Almost shamefully, I watched High School Confidential for the first time last night. It's a loathsome film by anyone's standards, but I gritted my teeth and worked my way through it as I had always wanted to see the scene in which one of the two Chev... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
Yep, that flick is almost brutally stupid. Love the repeated cuts back to the precariously loose wheelcover on the Imperial during the race scene! For more cinematic masochism sit through the only slightly less ridiculous "T-bird Gang" from 1959 to see scenes featuring Junior Conway's custom shoebox Ford Club Coupe! These movies do have some value, making the highly-overrated "Thunder Road" look like "Citizen Kane"!
Norm Grabowski plays the role (uncredited) of "Flat Top" in this movie. Check out his scenes at minutes 22.58 and 34.59. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051724/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast
Some shots of the 2 Chevies in Barris's shop were shown in R&C, I think several years after the movie was made...maybe '62 or so. The article was a general one on cars in the movies, I believe. One finished car, one quick and dirty car for the wreck. Arin Cee also had a strip on Hollywood hotrod movies...a bunch of roadster owning hotrodders show up to help in a movie, and are summarily dismissed by the director..."Get me some '49 Fords and throw some paint on them!!"...Scenes of junkers with foxtails tumbling end over end, hubcaps and bodies flying in all directions...
Haha that was almost as almost as awsome as the charger in fast and furious doing the tire smoking wheel stand.
If you pause and watch frame by frame, you can see the catapult on the ground, set up so dropping the car shoots a wheel/tire into the air. Hilarious.
HEY....wait a minute....they did the best they could with what they had to work with "special effects" wise back then...so don't knock em for tryin....and I especially like those "tight sweater" scenes with boobs that look like 56 Cadillac front bumpers
As for the cars, I always liked the profile of them. I think the chop and even the filled quarters are cool in a sort of "teenage" kind of way. I just have never been able to get past the quicky grill treatments.
I got a chuckle out of the 'drop from the sky'.... sometimes the worse the movie, the more entertaining.
What special effects? That's perfectly normal cornering style for a '48 Chevy going around at more than 15MPH....the tire, though, does challenge a few laws of physics.
The article I read stated that because the cars were lowered, the stunt driver could not get the car to roll. after repeated attempts the crane was hired. I don't know if I am remembering it correctly, because I also thought Bailon built the cars.
Come on - what an ALL STAR cast. the truly impressive Mamie Van Doren, Jackie Coogan. John Drew Barrymore (Drew Barrymore's daddy), Ray Anthony (then married to Mamie Van Doren), Charles Chaplin Jr., Michael Landon, and Jerry Lee Lewis as "himself." This updated Reefer Madness is not to be missed! What's not to love?
That was a fun movie. H, guns, rods and customs, playin it cool. What's not to love? Full of crazy stuff for a 1958 teen film.
Not to mention Norm G. and a Barris Custom! I'm with you Don. Like most of the '50's Teenage exploitation/Hot Rod/R&R/Sci-Fi movies, I dig it for the "period content", not the broth thick plot.
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