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| Coupe de Ville (1990) |
-Another sadly forgotten road trip film is Coupe de Ville from 1990, in which Daniel Stern, Ayre Gross and Patrick Dempsey are brothers who have to drive a Cadillac that their father (the great Alan Arkin) bought as a gift for their mother from Detroit to Florida. Trouble and enlightenment ensue, of course, but the story and the acting make it a very pleasant trip.
-A list like this wouldn't be complete without a Burt Reynolds film, but I'm going to eschew the famous Cannonball and Smokey series in favor of
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| W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) |
something more obscure and more entertaining -- W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings from 1975. As directed by John Avildsen, who would direct Rocky a year later, this movie about a shiftless charmer (guess who) hooking up with a struggling country band has lots of southern fried charm.
-Another road movie featuring an actor at his most charming is Fandango (1985), which clearly shows why Kevin Costner became a movie star shortly thereafter. Here he's a college guy who takes a trip from Texas to Mexico in 1971 with his friends before they go their separate ways.
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| It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) |
-If you're looking for a purely comic interpretation of the road movie, it's hard to beat it's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which featured many of the great comic actors of 1963 (Sid Caeser, Phil Silvers, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Dick Shawn, Terry-Thomas, and Edie Adams) racing across the southwest trying to dig up a fortune in stolen money before policeman Spencer Tracy arrests them. Anyone who's experienced the chaos of present day Santa Monica along the Pacific Coast Highway will be astounded to see it acting the part of a small, quiet town in the film's final scenes. Remade to less effect as Rat Race in 2001.
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| The Gumball Rally (1976) |
-The Cannonball Run movies got progressively worse (they did three, though the last one was also known as Speed Zone) and hardly bear watching today, but the un-official version of the cross-country race (which really took place in the 1960s) is still worth a look. That would be The Gumball Rally from 1975, starring Michael Sarrazin, Tim McIntire, Nicholas Pryor, Gary Busey and the late, great Raul Julia.
-Two-Lane Blacktop starred singers
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| Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) |
James Taylor and Dennis Wilson (of the Beach Boys) as The Driver and The Mechanic, respectively, who make their living by racing a 1955 Chevy against whatever local hicks they can find. Then they meet Warren Oates as GTO, and the two cars race from California to Washington, DC, "for pinks." Minimalist acting of a lean script make it sort of stagy, but the 1971 film is still worth watching for the way it portrays the great themes as they manifest themselves through internal combustion.
