'I want to report a murder, yeah a murder.'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Do I know you?’
If this week’s review had been released under its working title Crashout,
then we probably wouldn’t be looking at it. But someone came up with a better title,
which, nearly 50 years later caught the eye of producer Neal Moritz, and a franchise was born.
The Fast and the Furious was Roger Corman’s first production for the company that would become AIP,
where he made his name, but here he’s just producing and doing a bot of driving for fun.
#This may not be Corman#
In fact this predates Corman’s directorial debut.
‘What’s the pitch?’
The plot is simple;
race car driver Connie Adair on her way to a big cross country race
when she gets mixed up with wanted murderer Frank Webster,
'Where do you think you're going?'
'Mexico'
He kidnaps her,
‘I like quiet women, stay that way’
but the police are on their trail so they enter the race, which passes through Mexico,
getting Frank across the border,
‘You can’t prove you’re innocent running away’
'I can't prove it dead.'
Decent plot, and Connie is a strong lead, even if she’s undercut by the script,
‘This course is too dangerous. All lady drivers are banned’
Problem number one, ironically, is the pacing,
‘Going someplace?’
this is a road movie, but in between the police pursuit at the start,
and the race at the end,
this is a road movie that stalls for upwards of twenty minutes.
Which is a big chunk of 73 minute film.
‘I’m also running out of patience’
During this time the inevitable love story develops, but that’s problem number two,
‘I not only hate you, I dislike you’
I’d call that a reasonable attitude towards the man who kidnapped you and…
Not cool. But even early on Connie’s animosity fluctuates wildly.
‘Well at the moment the only thing I got against you is I never got that egg salad sandwich’
Connie is an astronomically forgiving woman, but now – more inevitable – we learn that Frank was wrongly accused,
‘Then one of his drivers tried to run me off the road, all I was trying to do was keep from being killed’
Minutes later.
When she thought he was guilty she’s flirting like crazy,
‘Won’t you come into my parlour’
in the 1950s, that was a green light. But now she knows he’s innocent she tries to escape.
‘Let go my arm’
‘I break it for you if you try any more tricks’
Just cos he’s not a killer, doesn’t mean he’s not a dick.
‘Exercise is good for your figure’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my figure’
‘I’ve noticed’
But with that sort of chat up line it’s only a matter of time.
‘I love you’
Sure you do.
I don’t like the Stockholm syndrome being turned into romance,
but if there was something bringing them together, I might buy it.
Earlier in the film, during qualifying, they share this moment in the excitement of the race.
'Oh wow!'
That works. But then the action stops so they can fall in love,
except that by stopping the action there’s no longer a mechanism for them to do so.
‘You don’t even trust me, do you?’
‘Any reason I should’
The love story should be moving with the race, not separate from it.
‘You can do better than that’
Then there is the race itself a mixture of real race footage,
and dodgy rear projection,
which don’t always synch up, but you sort of expect that, here’s the bigger problem.
He’s racing, which is what we want to see but makes no sense.
All Frank needs to do is get to Mexico, doesn’t matter if he’s coming last,
and this is problematic because we’re watching a race but aren’t invested in the outcome.
Plus… he’s making it very difficult for himself,
and almost kills another driver.
Now of course this happens so he can save the driver and the audience will see, he’s not a bad guy,
he’s worthy of the girl he kidnapped and whose arm he threatened to break,
and whose heart he now wins with a typical B movie chat up line.
'Besides, I'm getting use to you.'
'Oh Frank.'
This is in some ways typical Corman,
budget is an issue,
‘You wanna take my money?’
but really all it needed was a second draft of the script.
‘Interested?’
That wasn’t so much a review as a tutorial, but for better or worse, you can learn a lot from Roger Corman.
'Well good evening.'
Thanks for watching. For more Roger Corman film reviews, click here.
What bad movie can teach you a valuable lesson about how good ones work? Let us know in the comments below.
' I finally found... well where is everybody.'