Cast:
David Carradine ("Frankenstein"), Simone Griffeth (Annie Smith), Sylvester Stallone (Joe "Machine Gun" Viterbo), Mary Woronov (Jane "Calamity Jane" Kelly), Roberta Collins (Matilda "The Hun"), Martin Kove (Ray "Nero the Hero" Lonagan), Louisa Moritz (Myra), Don Steele (Junior Bruce), Joyce Jameson (Grace Pander), Carle Bensen (Harold), Sandy McCallum (Mr. President), Paul Laurence (Special Agent), and Harriet Medin (Thomasina Paine) Directed by Paul Bartel (#955 - Eating Raoul)
Review:
"Most of my guilty pleasures in this film were ripped out by the roots by Roger Corman before the film ever saw the light of day and substituted with crushed heads and blood squibs. Nevertheless, there is a joke about the French wrecking our economy and telephone system that I still find amusing. And I am pleased by the scene introducing the Girl Fan (played very effectively by my sister Wendy) who is to sacrifice herself beneath the wheels of David Carradine's race car and wants to meet him so that the gesture will have 'meaning'."
Okay, so you have managed to encounter a Roger Corman-related production. Gratuitous and all around weird is what one might expect from a film that was inspired by the publicity that came for the film Rollerball, which was slated for release in June of 1975. Corman found a short story to crib for an adaptation with Ib Melchior's "The Racer", which actually had been inspired by the revulsion Melchior seemingly had when he saw a death at a motor race. Script troubles meant that the film had a prolonged production schedule, which initially had a script written by Robert Thom before re-writes were done by Charles B. Griffith and its eventual director (Corman would play influence when it came to looking over tone, naturally). At director was Paul Bartel, who had made his first noted film with the short The Secret Cinema in 1968 (after several years of shorts, which included work for the United States Information Agency) before becoming a feature director with the horror-comedy film Private Parts (1972), which was produced by Gene Corman; the following year, Bartel did second unit work on Big Bad Mama. Interestingly, Carradine wanted to pick a movie to help his film career after spending three seasons as the star of Kung Fu, the television show he is perhaps most famous for (having seen the show, this is probably true), and the film was released one day after the final show airing; he came around after Peter Fonda was approached and had declined (of course, there was a moment in time during the turbulent production that had Bartel thinking about replacing Carradine with Lee Majors (!), but the two eventually bonded). The film was a hit in the general sense; Bartel's next film was Cannonball (1976), which had Carradine as star that aimed for comedy within its inspiration based on a real race (as you might know). In 1978, Corman, having a contract with Carradine, spearheaded a push for another vehicle-related film with motorcycles that that eventually became Deathsport (as directed by Allan Arkush and Nicholas Niciphor), which was not particularly successful. In 2008, a remake of the film was done by Paul W. S. Anderson, which was the first of five "Death Race" films that were either follow-ups to the 2008 film or in the case of Death Race 2050 (2017, as produced by Corman), a sequel to the original.
So, here is how the future is envisioned by 1975 standards: to pacify the population under a tough regime dealing within crisis comes the "Transcontinental Road Race" that has seen twenty years of violence and gore because of combat of cars and, well, people. You get to see the gauntlet of just who would do these kinds of races: people who dress up like gangsters...and Nazis. In the land of B-movies, it really can come down to just how much fun one sees on screen when it comes to execution and commitment. This is aa pretty neat one that surely delivered a tiny bit of inspiration for Mad Max (1979). The conflict of nudity and gore with the attempts at comedy (the latter was favored by Bartel and Carradine to an extent) makes for a curious experiment that may have a random viewer wondering just what the hell they are supposed to think about its 80-minute runtime of lean and mean nature. That strange casual blend (in of itself a "Frankenstein" creation of Corman and Bartel) of guts and the occasional chuckle that arises from people watching the violence of car-on-man (or in the case of point-seeking to the extreme, the elderly) is a feeling that one always hopes to find in an exploitation film. I particularly like hearing from Bensen and his mimicking of Howard Cosell when it comes to being a voice from the crowd (alongside other "journalists"). Carradine just has a natural charm to him that attracts one's curiosity in what is left said and unsaid within that everyman nature that comes out for a role that if played by a lesser talent would've been just a film with less interesting impact in terms of (pun intended) drive. He has the gumption to roll with the inane goofiness that is apparent even with the real assertion one could argue about just how much curiosity people really have about violence (in living color). It's interesting that two of the early roles for Stallone before Rocky (1976) were Corman productions, with this and Capone being released in 1975 (the same year that he got the inspiration for, well, Rocky). He provides a few good heel chuckles in a cast that is mostly fine in those silly one-note mannerisms (which ranges from the aforementioned Nazi helmeted person to, uh, bits of nudity). There is just a mayhem and energy here that works so well in making light of the obsession that arises from violence in terms of the spectator or opportunistic journalists that is hard to match. The climax is pretty neat in one lasting chuckle that really does prove Bartel had the right idea in mind (Corman wanted to film an ending where the FBI shoots an annoying reporter rather than, well...) in making a film with useful timing in manic commitment without having to be broad about it. In the long run, it is a neatly cheap movie with the idea of conveying what people seem to think about seeing violence play out right in front of them that goes with the entertainment value of the film: fun on the run.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
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