Motion Pictures Thunder Road

I would….but I like the hunt…. and racing TOOK all my money!
Hopefully it will come to net flicks , soon!




Bones

 

On the First of April...1954.
He was out of Harlan KY.

Thunder Road has been called the most personal Hollywood Movie. Mitchum formed the production company. He was the producer. He wrote the original story. He wrote the script. He wrote the ***le song and a Rock and Roll version. His son starred as a main character. His girlfriend had a big role.

They could not!
Mitchum's song is the "real story". Mitchum had to change the story in order to get his movie made.
The story of Crogan and the gangsters was added. Also the Gene Barry character was invented as the "Good" federal agent.
The song tells the story about the 200 agents and the mountain boy from Harlan.....
On the first of April 1954.....the feds sent word he would not get through (200 agents)....Just outside Bearden, down on Kingston Pike....they (agents) made their fatal strike. He left the road at Ninety, that is all there is to say.

The true story is it was the Feds who wrecked the mountain boy, not a bunch of comical B movie gangsters.

Now, do not get me wrong, I'm trying to glorify the shine trade. There were and are some de****able characters in it. What immediately comes to mind are the syndicates that operated out of Phenix City AL (******inated sitting Alabama Attorney General, Patterson 1954) and North Mississippi (antagonists of Pusser in Walking Tall).
The Phenix City event is mentioned in Thunder Road.

One to take note in Mitchum's song, The agents warned the "Mountain Boy" not to make his run. They plainly told him, He would not get through. This happened all the time. The agents and moonshiners would send messages. If things began to escalate...go to far over an issue...one side or the other would send messages that there would be consequences. Most of the time....they would back off.

 

The first time I saw the movie was a few years ago. A friend near Bristol,TN (way eastern Tennessee) had a rod picnic at his home. There were 30 or 40 rods parked in the back yard.
One of his garages was decorated like a 50's soda fountain. Large screen TV in one corner playing the movie.
Anyone else there?

 

My wife & I were on our honeymoon in Niagara Falls (no money) in 1966 and Thunder Road was scheduled to be on the late- movies. I stayed up to watch it. Our first fight and the last one I won.

 

What color was the 57 Ford? Starmist Blue, Willow Green......

 

..........This has been debated on another thread on here a while back and it seems the consensus was Willow Green. If someone more capable than myself can find that thread, please post a link..........Thanks, Don.

 

Charles Elledge who played the part of Jimmy in Thunder Road rented a house from my grandmother in Boone NC for many years. He was am actor in an
outdoor drama called " Horn in the West" that had been performed in Boone for decades. I Met him several times back in the seventies . He had a daughter named Cherie whom also had some parts in various B movies, one in particular was called " Hot Summer in barefoot County" which was also a moon shine story and Charles played in the movie as well. for a few years he won some sorta contest as the Santa Clause of the year ( or something like that) because later in his life he looked exactly like Santa. While visiting My Grandmother in 1972, I feel off a fence and broke my arm. Cherie actually signed my cast and drew a big star beside her name. I Kept it for years after it was removed. BTW, she was pretty hot. I saw that she recently died and after reading her obit , saw that she did a couple of soaps and was in Talladega Nights.

 

My “near” claim to 15 minutes… . I the mid 70’s my dad would do tractor work for a fell named Earl Randolph, eEarl had some race horses, well, his wife did.
I don’t recall the track that Earl and Sabrina were at but they took my dad with them, and sitting next to them in the area was Robert Mitchum. Anyways, no autographs, no ****y stories, just thought I’d add a
meager bit to the thread

 

You never know back then. My Dad bought a new 49’ two door sedan late in the model year. When it came off the truck the bumpers and the trunk lock / license plate trim were slightly different than all the other cars in stock.

A few weeks later they got the first 50’ models and realized his 49’ had some 50’ parts on it. Guess when they ran out of some 49’ stuff they just continued on with the next year parts.

 

Some of you might the book Return to thunder road byAlex Gabbard it’s a somewhat history of moonshining I thought it was good