"A Canada-to-Mexico 3-day road race through forests, over mountains and deserts! Bringing you thrill upon thrill as death rides with every driver! Their Hopes, Their Dreams, Their Love… Tied to a Ribbon of Road!" Tony Curtis drives the "Idaho Special," a Woodill (not "Woodhill," as many sources call it) Wildfire, a modified Gl***par body on a Shorty Post-fabricated frame with all Willys Jeepster components, including the light-but-powerful-for-the-day Willys engine with a hot cam, headers, and 3 Stromberg 97s. The project started out as a personal car (two, actually) built for California Dodge dealer named Woody Woodill. The whole story is here, and it's a great one: http://www.americansportscars.com/wildfire.html Eventually, Woodill built 15 Wildfires in 1953-'54, plus about 280 kits (I'm quoting Brock Yates here, so don't hit me if the facts are a little skewed -- Yates ALSO insisted on calling Mr. Woodill "Woodhill"). The bad guys in "Johnny Dark" drive a more-or-less standard Gl***par body on I don't know what kind of running gear. There's what I ***ume is the original theatrical trailer at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p20hRWSfgMU There's an article on Forgotten Fibergl***: http://www.forgottenfibergl***.com/?p=5920 ***led "Johnny Dark – The Real Race: Santa Barbara – Goleta Airport: Labor Day 1953" (the first race in the movie), that has much information about the cars used in the movie, and still pictures -- some pretty crummy in their larger sizes, others very good -- from the December 1953 issue of Car Craft. Finally (although that's a pretty laughable word on the net!) here's an article from Forgotten Fibergl***: http://www.forgottenfibergl***.com/?p=5920 ...***led "Johnny Dark – The Real Race: Santa Barbara – Goleta Airport: Labor Day 1953" (the first race in the movie), that has much information about the cars used in the movie, and still pictures -- some pretty crummy (the brownish-tinted ones) in their larger sizes, others (the bluish-tinted ones) very good -- of the race report on the Goleta Airport race in September of 1953 in the December 1953 issue of Car Craft. The plot of the movie is typical '50s balderdash, though a cut above most of the AIP/BCI exploitation stuff, Tony Curtis is in constant histrionics, Chuck Connors is like a cigar store wooden indian, and Piper Laurie is, admittedly, bodacious (much younger and miles better-looking than in her role as the insane mother in the first, Sissy Spacek, "Carrie;" but the cars and the scenery are great. With a trailer that looks this good, this movie HAS to have been remastered fairly recently, but I can't find it for sale anywhere. If anyone knows where to find it, please let me know (also looking for the AIP cl***ics "The Young Racers," "The Wild Racers," and any other '50s-'60s racing movies. Sorry to be so long-winded, but finally, if you haven't seen "The Racers" (1955, Kirk Douglas, with the most ludicrous Italian accent as "Gino Borgesa," an Italian bus driver with visions of GP grandeur, and scenery-chewers Gilbert Roland (the original Cisco Kid), and Cesar Romero (The Joker in the '67-'68 "Batman" series) croaking out lines like "We never say "good luck" to another driver, we say "Into the lion's mouth!" or 'I spit in your crankcase!'" (I'm not making this up). However, there is excellent footage of the '52-'53 GP season, with some gussied-up Maseratis disguised to look like the mythical "Aquila" team, managed by "Ingegnere Maglio," played by Lee J. Cobb, who, thankfully, doesn't even TRY for an Italian accent. The real racing footage is superb, especially the 1952 Monaco Grand Prix, which was run that year for the first and only time as a sports car race. Douglas drives, IIRC, a Maserati A6GCS. "The Racers" was based on a slightly better novel of the same ***le by actual driver Hans Rüsch (anglicized "Ruesch" in the credits), and the movie's technical advisers (and stunt drivers, like the Mille Miglia scene where Douglas -- I think -- just brushes the arch at Ravenna) were the Baron Emmanuel "Toulo" de Graffenried, a very capable driver of the '50s in Alfa's and Maseratis, who was the stunt double for Douglas; the still robust -- at 97! -- John Fitch, inventor of the Fitch Barrier (the yellow, sand-filled plastic barrels you often see at highway exits), first manager of Lime Rock, and the only American to drive for the all-conquering Mercedes GP and Sports Car teams of '54 and '55 (in a team which also consisted of such giants of their day as Fangio and Moss, as well as Piero Taruffi, Karl