Joy Ride

Edward Bernds is best known for directing some of the better post war 3 Stooges shorts and the unintentionally hilarious Queen from Outer Space. All of his feature films with the possible exception Return of the Fly are strictly B's. Joy Ride is the B'est of the B's, at just sixty minutes, an amazingly short running time for the late fifties, it was intended to be bottom of the bill. It's subject matter would suggest exploitation fifties fun. But it is actually an understated, low key film in the style of the social realistic kitchen sink dramas of fifties' live TV, sort of Marty Meets Rebel Without a Cause. I saw it back in the seventies on television because Movies on TV gave it three stars. Maybe it is more like a solid two and a half, but if you watch it with modest expectations, you could be pleasantly surprised how effective this ultra low budget feature is.

Okay, that title belongs to a different movie, but the feeling is the same. We have an over-sixty Regis Toomey--a legendary and very prolific character actor--driving a sports car. How many sixty-somethings drove race cars in the late 1950's? The only one I can think of was Mel "Man of a Thousand Voices" Blanc, and he almost met his end by driving too fast in a sports car...but I digress.

Toomey plays Miles, a typical father who catches some punks trying to steal his hot wheels. He threatens to call the law, they don't listen, and they subsequently wage a campaign of fear against Miles and his wife.

Things come to a head when Miles pulls a gun on the leader of the punks and forces him to drive faster and more dangerously, hence the 'joy ride' term employed as the title.

While I won't give away the ending, the film has a few very good scenes, particularly when Miles loses his temper. Regis Toomey almost always played the nice guy, the next-door neighbor, the local cop. He was the ultimate character actor, dependable, and people would say, "Yeah, I know that guy. I've seen him in ____ movie."

Here, he plays the lead and when he gets pi--ed off, he's excellent. Ann Doran plays his wife, and she's decent enough. The rest of the cast is okay. As for the direction, Edward Bernds was known as a get-it-done and get-it-done-fast type of director, but he delivers a fast-paced and functionally solid effort this time out.

Worth a watch.