Two-Lane Blacktop

Plot synopsis:
Two street racers, the Driver (Taylor) and the Mechanic (Wilson) live on the road in their highly modified, primer-gray, 1955 Chevrolet 150 two-door sedan drag car and drift from town to town, making their income by challenging local residents to impromptu drag races. As they drive east on Route 66 from Needles, California, they pick up the Girl (Bird), a female hitchhiker, in Flagstaff, Arizona when she gets into their car at a diner. Although the Driver develops a crush on the Girl, she sleeps with the Mechanic when the Driver goes out drinking one night. In New Mexico, they begin to encounter another car driver, GTO (Oates), on the highways. An atmosphere of hostility develops between the two parties. Although GTO is not an overt street racer, and, in fact, seems to know little about cars, a cross-country race to Washington, D.C. is suggested. The Driver proposes that the prize should be "for pinks," or legal ownership of the loser's car. Along the way, GTO picks up various hitchhikers, including an importuning homosexual hitchhiker (Harry Dean Stanton). When GTO's inexperience becomes apparent, he, the Driver and the Mechanic form an uneasy alliance; the Driver even drives with him for a while when GTO gets fatigued.
Needing money, the Driver, the Mechanic and GTO compete at a race track in Memphis. While the Driver finishes his race, the Girl hops into GTO's car and they leave. The Driver pursues them to a diner located on US129 (today the location is known as the Tail of the Dragon) where the Girl has just rejected GTO's idea to visit Chicago. The Driver proposes going to Columbus, Ohio to get parts, but the Girl rejects him too. Instead, she leaves with a stranger on a motorcycle, abandoning her belongings in the parking lot. Later, GTO picks up two soldiers and tells them that he won his car by beating two men driving a custom-built 1955 Chevrolet 150 in a cross-country race. At an airstrip in East Tennessee, the Driver races against an El Camino.

Tags: cult, atmospheric

Review:
It is a road movie, a film about cars, and a search for meaning in American life that could easily be called "Zen and the Art of Drag Racing".
We feel the claustrophobia, the spaces, the speed, and the loneliness.The film stars singers James Taylor (Fire and Rain) and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys as taciturn drag races who drive their souped-up 1955 Chevy across the country challenging locals to a drag race.
Warren Oates, a Monte Hellman regular, turns in a truly outstanding performance as the driver of a Pontiac GTO who challenges Taylor and Wilson to a cross-country race, the prize being the ownership of the cars.
Though the Chevy looks old and ugly, it is as powerful as any car on the road and the driver and the mechanic treat it like their own flesh and blood, constantly fine tuning to maintain its impeccable performance.
Though the main thrust of the plot is the race to Washington, DC, the focus seems to get lost along the way, and the film becomes more of a character study of the lack of human connection than about racing.The film looks for the soul of America in the early 1970s and comes up empty.
As an admirer of Monte Hellman's superb 1960s westerns 'Ride In The Whirlwind' and 'The Shooting' I had been dying to see 'Two-Lane Blacktop' for many years as most people who have seen it regard it as Hellman's best movie, and one of the greatest road movies ever made.
Oates plays G.T.O. a drifter and dreamer who challenges two young revheads (played by James Taylor and The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson) to a cross country car race.
The brilliant Warren Oates is the star of the show as 'G.T.O', the driver of a bright yellow 1970 Pontiac G.T.O, who passes a 1955 Chevy driven by 'The Driver', musician James Taylor, who is accompanied by 'The Mechanic', former Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, and a hitchhiker they pick up 'The Girl', Laurie Bird.
I kind of respect them for this - leaving Joe Public to use his/her own brain in order to decide what the movie is all about.One of the people in a featurette on the DVD said that "people haven't begun to realise how good Two-Lane Blacktop is" and I think that's right - the more I think about it, the better this film becomes in my estimation.My take on the movie is that it's basically a contrast of the two extremes of human behaviour, as characterised by the brash, noisy "GTO" played by Warren Oates and the quiet, understated-to-the-point-of-lifelessness "Driver" and "Mechanic" - their personalities perfectly mirrored in their choice of cars.
