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Racing cars "and the infants that drive them," the opening titles see a wind-up toy in smudged freeze-frames amid Cocteau scribbles. The American hotshot on European speedways (William Campbell) is a thoroughgoing bastard, cf. Robson's Champion, imperiling competitors and seducing and discarding women are his specialties. "A talent for something dangerous" comes with closet insecurity and morbid neurosis, along with a long-suffering wife (Marie Versini) and a rancorous brother (R. Wright Campbell). The athlete turned novelist (Mark Damon) has a personal vendetta, his exposé of the "little tin god" morphs as he gets to know him on and off the track. "You know, we're both missing part of what it takes. I want to be understood. You don't want anybody to know you too well." (An onlooker proposes a more concise term: "osmosis.") Characters locked in the existential circuit, contemplated by Roger Corman with an eye on La Dolce Vita and sympathy for "corrupters." Monte Carlo to Rouen to Spa-Francochamps to Zandvoort to Aintree, the Poe graveyard is never far for the ace weary of conquests and plagued by nightmares. "They don't want a man, they want a symbol." A distinction is made between war and combat when it comes to the sport, the camera is mounted on barreling machines ahead of Frankenheimer. The commentators on the margins include the acerbic secretary (Luana Anders) who's nobody's fool and the Irish mandarin (Patrick Magee) who describes himself as "a critic of life." Youthful and goateed, Francis Ford Coppola briefly turns up onscreen while setting up Dementia 13. The resolution reveals the Chabrol of Le Beau Serge and Les Cousins as an inspiration. "Oh, I never indulge in violence. I merely create the atmosphere." With Béatrice Altariba, John McLaren, Milo Quesada, and Christina Gregg.
--- Fernando F. Croce |