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The laboratory approximation of a drive-in trip is also a treatise on artistic independence and a view of metal as flesh, so it goes with David Cronenberg behind the wheel. Hal Needham is the main tributary (the salute to Smokey and the Bandit is returned in Stroker Ace), stars and bars on the 18-wheeler introduce the lumpy racing-circuit vet (William Smith) on the Alberta freeway of "fuelers and funnies." Hotheaded greenhorn (Nicholas Campbell) on one lane and cagey rival (Cedric Smith) on the other, the company weasel (John Saxon) has advertisement in mind. Not the bleak-serene circles of Hawks' Red Line 7000 but combustible strips on which vehicles stutter, purr and roar, with mechanic snapshots as fetishistic as Kenneth Anger's: The camera is on the dashboard looking out the window as the speedometer is superimposed across the screen, then straight at the driver in his rubbery fuel mask as flames begin to lick the inside of the dragster. "You wanna win? You can't stand still!" Cronenberg between horrors meditates on the dread of going mainstream (cf. Siegel's Charley Varrick) and luxuriates in randy exploitation amusements. Claudia Jennings auburn-haloed in close-up and Judy Foster in cowgirl fringes are glad sights amid the machines, and, when hitchhikers in hot pants turn up for the roadside ménage, the film blithely pops open a can of motor oil. Analytical shenanigans at the Challenge of Champions (the hero reclaims his confiscated car by ramming it through a wall and leaving a pair of hot-rodders slack-jawed at the red light), it boils down to a showdown between auteur wheels and corporate wings. "My own ride, my own way," drawls the director's stand-in, and nearly two decades later there's Crash. With Don Francks, Robert Haley, and George Buza.
--- Fernando F. Croce |