Checkered Flag or Crash

I searched long and hard for this movie, as I do for all of Joe Don's early work. This movie is magnificent! I watch it over and over. It's got Joe Don, Susan Sarandon, Larry Hagman and Parnelli Jones, and it casts Joe Don much better than a lot of his other movies.

A GREAT thing about this movie is how creatively the actors talk--they NEVER use profanity, but come up with other ways to express what they are feeling. Any other "action" movie is full of foul language.

Another great thing about it is all the Bugs and rail-jobs. Even Walkaway's car started out as a Bug. I've been a Bug person most of my life.

And I LOVE the way Bo says "motor-cicle" instead of motorcycle. I say it that way myself very often.

I guess the best thing about this movie for me is that it is set in the 1970's. That was a kinder, gentler time when Joe Don was young and SO gorgeous.

If you love cars and stunts is your movie.if you want Bergam or Fassbinder go away.😜

For a movie that is of no interest whatsoever, this has quite a lot going for it, especially in the acting department: Larry Hagman, Susan Sarandon, Joe Don Baker et al are relaxed and agreeable. But no one manages to channel the glib repartee into anything resembling a character, in part because their contributions are mere slivers of celluloid crammed between pictures of cars driving around. Which does make a depressing kind of sense, since it's a racing movie; what makes no sense at all, especially given some promising set-ups, is the total absence of kinetics or pyrotechnics. It's a total arbitrary mess, looks like it wasn't even storyboarded. The filmmakers revert to slow motion every single time anyone does anything other than drive in a straight line, but that doesn't fool anyone. The one punctuation mark of the whole movie comes at the climactic Baker-Alan Vint coin toss, and I laughed as hard as anyone, but a REAL movie has one moment like that per scene. Allow me to lodge a special protest on behalf of poor Daina House, who is required to regress from classic tough-chick to wilting sex object the moment some creep gives her a flower.

Don't listen to these others posters - this is a great film. How can you go wrong with the great Joe Don Baker, Susan Sarandon (although this is one of the few films in her early career where you don't get to see her breasts. and what breasts those are - the lemon scene in Atlantic City is probably the defining moment of this great actresses career!) larry Hagman doing an early riff on JR Ewing as an unscrupulous Off Road Racing promoter, and Parnelli Jones - as himself.

I always thought Ms. Sarandon had bought up all the prints of this movie - but if you get a chance to see it - definitely give it a look.

I collect old Joe Don Baker movies, and this one was hard to find. But it is definitely worth what I paid for it! "Walkaway" (Joe Don) cares about nothing but winning. Susan Sarandon is delightful--I didn't even know she had been an actress back then. And Larry Hagman is always good--even when he's evil! It was great to see Parnelli Jones in a movie.

In all the Joe Don Baker movies I've seen, the thing I really appreciate is that he never uses any profanity, and usually the other actors don't either. That is very refreshing these days!

The best things about this movie are: 1) All the old Bugs 2) the race cars are also Bugs, just cut down 3) other old cars 4) Larry says "motorcicles" which is how I say it many times and 5) Joe Don's attitude. The whole movie is hilarious, yet serious in that all these people are so determined to win. I really loved it when Bo (Larry H) was talking about his NASCAR career, and mentioned Junior Johnson.

There was one person in the race who was driving something that looked like a bus of some kind, with bells hanging from it, and every time this bus appeared, certain music would play. This added sort of a sub-plot to the movie.

There is NOTHING bad about this movie!! You won't be disappointed!

I think I paid about $20 for this movie, and it is WELL WORTH IT! Be sure and see it if you get the chance!