FAQ

His name was Adam Roarke. He was a relatively unknown actor, and remained so. I recall him being in a John Wayne western called "El Dorado". He was on the screen for maybe 15 seconds and had one line to speak.

The subject of debate for many fans of "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" and Dodge Chargers is the color of the car used in the film.

The color of the Charger is a 1971-only Chrysler Corporation color "Curious Yellow" / "Limelight" (GY3), which is a light greenish-yellow color. This color was painted on the car by the film crew (as the color was not available in 1969), along with the horizontal racing stripe.

Many fans of the film swear to the yellow color of the car, but this is an easy error to make:

For years prior to the DVD release, the only availability of the film was on the rare occasion it was shown on television, or through less than legal "bootleg" copies of the film (both on DVD and VHS). Most illegitimate copies were dubs from the 1979 Magnetic Video Corporation version (which was the official 20th Century Fox release, and one of the first movies available on VHS tape in history), or directly from television. Either version was dubbed many times to make copies, which found their way to collectors, and eventually the internet.

As more and more copies were dubbed and distributed, the more and more the resulting tapes lost quality. Every time an analog VHS tape was dubbed, picture quality and color deteriorated, resulting in muted picture and color shifts. What was once a "Curious Yellow" light green / yellow color became just plain yellow in the translation. Thus, the "yellow" Charger.

Another factor to this misconception is the subtlety of the green hue to the paint. On some televisions, this greenish hue would be lost, once again, resulting in a "yellow" appearance.

The 2005 DVD release was directly from a newly-struck print from an original negative, and the greenish-yellow tint of the Charger is true.

SUPPLEMENTAL: Actually, the reason the car is remembered as yellow is because it WAS yellow in theaters and all film and video releases until the 2005 DVD... and that is because the film processors back in 1974 'corrected' the color of the film, not realizing the greenish tint they were seeing was NOT a lighting error. The same thing happened to the green orion slave woman in the first Star Trek pilot "The Cage" when the processors assumed the green was a mistake and kept correcting it to normal flesh tones...driving the director and crew crazy when they couldn't figure out why the girl looked normal after they spent so much time making her green. Bad communication is why the car always looked yellow. Only the DVD release of 2005 (and the coming 2011 re-release) show the car it its proper "Citron Yella" (not 'Limelight') hue. Those that swear the car was greenish yellow in the theatre are mistaken.

There were three Dodge Chargers used in the filming of "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry." One was destroyed in the train crash at the end of the movie. Two survived the filming:

CHARGER #1: A 1969 "R/T" model, was the car prominently featured during the tire-changing scene, and all the subsequent chase scenes. This car was repaired to driveable condition after the filming, where it was listed for sale in a motion picture and television "pool car" publication in 1974, and bought by a crew member who worked on the television program, "The Streets of San Francisco." The car was his personal vehicle, and was subsequently totalled in a car accident in the late-1970's by someone who was borrowing the car.

CHARGER #2: Also a 1969 Charger, the details surrounding this car are somewhat unclear, but the car was also apparently purchased from a "studio pool" seller after filming was completed, and is currently sitting in the back yard of the owner in Sun Valley, California. The car still wears the original paint, stripe and wheels, but has a primered drivers side fender (replacing the damage the car received in the film). The car is not for sale.