But we only want a little bit of drama, because that's not really the point, and too much drama would distract from the underlying theme.I really love the "space" in this movie: the long takes, the long silences, the wide-open scenery, the fact that nobody SAYS anything (Warren Oates talks a lot, but never SAYS much).
In modern life in general, I think people talk too much - try sitting still and shutting up for 103 minutes while watching this movie.Not that I suppose anyone is interested, but I eventually rated this at about #70 in my Top 250, but next time I watch it I may move it up to #1 or drop it out of the 250 entirely....
In the film, like most road movies, the land becomes a character within itself, and Hellman creates that here.
Those who love films such as Easy Rider, and later Vanishing Point, will chalk this up, not only as one of the greatest "road" movies of all time, but as one of the lasts attempts at true"American" freedom..
Warren Oates plays a GTO driver who, on his road East, challenges two car nuts for "pink slips".
If the end is a symbolic representation of this moral double-bind that pushes them into two opposite directions, only Monte Hellman knows.The reason I'm musing about characters in a car movie however is simple.
How the driver of the GTO (played by Warren Oates) got the car depends on which of his stories the viewer believes.
The others are two recording artists, James Taylor of "Fire and Rain" fame, and Dennis Wilson from The Beach Boys and a flower child Laurie Bird who tragically committed suicide in Art Garfunkel's apartment a few years later (ironically Garfunkel had helped Paul Simon sing the hit "I've gone to look for America").
At face value it's nothing more than a poorly plotted road trip across the U.S. Southwest, as two guys and a girl, in a 1950's hotrod, race a guy named G.T.O (Warren Oates) in his yellow muscle car.The film's concept is a little like that of the early 1960's TV series "Route 66".
It was another case of being jarred loose from the film, but by that time I had been jarred so many times I was beginning to feel like last season's apricots.This is not a good example of a road movie.
James Taylor and Dennis Wilson portray two car fanatics on the roads of America racing their custom '55 Chevy.
Warren Oates plays GTO, the object of their passion for a race from the west to Washington D.C. The film is full of style and wit, basically a comment on the culture of the time when men judged each other very much the way they judged their cars.
Two Lane Blacktop is, together with Red Line 7000, perhaps the best film about car racing ever made.The absence of plot and the minimal characterization reminds of another american film of the 70's, Walter Hill's `The Driver.
What that film was for the noir genre this one is for the road-movie, a type of picture that was reaching its height around the time.Monte Hellman, a crafted director that got his apprentice under the wings of Roger Corman, presents an empty world of wasted landscapes, forgotten towns and sleepy gas stations populated by ghostly and vanishing archetypes.
Despite their apparent differences they all constitute a single and exchangeable character, shown by a number of movements taking place throughout the film -driving each other's cars, behind the wheel or at the front seat, competing against each other or together performing a task.This is an exercise of form, a raw vision of a country falling into pieces with nowhere to go, lost in cyclical repetition and in the eve of self-destruction, as the outstanding last frame of the film burning the screen poetically concludes..
Two Lane is one of those that underscore movie elements (in this case via moody settings, disjointed dialogue) in its telling of a deceptively simple tale of four people racing in two cars across America.There is also the right amount of uncertainty, the kind that doesn't confuse you to distraction.
Two drag-racers, named The Driver (James Taylor), and The Mechanic (Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson), travel across America looking for quick money racing their souped-up '55 Chevy.
Films such as Easy Rider (1969) and Vanishing Point (1971) channelled feelings of anger and the longing for freedom that were brought on by events such as the Kent State massacre in 1970, causing a generation gap and the isolation of youth.Not to say there isn't car-porn on show here - the '55 Chevy is rusty and ugly, but the growl it gives out when revved is invigorating.
My favorite car movie of all time is undoubtedly Monte Hellman's 1971 minimalist masterpiece Two-Lane Blacktop.
I just picked up the glorious Criterion widescreen edition and, even if you're not a gear head (which I'm not), you will love watching this beautifully photographed, exquisitely paced, angst-ridden, post- modern western.The film stars singer/songwriter James Taylor (with hair) and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson as "The Driver" and "The Mechanic." These guys don't have a lot to say and are driven to do one thing: win races with their stripped down / souped up 1955 Chevy.
