fullbug Smokey and the Bandit just had to be modeled after this movie. Contains all the same elements. Two partners looking to make that one big (illegal) score, a sexy transitory woman along for the ride, a tough sheriff hot on their tail, and a whole lot of crazy driving from the muscle car era.And like the Bandit, this isn't just a car chase movie. It was very well written and produced with an interesting story, excellent cast and character development, and imo, Peter Fonda's best film. Also excellent performances by Susan George and Vic Morrow.Take special note of the superb camera work for all the car chase scenes (very ground breaking). And the light green '69 Dodge Charger is just as eye-catching as the Bandit's Trans Am.This isn't the Shawshank Redemption...but it isn't as mindless as the Duke's of Hazzard either. A classic 70's Drive-In movie that should be on everyone's Watch List.

RavenGlamDVDCollector The roar of the engines, the glorious heroine... My high score for this overlooks the fact that this movie is badly constructed in many different ways, yet excellent in others. Counting first and foremost is the great casting, I am of course especially thankful for Susan George. Without her in it, I wouldn't have been here reviewing it today. She was the most exciting actress of her time, unfortunately ending up in movies where she shouldn't have been wasting her time, but in this one's case, wow! And again, wow! And again, wow! There is that scene with the police car coming up behind them like a vengeful shark, and the camera shows Mary's face, and wow! That expression! That giggle! That movie magic! That glorious partner-in-crime! Of course this movie begs to be remade, but I will be staunchly critical of whomever they choose as Mary. And actually it was remade, Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson during the Nineties in THE CHASE, not bad at all, but not with the same kind of vibe, not the feel of these late Sixties cars, and of course, no Peter OUTLAW BLUES Fonda or Susan George. By the way, Susan might be best known for STRAW DOGS, but this is the ultimate Susan George movie!The character of Larry was of course a total sh*t, and yet, the two protagonists made a powerful on-screen couple. What this one REALLY NEEDED when the bucks started rolling in was less of a lament about 'We Killed the Golden Goose, There Cannot Be a Sequel' as nothing about the film's ending was final, nothing is witnessed except that the car is clearly a flaming wreck. The sequel should just have shown them, in the grand old tradition of old-time movie serials, jumping from the car the moment before actual collision, and however corny my solution of course is, NEVER MIND WE'D HAVE HAD A SEQUEL.Vic Morrow gave particular depth to the movie, representing the other side, and was a full-fledged alternative lead instead of a cardboard character. The irony of the actor's death in a helicopter-related incident some years later does much to undermine watching this movie now. That is beyond control, just a twist of fate. Just as tragic is that Susan fizzled out soon afterward due to health problems, and of course, there were deaths among the rest of the cast as well. The curse of DMCL?

Scarecrow-88 Larry and Deke(Peter Fonda & Adam Roarke) steal money from a grocery store owner(temporarily using his daughter and wife as bait to get the cash)to fund their dreams of racing in Nascar. Mr. Stanton(Roddy McDowell, in a cameo appearance)will provide the proper funds by emptying his safe. Mary(Susan George), a parolee with her own small record of petty crime, comes along to accompany Larry(she could threaten to turn him in, but is a thrill-seeker and just wants to tag along). What proceeds is a country chase with Captain Franklin(Vic Morrow)riding high in the sky(in a chopper) coordinating road blocks and orders to his troopers on standby hoping to catch the trio who do not make it easy for them.Larry, the balls(the driver, yearning to be a racecar star), Deke, the brains(the master mechanic who is loyal to Larry despite having plenty of reasons leave him), Mary, the looks(Larry enjoys sparring with her). The unnecessary ending is a real drag and seems to be included just so that the trio couldn't be allowed to succeed at their escape. I think, besides the ending, the film's real liability(it was a minor one for me, though)is the obnoxious childishness of Mary and Larry. I found Rourke's Deke a blessing in disguise because he's the one who, for most of the picture, keeps the screws mostly tight even if Larry orchestrates hot-rod antics that nearly get them killed countless times. Cop and civilian cars are destroyed on a regular basis. My favorite scene involves a daredevil deputy, with a souped up police car, following in hot pursuit as Larry attempts to evade him. Most of the movie has our trio motoring through country roads playing a chess match with Captain Franklin, who hovers overhead looking for them in a helicopter. Larry and Mary spend most of the movie having immature spats over innocuous things. Screen veteran Kenneth Tobey shows up as policeman Carl, always at odds with Franklin over his unwillingness to adhere to the appropriations committee regarding proper police protocol(he doesn't wear a uniform, badge, or gun)..Carl wants new patrol cars and is having a hard time convincing the committee to give them to his office. Could be looked at as a precursor to the SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT series.