Kling, and Hermann Lang), and the American great Phil Hill, who would also have a role in John Frankenheimer's "Grand Prix" as "Tim Randolph." His most famous line in "Grand Prix" was his histrionically-screaming "He's on fire! He's on fire!" as James Garner crosses the finish line in his flaming "Yamura" (supposed to be a Honda, but actually disguised older Loti and BRMs). Very good article on "Grand Prix" at: http://www.atlasf1.com/99/mon/okeefe.html Anyway, "The Racers" is still in print as a well-remastered DVD (I still have the old VHS tape of it), and is actually available for rent from Blockbuster and probably NetFlix. "Grand Prix" is still the absolute best racing movie ever made, and I include "Le Mans," which should have been great, but, largely due to McQueen's m***ive and brutal ego -- read Michael Keyser's "A French Kiss With Death" and you'll see what I mean -- was sadly cobbled-up, and literally thousands of miles of fantastic in-race footage, shot from the ex-Sebring McQueen/Revson Porsche 908/2 camera car's 3 or 4 Panaflex cameras, which caught every moment of the race from start to finish, were simply tossed in the garbage by CBS/Cinema Center, which had to take over production, editing, and distribution when McQueen's "Solar Productions" was, essentially, driven into dire overbudget bankruptcy, never to rise again, because of McQueen's racer-stud-wannabe demands and unbelievably poor decisions. Sorry for the long essay, I'm new to this forum, and a huge fan of racing movies -- even bad ones, if they have some good, authentic footage. One last item I almost forgot. If you have an all-region, all-code DVD player (I just bought a nice Panasonic model for $US50.00) or fairly modern optical computer drive (like modern Mac Superdrives, which are CD, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-RW -- and I'm sure most modern Windows machines have similar drives) there's a do***entary on the life and death of one of the most underrated drivers in history, Jo Siffert, called "Jo Siffert: Live Fast -- Die Young," made by Swiss director Men Lareida. It's not the sensationalist potboiler the ***le would suggest, it's a very sensitive film about the private Jo Siffert, from his exceptionally humble origins, to his status as, in Rob Walker's words, "one of the top 5 drivers in the world today." The film, nominated in 2006 for "Best Do***entary" at the Swiss Film Prize festival, is done in narrative form with back-and-forth modern-commentary/original footage style (and most of the original footage is private stuff seldom, if ever, seen) with the modern commentaries by his children, Véronique and Philippe, his amazing sister Adelaide, first and second wives, Jack Heuer (yeah, the watch guy), motorsports journalist Adriano Cimarosti, Swiss artist, sculptor, and Siffert's close friend Jean Tinguely, Peter Gethin, and several others. The best commentaries -- although they're all good -- are from his sister Adelaide, and his long-time friend and early-days racing mechanic Heini Mader. The DVD was never released in the US, strictly in the European market, so it's PAL (rather than our NTSC) and Region 0 (Europe -- see above for solutions). If you look for it (Amazon has it), make sure you get the 2-disc version: the second disc is a fantastic collection of interview outtakes, a BP film on the GP at Berne, and Siffert's race stats, but the gems here are about 90 minutes of Heini Mader's 8mm home movies of his travels with Siffert as his chief mechanic -- priceless. It is a remarkable and very -- VERY -- intimate view of Jo Siffert the man, not just Jo Siffert the driver. I'm 62, I grew up 40 miles from Watkins Glen and started going there in 1961, and kept going right up until the last GP -- went to one NASCAR race; when the supporting racers (Trans-Am at that time) are many, many seconds quicker on the course than the main event NASCAR dinosaurs, you're in trouble -- I've been a real motorsports (which died out in 1972, IMHO) head for more than 50 years, and "Jo Siffert: Live Fast -- Die Young" is THE best motorsports movie, do***entary or drama, I've ever seen. Bart Brown
Say Slim -- isn't your avatar (or whatever we're calling these things now) the celebrated Captain P***gums, of Captain P***gums and His Perverted Pirates, drawn by the incredibly demented S. Clay Wilson, from the cover of Zap Comix #3?
Bart... I'd enjoy seeing the scans. Thanks for offering to do this. I'll check back tomorrow / later in the week to see the images. Much appreciated Geoff
The Jalopy Journal
