The Wild Racers

A surprisingly artsy AIP drive-in race car movie whose credits are as interesting as what's actually on screen. The great Verna Fields (before "Jaws," etc.) and Nestor Almendros (a favorite DP of Truffaut and Rohmer before lensing films like "Places in the Heart") have editing and cinematography credits. That is a very big deal! And it was fun seeing "Talia Coppola" before she became "Talia Shire," and Mimy Farmer a year before she made Barbet Schroeder's X-rated "More" (also shot by Almendros btw). Fabian was a 1960's dreamboat. He was much "hotter" than Frankie Avalon or Tommy Sands: I never understood why his career never transcended teeny-bopper fare like this. A fascinating curio for connoisseurs of '60s "B" cinema.

This portrait of an F1 racer is seems like hours to sit through. Way too many Jump Cuts, voice-overs, bad lighting, poor sound quality and thin plotline is enough to turn off even the most avid Racing fans. Fabian stars in another Grade C film in his meagre film career showing off how he goes hitching up with girl after girl only to prove every Race car groupie is as futile as the career itself. The only reason I labored through this dreck was to see Talia Coppola (Shire) in her debut screen appearance which was way too brief given she only has about one minute of screen time. Some good sequences of the European cities and landscapes are showcased, but you would be better off flipping through an old Travel catalogue. Save your time.

'The Wild Racers' as movie is as shallow as its main character Jo Jo Quillico (played by pop singer Fabian) a race car driver living on the edge. Winning a race is his only intention and everything else comes second. Traveling from circuit to circuit, from country to country he conquers the women like racetracks. Until he finds a girlfriend (Mimsy Farmer) who sticks besides him, until she sees she can't get enough love from him.

The story is well written, but the most interesting part of the film is it's style - tilted camera angels and quick cuts - there are barely any shots that last more than 20 seconds, and scenes drive into scenes (we can barely set down at the dinner table when we are already back on racing track). The dialogue is minimal, but use of voice over is rather interesting - two characters are having conversation, then there is the change of the shot and conversation has turned into narration. I guess it has to do something the guerrilla style filmmaking as the crew didn't have permission to shoot on location (everything had to be canned on rush) and mixing it all real racing footage that some was colored from black and white.

Despite pseudo art house style the film carries the mood and atmosphere of '60s Grand Prix racing very well. Not stylistically as pure as lets say 'Le Mans' with Steve McQueen 'The Wild Racers' is still interesting film that any fans of the genre and racing should check out when the chance.

Voice of Fabian was dubbed by Dick Miller who also has brief cameo as pit mechanic, blink an eye and you miss him.

P.S. Although the film is about Formula 1, the cars shown in the movie are actually Formula 2 machinery.

The movie opens with a mish mash of stock car crashes, on asphalt, on dirt, at demolition derbies, etc., with a voiceover of how bad Fabian's character is as a driver and he's been banned from racing NASCAR. So now he goes slumming in Europe, racing Formula One. Yeah, sure. The most sophisticated level of motorsports happily welcomes a reject from a 3rd rate Americn series.

The racing scenes are ok, but poorly edited with no continuity. One second you're at Brands Hatch, the next you're at Zandvoort, then suddenly it's the Nurburgring. Fabian can''t act, he can just be Fabian.

Following THE YOUNG RACERS, producer Roger Corman returns to the European Race Car circuit for THE WILD RACERS, which actually only really centers on one... played by a great singer turned limited actor in American import Fabian, actually decent here since he never has to oversell a contentedly cocky persona...

Deliberately clashing against the progressive 1960's French New Wave influence of Corman's director Daniel Haller, using future JAWS editor Verna Fields for a myriad of jump-cuts from creative camera angles to create a deliberately art-house showcase showcasing a young handsome driver with almost everything...

Except the initial ability to actually win races since he's that secondary blocker with the sole purpose of letting the better driver succeed... which reverses about halfway through...

Yet most of WILD RACERS is a love story between Fabian and an actress who coincidentally held wildly onto a rebellious roll-bar in the previous years low-budget exploitation HOT RODS TO HELL, but blonde beauty Mimsy Farmer (initially hanging out with a young Talia Shire) plays the good girl this time...

Docile, vulnerable but not entirely insecure, she's a seemingly perfect opposites-attract fit for Fabian's moody, borderline verbally-abusive upstart who'd gone through a few girlfriends already, from a lanky French model to ditsy yet likable British lass Judy Cornwell...

And while the best thing here is how the movie itself is made... a kind of speedway BREATHLESS with psychedelic camera tricks along with jazzy music interludes and dance-crazy nightclubs... Fabian and Farmer have enough tension and chemistry to make the audience hope their relationship reaches the finish line.