I love it when doing research on one subject leads to something even more interesting... I was looking at clips from the 1954 film noir classic "Crime Wave", with a young Charles Bronson as a 2 bit cr... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
Cool! I've never seen this particular car, or a Mr. Charlie Bronson film so early in his career... nice post.
Great movie featuring Sterling Hayden, the car just comes out of nowhere in the movie. It's not a part of story, he just walks up and puts his grocerys into it about a third into the movie, it really threw me for a loop the first time I saw it.
I really love those early pictures with all the very kool hotrods in them ! This is truly one Beautiful ride ! I guess I will have to check this flick out too ! Retro Jim
Picture perfect '29 Roadster for sure. I would love to check that car out in person if it's still around. If not I can alway go back to the Bishop/Tardel book and look and Bluey because I can certainly see the similarities.
Another early Bronson film is "Pat and Mike," circa early 1950s, which sadly has no hot rods or customs. It does have Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, though--which, I'm sure, makes it the only film either of them EVER did with Bronson. He plays a bodyguard-type, and he's still listed in the credits as Charles Buchinski. Not sure when he changed his name, but he wasn't born a Bronson.
Great find! I love the old "noir" classics. I just put this one in my Netflix que, can't wait to see it. Thanks for the heads up.
That has always been one of my favorite cars. Those are some great stills from that movie; it's always cool to see what the streets looked like at that time period.
I was just hanging out with a buddy in Hollywood and he said Charles got his last name from Bronson Ave., a major street that runs through LA- He was just driving around and thought it sounded like a cool name.
Always loved that Roadster! Maybe Rickster can I.D. the Carson topped Custom-is that a Barris crest on the quarter?
Back in the day, hot rodders were considered very much like the way 1%er bikers are today. There were some real low-lifes who modded cars and the rest of the scene got lumped in with them. Hot rods were linked with drug distribution, robberies, car thefts and other crimes. This provided fodder for both newpapers and B-movie producers. This is the reason why there were events such as hot rod 'reliability runs' back in the 1950s - the famed L.A. Roadsters even had a dress code (which included the wearing of ties!) that I think the club started around '56 and lasted into the '70s, just to try to clean up hot rodding's image. I have a friend from my misspent youth in SoCal who used to get regularly hassled with his T roadster when he was a kid back in the late 1950s. He was constantly being stopped by the police for so-called 'equipment violations' on stuff that was perfectly legal. The story goes that it got to the point where the guy was soooo pissed off that he decided to try to fight City Hall in court and even brought the body from his T-bucket into court as evidence - sadly, he lost...
I had heard that, I was kinda pokin fun, but none the less, I am glad the image isn't as tainted as it once was. Although with way these ratrodders are going, it may tarnish some.
I saw this movie not very long ago with a friend for my dad. The movie was great, we were just getting into the swing of it when, wham!, there that roadster was. We had to back up and take a closer look. Thanks for sharing!-dd
From the subject line I thought that this would be about Johnny's shop robbery and the stolen AD pickup in Austin.
Id love to hear the story of ferrara getting locked up for his hotrod..what was that about? anyone know any more?
In response to Jaws' comments about tarnished images: I went to a local car show today. It looked like an outing from the local rest home. I'm almost 60 and looked around at a bunch of geezers my age and up. You could almost see our body parts falling off from atrophy as we lounged in lawn chairs talking about glory days. In my opinion our image needs a little tarnishing..... a little spicing up..... a little tabasco in our geritol. Just one more day in our lives, lets live it on the edge. If its the rusty edge of a ratrod, so be it.
...and is that a 'Pabst Blue Ribbon' neon sign in the window of that grocery store??!! Those 2 bit criminals are probably loading paper sacks of it into their roadster! Somethings never change!!
Are you sure it's a 29. In 1928 roadsters did not have outside handles. Not sure about the carson type top;some makes come from the factory that way O.Hove
Why do I relate your comments, cuzncletus (just because I saw friends of mine on The History Channel a few years back!)? I agree with the need to spice things up a bit, especially after going to the Nostalgia Drags a couple of weekends back and my cronies were discussing age-related illnesses rather than camshaft spec - I suggested that them that they needed to start the GHRA (Geriatric Hot Rod Assn) for old farts to join and sit around and wax lyrically about the 'good ol' days' and complain about their aches and pains. The hardest thing about getting older is that so many people my age are looking back when there's so much to look forward to. As passionate as I am about hot rods, kustoms, etc, there are things we can do today that weren't available to us decades ago - just look at how we're communicating about our hobby.
I was at a show in Rhinebeck New York which I vended at for years. Across the street was nice restaurant with young girls. A magnet for a hot Italian guy. I looked quite dapper. The front part of my hairdo was perfect, the back aaah not that a great. I sat down at the table and two young waitresses waited on our group. Boom ! Then it happened I overheard one tell the other these old men with their old cars are so cute. A dagger through my heart.I should've went to the drive in window
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