Tonight's movie was another B-Grade Classic, "The Car" (1977). "The Car" was the kind of movie you watched in your car, on a double bill at the local drive-in. It was well promoted when it came out, with lots of TV ads, and you'd think with my affection for 1970s horror films that I'd have seen it, maybe even many times, since it's release over forty years ago. But no, strangely enough, I had never seen "The Car" until tonight.
If I remember correctly, it was because my friends and I (and probably me especially) were into hardcore horror at that time, stuff like "Texas Chainsaw" and "The Hills Have Eyes". In fact, it may have been the TV trailer that put us off, because I remember making fun of it. When you are 17 you've got to be on top of everything and in charge. You've got to know definitively what is cool and what is not. I just remember that the trailer for "The Car" looked cheesy; a Satanic Car that terrorizes a small desert town in Utah. The "Car" is deadly and unstoppable, and the main thing is that it has no driver.
In fact, that was the tag line of the trailer : "There was no driver in......The Car".
It was the trailer, as seen on television, that put me off. I just thought, "this is not the real deal", and I never saw it until tonight (it came up in a recent Library Search for horror films).
After viewing it, I will give it a break and even some praise. What the heck, the fans at Amazon, and there are many, have collectively awarded it a near-five star rating. And as I discovered, it's not really cheesy, per se, just thin on story. Very thin in fact, but it makes up for this lack of depth by pumping up the revs on the engine of it's star vehicle, a big, flat black and low to the ground ugly Lincoln Continental lookin' thing. "The Car" is for sure the Star. And it is pretty scary, too, thanks to the expert cinematography that accentuates it's menace. Much of the terror takes place on precipitous mountain highways or dusty desert roads. The Car usually appears out of nowhere, having anticipated it's victims movements. It knows where you are and there is nothing you can do about it.
No reason is ever given for why it has picked on this little town, or for why it even exists, other than a small nod to The Devil near film's end. No one, though, has any explanation for why The Devil would drive a car around an anonymous small town and run over it's residents.
The director (or maybe the screenwriter) must have figured this is just The Way It Is. There is a Car; it is Demonic; it is gonna run people over; that's it, no reason is necessary.
In a small town, though, there is always gonna be a Sheriff. In this case he is James Brolin, who was handsome and famous before his son became slightly less handsome and famous, though probably the better actor. Dad Brolin married Barbra Streisand, though, so he very likely wins the overall Celebrity Competition in this case, and though he was not a major league thespian, James Brolin was good at what he did, which was to give credibility to his macho characters and to be super handsome in the process. I just Googled him, and I can testify that he is still handsome at 78 years of age! And he is still married to Barbra. I wonder if they ever pop "The Car" into the dvd player at Babs' enormous Malibu estate.......?
I'll bet they have at least once.
I finally popped it into my own player at my own slightly less enormous Northridge estate, and even though I shunned it 40 years ago, for Teenaged Reasons stated above (which were mostly legit), I am glad I finally saw "The Car".
I'm glad because it is the kind of movie you could only have seen in the late 70s. You might have expected it to come out of Samuel Z. Arkoff's American International Pictures studio, from where many other classic drive-in flicks emerged, but it was from Universal, and so has the look of a well photographed and edited studio production.
If you expect no story, you won't be disappointed, and will likely enjoy "The Car" as I did, for it's '70s nostalgia and sometime suspense.
While it's no "Christine" and not as scary as "The Hearse" from 1980, "The Car" nonetheless deserves Two Thumbs Up, just because it is So 70s, and because it tries so hard, and because so many fans now consider it a minor classic. Me, I give it a wink and a nod and say "see it". ///
That was really all the news for today except for Still Super Hot And Humid. This is one of the all time July's. Had to put the apostrophe because there is no plural for "July", and to type "Julys" as a plural just looks weird, like a Spanish word. So I had to write "July's" to get my meaning across. Sorry about the apostrophe.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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