Great Old Racing Movie in B&W

[John Rogers]

I was channel surfing this morning and on one of the local over the air HD channels I saw a movie named "The Fast and The Furious" that was in black and white and centers around the old Santa Barbara sports car race. The acting was normal for that time frame but the cars were great! I couldn't figure why a driver every now and then had to take 'the escape road" as the background announcer put it but it was worth watching.

Much better than the current crop of "car" movies!

[ckissick]

Where did they race? I used to live in SB and there's no race track. Great mountain roads, though.

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by ckissick

Where did they race? I used to live in SB and there's no race track. Great mountain roads, though.

It was mountain roads, a great flick, I picked up the DVD a few years back.

[John Rogers]

Much like the sports car "Southern California Loop" as it was called, the cars raced on regular roads such as Santa Barbra, Torrey Pines, Del Mar, Carlsbad (airport), Tijuana Airport and finally Nuevo Tijuana (near where the bull ring by the sea is now. If you search enough you can actually find programs, posters and such from these races on the web. Oh and don't forget Holtville where Steve McQueen raced!

When I did the first street sports car race back in 2004 in southern TJ, I met two of the really old guys that drove for a Mexican sports car dealership. One drove a Chevy Vega that had a Cosworth engine and the other a Triumph! They were so happy I let them get into the 914-6 racer they didn't want to get out and one had tears in his eyes!

[Z-man]

FWIW, On the Beach has a pretty nice racing scene in it as well in B&W.

-Z

[herr_oberst]

Just watched that a couple of weeks ago - it's available for streaming on Netflix.

[ckissick]

Cool. I used to do a little of that myself back around 1980. Great roads above SB.

[Scott Douglas]

I just watched the movie Byron posted. THANKS! That was great. I liked how at the start of the race the 356 coupes looked so BIG going by.
Thanks for posting that video.

[TRE Cup]

That was a roger corman film where the main actor also contributed to the production of the movie. There were cut in shots of the a real jag racing at (looks like- Del Monte Pines (the original pebble beach races) interspersed with our hero up in the hills (looks like griffith park in some of the evade the cops shots) as well as paramount ranch (real and fake races)

Corman would typically cut in real race scenes in his movies that saved $$ on producing his race movies

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

I just watched the movie Byron posted. THANKS! That was great. I liked how at the start of the race the 356 coupes looked so BIG going by.
Thanks for posting that video.

No problem, I'm trying to build a collection of old car move DVDs, a few years back, at the Turkey Rod Run, where I found that one and a few other old car movies, and another great old movie is "The Big Wheel"
This is when real men races, watch some of the crash scenes

[MattKellett]

Originally Posted by ckissick

Where did they race? I used to live in SB and there's no race track. Great mountain roads, though.

In the 50's they used to race at the airport in Santa Barbara, which in those days it was fairly common to race on air fields.

They even held races at Moffett field, which of course is just over the hill from you.


Matt

[911pcars]

The first Fast and Furious, not starring Van Diesel, the one from the 50's, is like the typical B film of that era (made on the cheap for max. ROI). Looks like producer Roger Corman didn't provide actor/director Ireland much more than a camera, sound guy and some raw film on this shoot. Most of the two shots must have been on automatic exposure since the white Jag was properly exposed but Ireland and otherwise luscious Dorothy Malone were in deep, deep shadow (underexposed). Sorry. I thought the dialogue could have used more work. I strained to suspend disbelief. However, the spliced-in scenes from a real sports car race library make it interesting for the car-nostalgia crowd.

OTOH, these are classic films from that era:




Sherwood

[wdfifteen]

I recommend watching the cars behind the credits (Jags, a Nash-Healy, and a TR 2), then fast forward to the 60 minute mark. The story and acting are awful.

[Flieger]

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I The story and acting are awful.

"Awful" is a generous description, but Dorothy Malone is just gorgeous!

[911Freak]

Originally Posted by Flieger

We went up to "The Ranch" with a PCA group couple of years ago, had lunch and walked the track. Amazing how much is still left! The main road in was the front straight IIRC. Banked turns, switchbacks.... History, some of the biggest names in the day raced out there... I consider it a must see for racing fans in SoCal...

The "Old West" town filming set was cool too! Seemed like it was all built in smaller scale tho?!

Thanks for the videos