dragstrip girl [1957]

 

the Unofficial Start of Summer begins this weekend so i wanted to get a jump start on my sunny holidays!  which means looking for a drive-in movie to watch without going to the drive-ins.  i'm such a drag.  i rarely go to the theaters & i have not been to our local drive-in in several years.  why?  i can't explain it.  the theater going experience, which was a kind of ceremony to me, faded.  movie theaters, & especially drive-ins, had magic.  even during the Cable TV & VHS eras.  they were places to not just see a movie but to perform the sacred rituals of purchasing your ticket at the ticket counter, examining & admiring the movie posters on the walls, & participate in the bustle of the snack bars.  i mean all these things still exist, of course.  & maybe i'm just an old codger.  i took a few film classes at university.  which i enjoyed the hell out of.  but part of the magic of the movie going ceremony was that you were ditching class to see them rather than studying them in a formal setting.  going to the movies was an anarchic, dreamy set of experiences rather than a category on a college syllabus.  today's movie going experience for me lacks that anarchic sense of wonder.  

but yeah even so, i still love the movies.  very much so.  the cheesier the better.  from my beloved genre of horror to cheapies like this hot rod flick starring the likes of john ashley as rich kid, & primary juvenile delinquent, fred, steve terrell as fellow hot rodder but overall good guy, jim, & the lovely fay spain as the eponymous dragstrip girl, & fellow thrill-seeker, louise.  she is the new girl in town, & at nearly the ripe old age of almost 19 [yeah, i know!  what a doozy!  but then again, this pic was made in the late '50s when the term teenager was, arguably, in new usage] louise loves nothing more than her hot rod going real fast.

fred & jim both belong to the same car club & both fall deeply in heat for louise.  they've never met a chick like her.  but here i was disappointed in the writers of this script.  i thought maybe, just maybe, louise would become the leader of this gang & showcase spain's talents as a young woman who lived by rimbaud's credo, TO ENJOY FREE FREEDOM WITH HORRIBLE OBSTINACY.  who am i kidding!  this was the 1950s!  it wouldn't be until the early 1970s that single women could open their own bank accounts!  oh fucking shit!

instead, bad boy fred & good guy jim savagely compete for the affections of pretty louise.  their hot rod gang, which includes character actors frank gorshin, who would later star as the riddler in the batman TV show, & pin-up model/actress judy bamber, hang out at the local pizza joint where they drink malteds & dance to that crazy jazz music, work on their cars at the garage, & annoy the local peace officers.  ashley does a pretty credible job at being a creep.  i think this might've been his first movie role.  according to wikipedia he got the part when he accompanied his girlfriend to the open reading.  the casting agents liked his tuff guy good looks & asked him to read cold.  they dug him.  he got the part.  his girlfriend did not.  

but what about louise?  spain is lovely indeed.  & she kicks butt as louise.  if this flick was made in the present-day i suspect the movie would center around her character as a more deliberative agent in the plot.  but she does get to race at the conclusion.  louise' parents are pretty cool too.  dad bought the hot rod for her & overall loves & encourages louise to be her own woman.  directed by edward l. cahn for American Internation Pictures this movie does not wear out its welcome moving at a brisk pace for 69 minutes.  this is a cheaply made, shot in six days, flick perfect for drive-in movie going.  even if i didn't have that experience of breathing in the exhaust fumes of the cars from my childhood, or hear that wonderful crunching of tires on gravel, or trying to listen to the movie out of a tin can for a speaker, & taking my gut, & perhaps even risking my life!, on a culinary adventure at the snack bar where the popcorn is greasy & the hamburgers approximate digestible food, i did have a pretty good time watching this summertime flick.