Motor Car Thrill Ride

Aaaah, the 1970s. When men were men. MANLY men. MEN. I've been watching a fair few motor-car action movies recently. One my earliest car-crash-mayhem-n-madness memories was Car Quake aka Canonball. I think Car Quake was a heavily-edited version... (y'know... for kids), which, back in the 1980s seemed to be on Children's ITV every single summer. Twice. Matthew Kelly was one of the CITV presenters back then, and Car Quake/Cannonball was staple fare every single summer... for years!

But Canonball was strictly cartoonish. The big summer hits of that era were all car-based. The Smokey & the Bandit films & Cannonball Run were all very popular indeed, but perhaps lacked the extra 'oomph' to really entertain swines like myself. The real testosterone-riddled movies were -amongst others- The Driver, Two Lane Blacktop, Vanishing Point and (the original) Gone In 60 Seconds. Truly great stuff. And most of 'em had terrific soundtracks to match.

Bear in mind that cars (or rather the road) were very much the central theme(s) in these 70s films, whilst classic car chases were merely highlights of some of the other 70s classics on show at the time... Bullitt, 'The French Connection (a recently ruined version of this has just turned up on Blu-ray) and, yes, I will include this, The Blues Brothers. Lovely.

Of course, motor movies have been made since, but with more glossy FX, grotesque amounts of epilepsy-inducing editing and less actual human harm... or death! Having said that, I will free-wheelingly admit that the car-chase in The Bourne Supremacy did made me swear out-loud in the cinema. Highly enjoyable stuff... but then again, it wasn't all real was it? And with that, your honour, I rest my case.

R.I.P H. B. Halicki (Oct 1940-Aug 1989)