maybe we do a second run-through from the early 1950’s all the way to our mediocre present day!

Enjoy, Fellow Gearheads!