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Okay,
everybody, buckle up and strap yourselves
in for one of the greatest car chase movies
this particularly buzzed film critic has ever seen.
Bullit?
Nope. Not
even close.
The
Blues Brothers?
Okay. Maybe
this is the second greatest car
chase movie ever made...
Actually,
that particular honor probably falls on
John Hough's Dirty
Mary Crazy Larry,
but the
film I’m referring to, today, is the
original Gone
in 60 Seconds,
a high-octane entry in the back roads and muscle-car
mayhem that thundered its way across the
American Drive-In circuit in the mid '70s.
(And
for heaven's sake, avoid the 2000 remake
if it all humanly possible. Yeesh, that
was a turd-burger.) And though it
may not have been the best overall car
chase, it was
definitely the longest sustained case of
swapping some paint in cinema history. Shall we take a look?
Maindrian
Pace (H.B.
Halicki -- the star, writer, producer,
director and stunt driver of the film)
is the top wheelman for a stolen car ring
and illegal chop shop. Using the ruse of
an insurance investigation firm as a
front, Pace's crew can set their sights on
any car and make it disappear in less than
60 seconds. Hence the title! And don’t
worry, it's all explained in greater
detail by the Good Year Blimp. Seriously.
When
Pace & Co receive an order from an
Argentinean client to deliver 48 exotic cars in a week, for a $250,000
payoff, Pumpkin (Marion
Busia) coordinates the thefts,
while Pace, Atlee and Stanley (George
Cole and James McIntyre) don a few awful
mod wigs, paste on porno mustaches, and
some of the worst leisure suits the '70s
had to offer, and then set to work finding
and pilfering the myriad of cars they need. Each
make and model they need is given a code name,
and the most elusive car on the list is
Eleanor: a '73 Mach-One Mustang. The first
one they steal brings too much heat from
the cops, so they return it. Then with the
second one they steal, Pumpkin lays the
guilt on Pace because the owner didn’t
have any insurance, so he gives it back. Well,
you
gotta love a car thief with a Robin Hood
complex -- even though all other
indications peg Pace as a real asshole.
So
the search for another Eleanor continues,
and trying to fill
out the rest of the order proves just as
tricky. Most do go off without a hitch,
while others hit a few a snags -- like
when Atlee finds a tiger(!) in the back of
a Cadillac he tries to steal. But things
really start to unravel when Stanley
brings in an El Dorado that’s filled up
to its dome lights in heroin. Too make it
even worse,
Pace’s police buddy shows up for a
social call right at that inopportune
time. After he's gone, Eugene, their
slimy boss (Jerry Dauginola),
thinks they’ve hit the jackpot. He wants
to keep and sell the drugs, but Pace wants
nothing to do with it because it's against
their code -- and bad for business. Eugene
reminds him that he’s in charge and to
do what he says. (These
two have been butting heads since the film
began.) But Pace gets the last
word, taking the car and the drugs to an
abandoned field, douses it all with
gasoline, and puts a torch to it.
This
insubordination is the last straw for
Eugene (--
he thinks Pace is an asshole, too --) and
conspires to get Pace put in jail.
Seems Pumpkin has tracked down another Eleanor,
the last car they need to complete the
shipment, so Pace collects his gear and
goes after it. Seizing the opportunity,
Eugene tips off the cops that Pace has
been the one stealing all the cars, and
tells them exactly where and when Pace is
going to strike next and what car he’s
going to steal.
Not
realizing he’s walking straight into a
trap, Pace breaks in and hotwires Eleanor,
triggering one of the longest, if not most
spectacular, chase scenes in film history.
Obviously, a car chase
doesn’t translate well into the written
word, so I’ll just give you a few
statistics to try and give you the scope
of what happens next:
The
chase lasts a full forty-minutes, spanning
seven different California towns, four car
dealerships, two dispatch officers, and
every single law enforcement division in
as many jurisdictions are duly represented in
the hot
pursuit: City cops, County-Mounties, and
the California Highway Patrol. (Hey!
Where’s Ponch and John?)
And according to the film's poster art, 93
cars -- more than one wreck per minute of
screen time -- were totaled during the
ensuing mayhem.
Incredibly,
when the dust finally settles, Pace
manages to engineer an escape -- an
escape stretches the plausibility meter a
little bit, sure, but, well, judge for
yourself.
