Hot Rods to Hell (1967)

User Rating:

4.8/10   

Director:

John Brahm

Writers:

Robert E. Kent (screenplay)
Alex Gaby (short story)

Release Date:

27 January 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The motorcycle gangs take a back seat when these young animals clear the road for excitement !

Plot:

Tom Phillips, his wife Peg their teenage daughter Tina and little boy Jamie drive through the California desert heading for a new life running a motel...

Plot Keywords:

Motel | Desert | On The Road | Trip | Christmas

Cast

Dana Andrews	...	Tom Phillips
Jeanne Crain	...	Peg Phillips
Mimsy Farmer	...	Gloria
Laurie Mock	...	Tina Phillips
Paul Bertoya	...	Duke
Gene Kirkwood	...	Ernie
Jeffrey Byron	...	Jamie Phillips (as Tim Stafford)
George Ives	...	Lank Dailey
Hortense Petra	...	Wife at picnic
William Mims	...	Man at picnic
Paul Genge	...	Bill, Highway Patrol Officer
Peter Oliphant	...	Little boy at picnic
Harry Hickox	...	Bill Phillips
Charles P. Thompson	...	Charley (service station proprietor)
Mickey Rooney Jr.	...	Combo leader

Also Known As:

52 Miles to Terror (USA)

Runtime:

92 min | USA:100 min (Turner library print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-12 (1991) | Norway:15 (video premiere) | USA:Approved (PCA #31549)

Filming Locations:

Antelope Valley, California, USA

Company:

Four-Leaf Productions

Trivia:

Veteran director John Brahm's final film.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: Crew and camera cranes visible in overhead shot of four "hot rods" chasing the family.

Quotes:

Man at picnic: You wanna' join us for a drink?
Tom Phillips: No thanks, we have to leave now.
Man at picnic: Well, you gas up the car, why not gas up the driver?

Hell-Bent

(Slight Spoilers)Recovering from a Christmas eve smash-up salesman Tom Phillips, Dana Andrews,is laid up in traction for some two months. Released from the hospital Tom not only lost his life-savings, by paying off his medical bills, but his job as a traveling salesman as well.

Tom's brother Bill, Harry Hickox, later get's Tom to buy this out of the way motel, Dailey's, out in the Califonia desert. As soon as he's well enough Tom and his wife Peg, Jeanne Crain, and his two children Tina & Jamie, Lourie Mock & Jeffery Byron, travel out west to start a new and better life for himself and the family, or so Tom thought.

1960's youth movie with 1940's stars in the lead roles makes the film "Hot Rods to Hell" a real curiosity piece as well as interesting movie to watch. Tom and his family are constantly harassed by these three juvenile delinquents Goria Duke & Ernie, Mimsy Farmer Paul Bertoya & Gene Kirkwood,in a red hot rod with their crazy and unstable friends joining in every now and then. This almost drives Tom to have a nervous breakdown or even worse.

These three dangerous nincompoops have it in for Tom for daring to buy the Daily Motel. It seems that the previous owner Lank Dailey, George Ives, let them and their hoodlum friends get away with a lot of illegal stuff that the straight as a arrow Tom Philips wouldn't tolerate from them. Hounding the poor man and his family to the point where he just gives up and decides to leave. Tom & family are later chased through the desert highway by Duke & Ernie, for some reason Gloria disappeared from the film, in a deadly game of chicken where the loser not only loses the game but his life as well. Broken and nothing like the person that he was before his accident Tom finally gets his nerve back and for once stands up to these two border-line psychos and in the end it's them, not Tom, that chickens out.

The movie with a outlandish title like "Hot Rods to Hell" is not as bad as you would think. The serious and skillful acting by Dana Andrews lifts it way above the usual troubled youth films that were cranked out of Hollywood back then in the late 1950's and all throughout the 60's.

The one thing that I found a bit uneven with the film was the reason the three hot rod jockeys, as well as their friends, were so determined in keeping Tom from taking over the Dailey Motel? Just what could Tom do, that Lank Dailey didn't, to disrupt their fun and actions there? About the only thing that I could see that they were doing wrong, if at all, was making out with the young women there which is about as normal as you could expect from teenage boys like themselves.

Even the drinks served to the teenagers there were non-alcoholic as we saw the local highway patrol officer, Paul Genge, going from table to table in the bar nightclub of he Dailey sampling every drink to see that there was no booze in them.