When the road leads them to Hellman fixture Warren Oates (sporting a stock 1970 G.T.O.), it doesn't take long before the cocky eccentric (named G.T.O. in the film's credits) provokes the boys to put pink slips on the table in a race to Washington D.C.Like the boy's Chevy, this movie is stripped down to the bare essentials and its because of TLB's leanness, it runs fast and clean.
Alternating between wide angled lenses (in car) and telephoto lenses (in the real world), Hellman infuses TLB with a documentary feel, yet somehow manages to never compromise the film's perfectly shot compositions.Within TLB the sensibilities of the classic Hollywood Western are intact, right down to the setting of the American Southwest.
Having realised this vision early on in his career with "My Own Private Idaho" he abandoned this quest, opting for mainstream acceptance, not to mention commercial success."Two Lane Blacktop", Monte Hellmans' elegiac ode to existential despair is set in the milieu of drag car racing.
Warren Oates, the only real actor and a Hellman favorite turns in a powerful performance."Two Lane Blacktop" makes for a companion piece with Frank Perry's "Play It As It Lays", made around the same time.
"What is this, some kind of masculine power trip?"The girl who chooses to ride with the two young car fanatics in their rambling across the United States sums up this film perfectly.No need for intimacy here, no need for names or anything but a good fast car and a stretch of blacktop to race on.
Will the characters here end up open to more of life's possibilities, or remain single-minded ciphers?Hellman works wonders with the script by Wurlitzer and Corry, also creating some of the traditional appeal of a cross country road movie.
Hellman uses the Panavision aspect ratio to great effect, letting our eyes take in as much as possible at any given moment.Singer / songwriter James Taylor and Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys deliver their sole acting performances to date, playing an unnamed Driver and Mechanic, tooling about the U.S.A. in a primer grey '55 Chevy.
Laurie Bird rounds out the main acting quartet, doing a nice job as the young girl tagging along with our Driver and Mechanic.Instead of building to a "big finish", "Two-Lane Blacktop" winds up with a much more low key resolution.
Singer James Taylor, Beach Boys-Drummer Dennis Wilson and the wonderful Warren Oates (who was Tommy Lee Jones before Tommy Lee Jones) race and pine through the American vastness in search of, well, that's anybody's guess.I doubt a single Hollywood Studio would finance a movie like this today.
Maybe the movie could have been better if James Taylor would have gotten together with Dennis and the rest of the Beach Boys and sang about cars, women, racing, lovin' whatever.
I give Hellman's movie credit for capturing that mood like a firefly caught in a bottle, and I have to imagine someone who lived through this time and saw this film upon its initial release would have quite a different experience from me.
There's no last minute blaze of glory here, just an indication that after everything that had taken place within the film's time frame, ultimately nothing really changes and the hint that these characters will never live their lives any differently to the only way they know how to live life right up until the point where they either burn out or fade away.
This movie is a cult/classic for car buffs.James Taylor (the driver) and Dennis Wilson,(the Mechanic) are incredible.
A lot of people who watch this movie today will view it as something of a curiosity but I don't know if they will be able to really 'connect' with the characters, the cars, and the lifestyles portrayed in it.
James Taylor and Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson are well-cast in the leads, though Warren Oates delivers the film's true performance as the complicated driver who can't settle on a past history (it changes with whomever in his company).
A mid-movie stop at a gasoline station in the rain is really the only time when I questioned the screenwriters' agenda (a patrol car follows close behind Taylor's Chevy but disappears, while Oates passes out and is helped back into his car); however, in a contemplative (or is that lackadaisical?) picture like this, one is encouraged to go with the flow and not expect explanations at every turn.
There is some racing and a lot of hot rods but the real story is about the main characters: GTO, The Girl, The Driver, and The Mechanic.
Or having the random pairing of music stars Dennis Wilson (Beach Boys) and James Taylor (the latter in his only film), accompanied by Warren Oates, would make it an oddity of movie casting.