After circling back and jumping over a few
wrecks he caused, Pace manages to distance
himself from the pursuit and spots another
Eleanor entering a drive-thru car wash;
exact same year, same paint, and detail
job. Like a said, streeeeeeetched. His
Eleanor is beat all to hell, but he drives
up and turns it over to a carwash
attendant. He then heads to the other end
and spots the owner of the undamaged
Eleanor. Posing as an employee, Pace says
something’s happened to his car and
directs the man to the manager’s office.
And when the undamaged car comes out of
the wash, he steals it and makes his
escape.
A
few moments later, a patrol car drives by
and spots the damaged Eleanor coming out
of the car wash. And while the manager
argues with the owner about the damage
done to what he thinks is his car, the
police saunter up and ask if the irate
customer owns the damaged Mustang. When the
poor schnook says he does, he's promptly
arrested and hauled off.
This
admission happens just in time as several
blocks away, Pace was about to try and
bluff his way through a roadblock when it
comes over the police band radio that the
suspect has been caught and arrested. With
that, Pace
rides Eleanor off into the sunset for his
big payoff.
The
end
Admittedly,
the best part of Gone
in 60 Seconds
is that last incredible chase scene. And the
unfortunate part is, you have to sit
through the first half of the film to get
to the concluding, operatic, grand finale
pile-up. Don’t get me wrong, I really
like the film, but when you break it down
it could have been so, so much better.
As
I said before, the stunts are spectacular,
but the plot stringing them together could
have used a little more attention. I
really wish Halicki would have spent a
little more time behind the typewriter
before crawling behind the steering wheel.
The whole insurance front scam and chop
shop stuff was really confusing -- and
frankly, won’t make any sense to you
unless you really paid attention in auto
shop class.
You
definitely get the feeling that a lot of
the dialogue is improvised and Halicki
just assumed that the audience would now
what he was talking about. And to his defense,
his target audience probably did. I
managed to have a gear-head to English
translation of the mechanic stuff done for
me by my friend Bill -- No,
not that Bill. The other Bill. The one
with clothes on who tuned me into this
film while we were discussing the
existential overtones in Vanishing
Point
-- who managed to clear a few things up,
so you might want to watch this film with
your favorite gear-head. It should also be
noted and I’m sorry to report that after
making just two more films, Halicki was
killed while performing a stunt for a
planned sequel to this film; Gone
in 60 Seconds II: The Slasher.
So
yes, the film might come off to you as a
bit amateurish;
that’s because it is. The acting is
somewhere between high school and college
dramatics -- and I also enjoyed the
splicing in of one of the cast's wedding
reception footage to help pad out the film!
The soundtrack is okay -- trust me, you’ll
also have "She’s
Got the Lois Lane Blues" stuck
in your cerebral random play jukebox for
months-n-months -- but sometimes it
doesn’t synch up with action very well. The
final chase music is a little too drippy
and mellow, and things are even made worse
with the later re-release on DVD when the
old music cues were chucked in favor of a
new -- and even more awful -- electronic
score. And if given the choice, I'd rather
stick with and watch my old beat up VHS
copy.
These
amateurish qualities aren’t all bad,
though. It came across to me that a lot of
the film's financing was obtained by
allowing various financiers and car
dealers to make an appearance in the film,
and there are several of these awkward
scenes shoehorned in, where the actors
look very uncomfortable and fumble there
lines, that I find priceless. Also
watch for a couple of throwaway scenes
involving a hash-fried car wash attendant
and a little old lady with an umbrella who
isn’t very happy with Pace’s driving
ability that are truly hilarious.
I
can’t confirm that 93 actual cars met there doom
before the closing credits because I gave
up counting around 67, but I think
that’s a pretty fair assessment. And in
the end, even if Gone
in 60 Seconds
isn’t an overall polished film, we have
to give credit where credit is due. This
is one of the few films of this genre
where the camera pulls back from the chase
and we get to see the bloody aftermath in
the wake of the speeding cars. There are
plenty of scenes of ambulances, fire
trucks, and bloodied victims pulled out of
their wrecked vehicles. And I can’t
recall any other film where the tragic
ramifications of an ongoing car rampage
are shown this extensively -- and Halicki
deserves a lot of credit for that.
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