Two Lane Blacktop Questions

2-Lane is a weird blend of art film and car film - probably not a good combination. I have a number of friends who couldn't change a sparkplug but they actually like 2-Lane. I get a kick out of Warren Oate's character - the pathological liar.

There's a movie from the late '70's called 'The Driver' which has some excellent chase scenes and is not unwatchable in the non-car sections. Bruce Dern hams it up really well as a bad cop.

 

Get the DVD version, there's plenty of additional info from Monte at the end. Guy named wurlitzer (heir to the famous jukebox/organ family) did the screenplay and a Wurlitzer jukebox is in a diner scene. The movie is significant in one other respect that it was the last Hollywood road film where each shot was literally done on location at each stop using local actors as extras.
The drag strip scenes were shot outside Memphis and the locals were still abuzz about it two years later when I was stationed there in the Navy. Reportedly the 55 was slow and had to stage a win. After watching the directors cut I learned the reason was that James Taylor was driving and he could barely drive a stick.
Along with American Grafiti it remains the best car film ever made!

 

The car was slow? It ran in the 10's. That's pretty good to me.

 

A lot of younger guys may forget this was an independent "art" film made 35 years ago, not a Hollywood-Bruckheimer CGI movie like the re-make of Gone In 60 Seconds.

P.S. Look for indie-film regular Harry Dean Stanton as the homo hitch-hiker who rides with GTO. Kids, he played the dad in Pretty In Pink.

 

This is where the Hamb screws you up. I read about 2 lane blacktop here and thought "Geez, I better check that out"
What an absolute piece of shit. Never let car guys recommend car movies.. They'll give four stars to any movie that has a car that goes rappa rappa rappa...
I understand that girl killing herself. I was ready to put a bullet in my head , too!

 

I picked up a copy this past weekend in a local 'junk' store...on VHS...for $1!!

 

i just rented it from blockbuster and never returned it.....16 bucks it cost me.

 

Think "late Sixties" movie.

 

okay, one of you guys who says that this movies sucks, send me your DVD copy to replace my old VHS copy of it. i'd be glad to take it off your hands.

THe Fast and the Furious is a movied that SUCKED. Two Lane Blacktop is on my list of top ten car movies.

 

think "1971".

but i guess the 60's didn't end until the war did.

 

According to Rick Figuari the guy that now owns both of the AG cars,the 55 was first built for twolane,so yeah it would have blown the 32 into the weeds they decided not to do the crash ending as a bunch of car movies from the time were doing the same,Im not sure but I think the scripts for dirty mary & vanishing point were in the works if not in production,so they came up with the artish ending and put the cars back in storage..then comes a project by some kid named george lucas that needs some hot rods.....the rest is history

 

Roll a big fat one, make a bowl of popcorn and then hold the smoke in a little longer, and maybe it will make more sense?

 

Im glad there is this thing called "fast forward" Both movies sucked, but the cars were 100X better in Two Lane Blacktop.

 

The guy with the little green coupe is the guy that built the 55.-and yes, it is the same car from "graffiti". as in the exact same car from "graffiti".

there are conflicting accounts of which film was "in the can" first-so the question is, did they dress it up for A.G, or dull it out for "Two Lane"- judging by the way the car appears in Two lane, I would assume the latter.


Actually, the builder of the 55's was played by Richard Ruth, the mechanic at the service station who comes up and asks if they built the headers themselves, i guess as an inside joke. He didn't realize that a movie car was just a prop, and ended up building the cars as if they were going to be raced for real,straight axle, big block, tunnel ram, fibreglass everything. He later said if he knew how the cars would be used he wouldn't have built it as wild as he did. After getting beat up on the Two Lane shoot the two cars were combined to make one good one for Falfa to drive in Graffitti.

 

Name a car movie of the 70s that didn't suck..................Other than AG..............But, they were entertaining.

as a matter of fact...Name any movie of the 70s that didnt suck....the whole decade sucked.

 

the 70 sucked so bad that the rolling stones named a record after it

 

2 lane Blacktop came out in 71...........AG in 73.

If you watch reruns of Adam 12, you can see the 2 lane car in an alley scene around 72...............One of the 3 cars was then converted to the AG car, which survives today. The camera 2 lane car (interior shots) also survives.........

 

Heres a pic

 

As stated, the car was 'slow' because James Taylor couldn't drive stick very well, thus the staged win.

 

Also, look carefully at the cars in the background during the final scenes of Two Lane Blacktop. You'll see the other '55 Chevy built for the movie plus a bitchin' gasser style '57 Ford.

