This movie was made in the area where I lived and grew up in California. I can still remember when it was being filmed and eventually released in the mid 1970s. H. B. Halicki, a Gardena, CA car parts dealer, made this film on a shoestring budget. He got the cooperation of every city in the South Bay and Harbor area of Los Angeles County except, ironically and tragically, his hometown of Gardena! The Gardena police department wouldn't cooperate with him and, reportedly, fired a sergeant over his cooperating with Halicki. The local paper, the Gardena Valley News, also took a few hits from the Gardena P.D. over their publicizing of the movie. The movie was made by a Gardena resident and business owner, for crying out loud!! After the movie was released, it was a modest success and became something of a cult film. I saw it twice in the theater and recognized all the places where the movie took place...again, every place in the area but Gardena. This movie has a nice feel to it...as one critic put it "like a Howard Hawks film." Halicki went on with his life and career, making the movie "Junkman" in the early 1980s (I saw that too...cool movie). Tragically, he died in the late 1980s in an accident while trying to put together a bigger budget remake of "Gone in 60 Seconds"...it would've been interesting to see what he could've done rather some Hollywood version with Nicolas Cage and other actors (Angelina Jolie, Robert Duvall, etc.) in cameo roles. This shows what some people can do with an idea, a little money and some film. One last thing though...what kind of a name is Maindrian??!!
Review of Gone in 60 Seconds
