Pit Stop
This was Jack Hill's first proper movie after Spider Baby and his first for Roger Corman. Corman asked him to make a stock car racing movie where the hero won the big race. That's the funny thing about Jack's career. He always aspired to be a great director and make art films, but was forced to work within specific genre structures. So, he just made the best films he could make within the constraints forced upon him. And this black and white movie is a perfect example of him taking on the challenge and really coming through with something special. Even Roger Corman must have been mighty impressed with this movie, at least from a quality standpoint.
The movie stars a number of great character actors who put in great performances, including Ellen Burstyn. The great Sid Haig and Beverly Washburn, two Spider Baby alums are along for the ride. A hot-tempered street drag racer is asked to join a racing team by a racing promoter who is looking to line his pockets and doesn't care much about the health or welfare of the racers he employs. The racer starts off racing on the figure eight stock car circuit. A figure eight race track actually has an intersection! As you might imagine, it looks more like a demolition derby than a race. Sid Haig is the reigning king of the circuit, but our young recruit is gunning for Sid. After a couple of races, our hero causes Sid to flip his brand new car and wins the race. He has also managed to kind of steal away Sid's girlfriend. This makes Sid very unhappy and Sid catches up with our hero later that evening and beats the hell out of him and destroys his street car. But eventually, Sid develops a sort of respect for our hero and the two, who are actually on the same racing team, bond somewhat.
The racing team has a star driver who will be racing in a very important race, and Sid and our hero are asked to be spoilers, drivers who basically block other drivers from getting near the star driver. This race takes place on a more traditional oval track. Our hero decides that he's going to win, and bangs the star driver into a wall. After that, the star driver's car is nailed by a couple of other cars, which causes the star driver's death. Our hero wins the race. The promoter shrugs off the star driver's death and wants to make our hero his new star driver. The hero can decide that this is an evil racket, and get out, or continue to team up with the soulless promoter.
This is a low budget movie, but it is by no means a bad movie. It sucks you in right away and holds you for the whole movie. The acting is above average, and you get involved with the characters. It's really a movie about internal conflict. In order to win, the hero must sell his soul, and that's really the crux of the movie. The racing scenes are great, but you don't have to like racing at all to like this movie. This is a piece of quality work done by a great writer/director. This is a somewhat dark movie. And by that, I mean that the lead character really has to examine his values and himself and decide how much he is willing to sell his soul to reach his goals. I'll give this movie a 4 and recommend it.
The VHS copy of this movie that I have was put out by Johnny Legend and there is an interesting interview with Jack Hill at the end of the movie. Jack talks about his career during this time period and it's great stuff. It gives you more clues to other pieces of work that he was involved with.