Highway 66

When "Roadhouse 66" first appeared on cable in Canada almost twenty-five years ago, I sat down to watch it, though about halfway through I quit watching it. I didn't remember why, however, so with it now available on DVD I decided to rent it and give it another try.

I did make it all the way through this time... but barely. It didn't take me long to figure out why I stopped watching it the first time. This is one BORING movie. Although it runs about an hour and a half, there is only about thirty minutes or so of plot. The rest of the time, nothing of consequence happens.

To make matters worse were the characters. Reinhold's character is the worst. His character is incredibly stupid, and you'll eventually relish the scenes where he gets over his head and into serious trouble. The bad guys are really mean-spirited for a movie that tries to be somewhat light-hearted the rest of the time.

Oh, and the climatic race sequence? It was one of the most boring car races I have ever seen. For one thing, the cars for the most part seem to be going half speed instead of full-out.

Maybe I'll give the movie another chance twenty-five years from now...

Besides being just a fun to watch movie, the on-location filming includes an area of historic significance. Although the location is listed as Kingman, it includes a race sequence to the old gold mining settlement of Oatman, AZ. I recognized many of the landmarks during the race, as well as the community of Oatman. The race turn around point (straw bales) is at the south end of town. The road race is on the original "Route 66", now known on the maps as CR10. It crosses a flat and winds up into the Black Mountains to Sitgreaves Pass, and down into Oatman. The Black Mountains were a significant obstacle to the many who motored west during the great depression, due to steep grades and sharp curves.

Any trip on I40 passing Kingman, AZ should include a side trip through the tourist town of Oatman, which welcomes visitors and is truly a step into the past. Very few sections of Route 66 still exist that are as beautiful as this road. In the bargain, you can see (and stay in) the room in the Oatman Hotel where movie stars Clark Gable and Carol Lombard stayed on their honeymoon in 1939. Several other movies were filmed in Oatman.

Enjoy this fun movie, and enjoy the filming location if you get a chance. You will remember the race sequence from "Roadhouse 66" when you travel this road from Kingman to Oatman.

Willem Dafoe plays a drifter who quit the music business after his band partner was killed in a car accident. Judge Reinhold is the stereotypical rich kid from back east, driving his 55 T.Bird. These two meet up in the Arizona desert and spend some time in a small town because of car trouble. There they are harassed by a trio of local goons, and are attracted to a couple of cute blonde sisters. The acting is good, the location photography is stunning, the 57 Chevy, 55 Thunderbird, 55 Chevy, 59 Caddy and 66 Mustang are great, there is even a touch of nudity, along with some terrific rockabilly tunes. "Roadhouse 66" is definitely above average entertainment. If you can sit back and just enjoy the ride, this movie will not disappoint. - MERK

The box copy hints that this is an action-comedy adventure, but don't be fooled. There really isn't much comedy and the action is pretty intermittent for an adventure movie, but the two lead performances make the exercise watchable. Spoiled preppie Judge Reinhold and cool drifter Willem Dafoe make a likable mismatched pair of traveling buddies, and once you get past the odd logic that Dafoe as Johnny would bother taking his social opposite under his wing to show him the rules of survival on the road, the movie passes pleasantly. The wide open, largely empty desert makes a nice setting and is well used as a place of isolation, where a philosophical loner like Johnny can find solitude to think. The viewer gets slowly sucked into Johnny's view of the world and begins to cheer Reinhold in his philosophical make-over, and leaves with a positive glow. The movie is neither particularly striking or memorable visually, but the chemistry between the two actors makes the time pass amiably and it can be revisited to get back the same good feeling. This is one of those movies that is more a mood altering substance than entertainment, but as such it's nice.

Lemme see if I done got this right:

Hayseed peoples they be peoples too and most of your cinema pickings they's for city folks with pretensions and academic duh-grees and walking around using fancy French words and stuff like that.

But a good old boy likes a good barroom brawl now and then and some cute dixie chicks - and you should have more skin than Daisy used to show on prime time - and oh but we gotta have a great big old car race with clumsy looking backwoods Chevy 56s and 57s and they gotta rev their engines like they got no mufflers no more.

And we gotta have some good old country picking through this here race and - intermittently as they say - throughout the movie.

But here's the trick: you don't almost have to pay nobody any good money to do no good cos them hayseeds what like movies like this they don't know much about no film making anyways, and as long as ya got the obligatory nudie bonk with female nipple and round female breast in subdued light and stuff and someone playing who's ostensibly studying James Burton on guitar, then that's real fine Slim - they'll never notice the difference! No way!

And the money keeps on coming in... And who said money doesn't make the world go 'round?

PS. For the best laugh of all, waiting until the closing titles - listen to the music! The people who made this movie - who are these people? Oh goodness.