Fireball Quinientos

Nice racing sequences and to my knowledge the only feature film to have both those kids from Philadelphia Frankie Avalon and Fabian in the cast are the attractions that Fireball 500 has. The title comes from the logo that Avalon has on his car.

Avalon is a professional racing driver and has arrived in North Carolina to try his hand at the stock car circuit where local boy Fabian rules. Fabian also runs a little moonshine on the side and of course is wary of the revenuers. These two as in the teen idol business were rivals in those late Eisenhower/ Kennedy years.

The women they are rivals over are Annette Funicello and Julie Parrish, you watch the film to see who gets who. There's someone else in the picture who would like to eliminate both these guys. I won't reveal but it won't be hard to figure it out.

Avalon is slightly miscast in a film that I think Elvis Presley might have had first dibs on and rejected. Or Colonel Parker probably rejected for him.

Two very colorful character players Chill Wills and Harvey Lembeck are in the cast. Wills is Annette's uncle and Lembeck is most definitely not doing Erich Von Zipper.

For aging fans of the leads like myself.

"Beach Party" leads Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, and Harvey Lembeck do what they can with C-minus material involving an ace stockcar racer who gets involved with moonshiners; the Internal Revenue wants him to work both sides, but he's more interested in finding out who's thwarting the midnight runs by playing chicken with the drivers. Barely involving 'grown up' effort from American International, not as good as their later stockcar comedy-drama "Thunder Alley", however Avalon and Annette both get to sing (his number, "My Way" is one of the best tunes Avalon ever got in an AIP film). There's a pretty good brawl between Frankie and Harvey Lembeck, but Fabian, as Frankie's nemesis, is under-used, as is Annette. Good photography by Floyd Crosby, cute opening Claymation segment by Clokey Films, but the story is so muddled we never know where we stand with these one-dimensional characters. *1/2 from ****

Citizen Kane it is not, but if you want a good time, drive in, type movie.. check it out. Frankie A. is a wanna be Nascar driver who drives for moonshiners on the side. He meets the hard Biz woman who owns the track and finds the moonshine drivers, but she falls in love and later on redeems herself.

Fabian is the local race track hero and king of the moonshine drivers. There's a slight twist to his character in the end that I won't reveal here.

Dopey songs, pretty girls and cars... Simple, Family friendly fun with some cool old school Nascar footage to boot.

"Fireball 500" (1966) is technically the best production to ever come out of "American International". The cinematography looks as good as the best Hollywood productions from that period; with unexpectedly good shot selection and nice close-ups that you would expect to see now but were highly original back in 1966.

This is a film that should be shown to would-be film and video editors, as there are few finer examples of matching stock footage with first and second unit output; all done by linear editing (try it some time if you want a real challenge). When a low budget film tries to be high budget by inserting stock footage it is usually a disaster, but here there is a pretty good match of film stock and the track announcer's audio makes the action sequences easy to follow. You might recognize Fred R. Feitshans Jr's editing style from the old "Adventures in Paradise" television show.

The story is ordinary-straight action adventure and romance, no comedy like AIP's beach movies even though it does feature alumni Frankie, Annette, and Harvey Lembeck. There are three good Hernrig and Styner songs: "Fireball 500", "My Way", and "Turn Around"; sung by Frankie with help on the last one from Julie Parrish. Annette sings "Step Right Up" which mostly leaves you amazed that anyone ever bought her records.

As usual Annette is very buttoned-up and chaste but Parrish is hot enough to carry the whole film. Interestingly Annette pairs up with Fabian and Frankie gets Julie. Fabian also has a group of racetrack groupies who follow him around, four of the them are mid-60's Playboy centerfolds with one of those the Playmate of the year.

Frankie gets into a serious fight with both Fabian and Lembeck. These are decently staged and cut but unnecessary to the story and rather comical when you consider the participants. Casting these two singers was apparently an attempt to expand the target audience from teenage boys and stock car fans by including something for teenage girls. This was at best a lame idea since by 1966 those two were considered wimpy has-beens compared to "Herman's Hermits", let alone the "Beatles" and the "Stones".

There is tons of interesting stock car footage, making "Fireball 500" a nice historical archive. Overall it was a fun film to watch but nothing you would take very seriously.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Fireball 500 was AIP's attempt to attract an older audience (or keep the one that was growing up). Much of the beach gang is still around (Avalon, Funicello and Lembeck) but, except maybe Annette, nothing like their old characters. Add Fabian into the mix as Avalon's nemesis and you've got a strangely serious movie with little music and even less humor. Really, most of the humor (and probably the best acting) comes from Chill Wills as Annette's Uncle/Carnival barker. Rounding out the main cast is Julie Parrish as a rich, slightly oversexed love interest for Avalon. Despite Frankie's attempts, he and Annette are, for the first and last time, not a couple.

The film is typical mid-'60s drive-in fare...cars, girls and music tied together with a mediocre script and passable acting. Due to the difficult nature of shooting and editing a racing film on a low budget, editing and continuity mistakes run rampant. It's almost funnier than the jokes.

When all is said and done, if you gauge it against it's genre it's a likable enough picture. Classic NASCAR fans will enjoy the genuine racing footage with legends like Richard Petty. Beach movie fans may be a little less enamored but it's still an enjoyable look at the end of beach movie innocence.