 

I saw the car a couple years ago its pretty correct but the original straight axle was gone the guy that owns said he knew where it was and was trying to get it I have some pictures somewhere of it but I cant find them it had the camera mounts and shit still on it.
My buddies and I love this movie Oates hilarious "WHAT you trying to do blow my mind?"

 

A guy named Coppola made a few "good" movies in the '70's:

The Godfather, 1972
The Godfather Part 2, 1974
Patton, 1970 (screenplay)
Apocalypse Now, 1979

Some other dudes named Speilberg and Scorsese made a few good films in the '70's also.

 

You know Two Lane Blacktop is very decieving, with the exception of the car I suffered wathcing it the first couple of times, but around the 30th or 35th time, you really start to notice its genious. It was shot extremely well, and GTO was the perfect character.

 

This guy claims to have that car...I tend to believe him. He seems to have all the documentation.



http://groups.msn.com/TwoLaneBlacktopHomePage

 

Read my mind.

 

All the two-lane info you ever wanted is right here,

http://groups.msn.com/twolaneblacktophomepage/_homepage.msnw?pgmarket=en-us

The guy walt who runs the page currently owns (and restored) one of the orginal two-lane cars.

There were 3 cars built for two-lane by Richard Ruth (the guy with the green coupe) and two became AG cars. The third was the camera car and ended being raced in Canada it's now owned by Walt Baily, the AG car is now a piece of shit that is rumored to not even be able to go over 20 mph because it's missing some of it's suspention parts, plus they put a bunch of specra crap on it. The third car (or the roll over car) is the one in the crash of AG but they couldn't get it to flip and as far as i know it's been MIA ever since. The car burning in the ditch is from a junk yard and in fact is a hard top with a piece of wood stuck in to make it look like a post.

 

Anyone can get the DVD, if you pay more than $19.95 you got ripped off.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Two-Lane-Blackt...668QQihZ011QQcategoryZ617QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It's on Amazon all the time too.

There is some real misinformation in here! Like the '70 GTO being Carousel Red (it was really Orbit Orange) and the guy with the Deuce having built the '55 (he didn't, it was the guy pumping gas at the first gas station). But anyway, here is a list of reasons why TLBT doesn't suck. (I didn't write it)

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Top 16 Reasons to Enjoy Two Lane Blacktop:

Because it's the purest American road movie ever.

Because it's like a drive-in movie directed by a French New Wave director.

Because the only thing that can get between a boy and his car obsession is a girl, and Lori Bird perfectly messes up the oneness between the Driver, the Mechanic, and their car.

Because Dennis Wilson gives the greatest performance ever by a driver.

Because James Taylor seems like a refugee from a Robert Bresson movie.

Because there was once a god who walked the Earth named Warren Oates.

Because there's a continuing controversy over who is the actual lead in this movie. There are different camps. Some say it's the '55 Chevy, some say it's the GTO.

Because it has the most purely cinematic ending in film history.

Because it's like a western. The guys are like old-time gunfighters, ready to out-draw the quickest gun in town. And they don't talk about old flames, but rather old cars they've had.

Because Warren Oates has a different cashmere sweater for every occasion. And of course the wet bar in the trunk.

Because unlike other films of the era with the designer alienation of the drug culture and the war protesters, this movie is about the alienation of everybody else, like Robert Frank's American Comes Alive.

Because Warren Oates, as GTO, orders a hamburger and an Alka Seltzer and says things like "Everything is going too fast and not fast enough."

Because it's both the last film of the '60s -- even though it came out in '71 -- but it's also the first film of the '70s. You know, that great era of "How the hell did they ever get that film made at a studio/Hollywood would never do that today" type of film.

Because engines have never sounded better in a movie.

Because these two young men on their trip to nowhere don't really know how to talk. The Driver doesn't really converse when he's behind the wheel, and the Mechanic doesn't really talk when he's working on the car. So this is primarily a visual, atmospheric experience. To watch this movie correctly is to become absorbed into it.

And, above all else, Two-Lane Blacktop goes all the way with its idea. And that's a rare thing in this world; a completely honest movie.

 

some just don't have a clue then.

oh yeah.

 

And......

That Plymouth had a Hemi & a 4-speed, I do believe we saw him off, even if it cost us $200.....

 

I still think it's Kool as hell that BIG WILLIE from l.a. county street racers started off the movie and the first race in the movie............what ever happened to those guys?