Not just the obvious of the cars on route 66, but little things like the compositions at night of the riders in the car, the steadiness that adds to the minimalism.From its performances by professional (Oates and Stanton's walk-on) and non (everybody else), to the sturdy visual obsession with the physical prowess of 60s/70s cars, it's ultimately a great movie to just watch by yourself, in your home late at night, and sit and really think about what you saw.
They begin to encounter yellow GTO driver who finally makes a suggestion to race across country to Washington DC.'Two-Lane Blacktop' is notable as a time capsule film as it depicts legendary Route 66 during pre-interstate highway era.
The film constantly gets compared with another road movies with existential message such as 'Easy Rider' or 'Vanishing Point', but 'Blacktop' surpasses them by pure style..
Two-Lane Blacktop is not the type of film one should see if one is inclined to see a story about exciting car races and complex character studies.
The most interesting character in the film is that of the GTO driver, performed with playful gusto by the great character actor Warren Oates.
In fact, there is a distinct lack of anything in the film and events feel totally arbitrary, for example, after fleeing the aforementioned scene, the two men, known only as the Driver & the Mechanic - played by singer-songwriter James Taylor and Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson (in his only acting role), respectively - drift across the highways and route 66.
Played by Warren Oates, he is by far the most entertaining character in the film, picking up hitchhikers - such as Harry Dean Stanton in an early appearance as a gay cowboy - in his flashy yellow car.
But that purpose is inevitably meaningless and as the film draws to a close, it becomes evident - like Easy Rider before it and Vanishing Point after it - that for the Driver, there is nothing at the end of the road.For more reviews of overlooked movies, please visit: http://avoid-at-all-costs.blogspot.com/.
TWO LANE BLACKTOP, 70ties film-making birthed out of the late 60s scene of road movies.
The greatness of TWO LANE BLACKTOP which alternates it from other road movies lies in its simple-minded characters and the endless journey - if you wonder anything about how the plot concerning two cars racing through the Southwest ends, you seem to be missing the point.
Taylor and Wilson sing nothing at all; but, if they had, the film's spell would be broken.Monte Hellman's "Two-Lane Blacktop" is not an easy rider.
And, the road goes on forever...********* Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) Monte Hellman ~ James Taylor, Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird, Warren Oats.
'Two Lane Blacktop' was clearly intended to cash in on the surprise success of "Easy Rider", it's roadside café scene set up to look like a carbon copy, endless roads traveled by drop-outs going nowhere, and minimal story to get in the way or complicate the low cost film making process.
The movie even reduces them down to being known as, the driver, the mechanic, and the girl.The only real actor in the cast, Warren Oates is known only as GTO (his car of course ).
Dennis Wilson is the mechanic, James Taylor is the driver.What makes this film notable, first of all, is the cast.
Two-Lane Blacktop has themes that can be concatenated with Easy Rider's, but it has a more efficient way of communicating them and spending more time developing a relationship rather than catering to a specific group of people.The film is simplicity itself; two wayward young men drive on Route 66 in their modified and meticulously-perfected 1955 Chevy 150, searching for impromptu drag races.
The two young men are played by singer-songwriter James Taylor and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, making this their first and only film roles, the girl is Laurie Bird, and the GTO-driver is Warren Oates.When a film gives you this little, there must be something below the surface, and dissection and examination of Two-Lane Blacktop's minimalist style proves that it has thematic resonance.
As director Monte Hellman suggests on the Criterion DVD release, "Two Lane Blacktop," despite its official release date, is the last movie of the 1960s.The souped up 1955 Chevy driven by Taylor and tended to by his mechanic sidekick Wilson is the film's central symbol for the Romantic notion of burning with a white hot flame.
The actors were youthful and inexperienced (other than Oates) and the plot, such as it is, is riddled with deliberate aimlessness and disproportion, ending anti-climactically and with little or nothing resolved.In most ways "Two Lane Blacktop" is really an anti-road movie and those who watch it thinking they will be rewarded by exciting car races and sexual adventure are in for a big disappointment.
The movie can most likely be interpreted a number of ways, but to me Two-Lane Blacktop is the story of four people on a journey.
At the very end of the film, GTO has assumed the story and identity of The Driver when he picks up two servicemen and tells them he won the car in a cross-country race against a 56 Chevy.