MARIO GAUCI I hadn’t intended to watch this just now but a couple of coincidences made it inevitable – once again, Vic Morrow has a featured role (it’s chilling how the actor feared that, having to spend about half the running-time inside a chopper in this case, would be the end of him!) and it re-united director Hough and co-star Susan George from EYEWITNESS (1970). This is among the most popular road movies from an era full of such efforts, complete with a memorable title and matching theme tune; Peter Fonda and Adam Roarke, both of whom had flourished in biker movies during the late 1960s, here exchange their typical vehicle for a racing car. In this respect, it resembles most closely VANISHING POINT (1971) – as per one of the trailers on the Anchor Bay SE DVD, the two were even re-issued as a double-bill! – though largely eschewing that film’s philosophical overtones.As can be expected, it’s generally fast-paced, tyre-screeching and stunt-heavy fun; the film (Englishman Hough’s first in the U.S. and which manages to capture that peculiar mid-American flavor), however, provides more than just the obvious kind of thrills. To begin with, the narrative opens with a supermarket caper (the one scene in which an uncredited Roddy McDowall, fresh from the same director’s scary ghost story THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE [1973], appears) but we also get plenty of confrontation scenes (and not just between fugitives and law enforcers, but within each individual group). This occasions some hilarious dialogue exchanges, such as when George rejects Fonda’s advances – he quips that the night before she had no qualms about it and, in fact, kept begging for more…but she retorts that that ought to have clued him in about just how little she was actually getting! Similarly, veteran cops Morrow and Kenneth Tobey often clash about how to approach the manhunt: at one point, the former argues that the latter’s obsession with apprehending the fugitives is merely a middle-aged man’s grasping to hold on to his job but he’ll only be physically worn-out by the experience (Morrow, then, believes that Tobey doesn’t want to put all he’s got into the chase simply because he’s been promised a new set of police cars – which, most likely, won’t be forthcoming if he proves overly efficient!).As a matter of fact, one of the reasons the film (which, according to the accompanying featurette, was partly improvised) works so well is because each of the principal roles is perfectly cast – thus ensuring that characterization isn’t lost amid all the hair-raising action; incidentally, the IMDb lists additional footage (extending a couple of scenes) that was utilized for the film’s network showings. Among the most notable stunts are: the one in which an impulsive young police officer’s car (which he has “souped up” – after the original engine overheated – in order to keep up with Fonda et al) is crushed by a falling telephone pole; another flies through a billboard; one more runs off the road backwards and ends up in a stream; the fugitive’s own ‘classic’ Dodge Charger (which they exchange midway through the chase) leaping across a drawbridge; and, of course, its climactic crash into a speeding train – giving the whole a fashionable, yet appropriately sobering, downbeat ending (ominously, Morrow’s relentless chopper itself often looms perilously close to its quarry before ultimately running out of gas!).I haven’t listened to Hough’s full-length Audio Commentary, but the half-hour documentary was nonetheless a pretty solid affair which covered most of the bases; highlights included Fonda’s declaration that he idolized former sci-fi/B-movie hero Tobey (despite sharing no scenes with him in the actual film!), as well as the star’s surprised admission that DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY out-grossed even his signature effort EASY RIDER (1969), not to mention the expected (albeit brief) but well-deserved tribute to Morrow – of the three titles I’ve watched with him over the past week or so, his contribution in this one was clearly the most substantial and satisfactory (definitely proving him worthier of greater attention than merely for his acclaimed debut performance as the disaffected punk in BLACKBOARD JUNGLE [1955] and his ill-fated swan song). Finally, having enjoyed this so much, I was reminded that I’ve probably got scores of other films from the iconoclastic and eclectic 1970s in my collection which I’ve yet to go through…