Review: Hot Rods to Hell

Sedan-driving Dana Andrews (recovering from a bad back and psychological/emotional stress from a previous car accident) and his typical American family (wife Jeanne Crain, kids Laurie Mock and Tim Stafford, AKA Jeffrey Byron) set off from Boston in their sedan across the Californian desert landscape to take up post at a motel. Unfortunately, they are harassed along the way by hot-rod driving youths (The not very youthful-looking Paul Bertoya, Gene Kirkwood, and Mimsy Farmer), who had a good thing going with the previous owner, and don’t much like a bunch of ‘squares’ taking over. Said former owner is Mr. Daley (George Ives), who also owns a nearby jukebox joint where the crazy kids like to get far out and outta sight. Or something. Sensing that their Saturday night jitterbugging fun is about to end with dorky Andrews at the helm, the hot rod punks set about making the family’s life a living hell. Oh, and one of the young punks, named Duke, develops kind of a thing for virginal teen Mock. And she might sorta kinda be fascinated by the supposed ‘bad boy’.

 

Originally conceived as a TV movie, but eventually aimed at the drive-ins, this 1967 film from director John Brahm (A TV veteran of “Dr. Kildare” and “The Twilight Zone”) and writer Robert E. Kent (“The Fastest Guitar Alive”, “Twice-Told Tales”, “Tower of London”) doesn’t even know what genre it wants to aim for, let alone what medium. It’s certainly too tame to have worked for the exploitation drive-in crowd. Part juvenile delinquent/hot rod film and part pre-cursor to the ‘Normal happy family terrorised by psychos’ flick (“Straw Dogs”, “Last House on the Left”, etc.), it ends up being a whole lotta awkward with a side order of dead-arse boring. That’s because the latter subgenre didn’t really come about for another few years, and the former sees the film playing more like a cornball early 50s film than late 60s (Or to put it another way, it’s a whole lot more like “The Wild One” than “Easy Rider”, which came out in 1969). So it occupies its own unique, awkwardly dated space.

 

Washed-up movie star Dana Andrews (genuinely good in his day) makes for a convincing Ward Cleaver/Robert Young in the earlier, happy scenes (which otherwise play like a bad sitcom), but spends most of the film in a pretty foul mood. He’s perfectly fine in terms of his actual performance (aside from a weird attempt at a possibly Boston accent on a couple of lines), but can’t work miracles, and looks in really rough shape. He did have a drinking problem at times in his career, I’ve read, so maybe that had something to do with it. Laurie Mock is flagrantly miscast as his supposedly virginal (but curious and horny) teenage daughter. She looks far too grown up and far too sex-kittenish to convince in the role. She looks like she’s having an orgasm in every scene, and it makes for a very confusing character. If she was meant to have a bit of temptress in her, then she’s way overdressed at the very least. The worst performances are by the lead hooligans, Paul Bertoya (who looks about 34 years old) and Gene Kirkwood, as the very scary-sounding Duke and Ernie. Yes, Ernie. These guys are such dorks that they wouldn’t even intimidate me, and I’m a seriously anxious and frightened paraplegic. Ernie’s about as scary as Scott Baio, for cryin’ out loud. Meanwhile, their top chickie, played by exploitation fave Mimsy Farmer, looks like she’s about to do some go-go dancing at any moment.

 

The ridiculous cars, bad projection work, and lousy sped-up footage had me wondering when The Munsters were gonna turn up in their car and wipe the floor with these sodey pop dorks. Seriously, the cars look like something out of the 60s “Batman” TV series. But the absolute worst thing here? What exactly do these hot rod hooligans actually do that’s so menacing? They hoot and holler and drive really fast. In real life, that can be something to get worked up about, but in a movie…it seems pretty sleep-inducing and wimpy. Special mention must go to Police Constable Public Service Announcement of the Talky Exposition PD (Paul Genge), a most unwelcome and pretty-tacked on presence. He’s a terrible actor firstly, and an annoying and completely incongruous character on top of that. Every appearance by Deputy Dudley Do-Right is a total snore. The best performance by far comes from George Ives as the unscrupulous, Hawaiian shirt-wearing former owner of the motel. Sadly, even he’s not the most menacing threat in the world, either, but at least Ives’ performance is rock-solid.

 

For all the talk of ‘squares’ in this film, this is the squarest thing you’ll ever see, and it feels like a decade between this and “Easy Rider”. If it weren’t so boring it’d at least have some curio value, but as is, it’s best forgotten altogether. Nice scenery, though.

 

Rating: C-