racerx70

As a longtime resident of SW Florida, I had to watch this film after finding out it was filmed entirely in the city of Cape Coral, and showed parts of Cape Coral Gardens (known to local residents as The Rose Gardens - an abandoned water park that was a popular hangout for teens back in the late 70's/early 80's). The story is pretty incoherent, and as a previous reviewer put it, was basically a sales pitch for the city of Cape Coral. It looks like the majority of it was shot at the Cape Coral Yacht Club (the beach scenes anyway), with the remainder being Cape Coral Gardens (obvious sale pitch for the park at about 1 hour in), and the corner of Del Prado Boulevard and Cape Coral Parkway. Pretty low budget... The performances, as well as the music... just plain bizarre (though it was the '60's).

I rated this a "4" simply for the archival footage of the city I've known for 30 years. Of particular interest to local residents is a shot of the Iwo Jima statue - located originally at the entrance to Cape Coral Gardens, left abandoned when the park closed and long neglected for years... is the very same statue that now resides by Eco Park along Veteran's Memorial Parkway westbound from the Midpoint Bridge (one of the entrances to Cape Coral from the city of Fort Myers). And unbelievably...this film is available on DVD!

Dialog as banal as this makes several scenes more than a little cringe-worthy. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I saw this movie years ago as a rental and the guys I watched it with along with myself laughed quite a few times at some of the implausible things we saw, as well as the absolutely BAD dialog and cardboard cutout characters. As a matter of fact, we still use the "9/16ths" comment as part of our expressions at the track, mostly as a method of disrespect. Once things got to the dragstrip, however, "Hot Rod" was a bit more palatable. I enjoyed the rocket Funny Car making a pass down the track (rocket cars having been outlawed for nearly 20 years now), and some of the old school drag cars really gave a look into the late 70's drag scene. Being a drag racer myself, I appreciate the history. The story is standard TV movie fare (this was an ABC Friday Night Movie after all), and even after saying this, I still went and bought a copy on VHS. Should it be on DVD? Considering the dreck that's already on DVD ("reality" shows and the like), I'd vote for a DVD release. File this one as "so bad it's good".

I first saw this movie back in 1981 and it struck a chord with me, being I was a successful street racer at the time. Steve's modified Porsche Speedster was one of the coolest looking cars of its time (big fender flares were in, but most cars looked cartoonish with them), and Cal's Corvette "rat racer" is still cool today. Some of the extras in the Mulholland scenes were actual racers themselves, and that helped to give an authentic feel to what street racing was actually like back in the late '70's/early '80's. There are some elements that aren't racing related ( the subplot of Buddy's music career, for example) that could be considered ponderous moments, but the racing sequences more than made up for them. The dynamic of the three friends (Steve, Buddy and Roger) sharing a common house worked, showing the differences in each character's personality. Steve (Harry Hamlin) in particular was my favorite... comfortable enough around his friends, quiet and reserved in normal social situations, but not really "alive" unless he was in his car racing. There's Buddy, loyal friend to the core, and budding musician. And Roger, former racer himself that feels he's outgrown Mulholland and now wants more out of life. Then there's Cal (Dennis Hopper), who was the previous top dog until he had a bad accident, never really recovering from it. Still, he wants to be back on top, no matter what or who stands in his way... I'm lucky enough to have this long out of print film on VHS, and would love nothing more than to see it on DVD. This is a film no true gearhead or fan of the "car film" genre should be without. Check it out if you get the chance.