Killico il pilota nero

As a vintage racing buff, I am drawn to the movie with the vintage cars (more on that) and the views of the classic tracks in their original configurations. This film using the cars and footage from 1968.

The story of an American breaking in to the European scene is not too far-fetched. In real life there were Americans in F1 in the 1960's:Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Ritchie Ginther, Ronnie Bucknum, Bob Bondurant and Masten Gregory. Like the Fabian character,most of these guys came out of California; but were sports car drivers,not NASCAR.

The story is interesting as the main character is very shallow, not likable and destructive. But I am drawn to the people around him.

About the cars. While they refer to the races a Grands Prix, these are not F1 cars but Formula 2 cars. At that time F2 were very similar to F1, the displacement was 1.6 liters (F1 was 3 liters), narrower tires, and no wings. In 1968, F1 cars had high mounted wings in front and back. Good footage of the cars' internal bits, notably the Cosworth FVA 4 cylinder engine. In the 60's, F1 drivers would often race with the up and comers in F2. Stewart drove Ken Tyrrell's Matras, Rindt drove the Winklemann Racing Brabham, Jack Brabham would field a team of Brabham Hondas to name a few. The cars of the protagonist are the Winklemann Racing Brabham BT-18's with the Cosworth motor.

The race footage was from the actual F2 series at the appropriate tracks.

Today's racing is too corporate and sterile to make a decent film...

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.

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.

I had to look up the dates on Wild Racers and LeMans. For the first hour of the movie it felt like the director was telling Fabian, " Do everything the way McQueen did it in LeMans". He even drives the same car. Remarkably, LeMans was made 2 years later. While I'll never put the two movies (or Fabian & McQueen) on the same level, they both had that same "Groovy" sixties vibe. That's what I love about sixties racing movies, they're like a time capsule of culture & style. The hair, the clothes, the way they talk...it's quite entertaining. Probably because racing is perceived as a young man's game. Living on the "Edge" as it were. I don't think if they made a period movie about the sixties, they could make it as convincing as the real thing.

Which leads me to the racing. While the racing footage in "Wild Racers" was excellent, it wasn't real. "LeMans" was real racing, real racers and real tension. Fabian, as good looking as he is, is no match for the hard intensity of McQueen. And McQueen was a bonified race car driver. An enthusiast of motor sports in general. Having driven and rode in competition, he had a leg up on Fabian.

It would be easy to pass Wild Racers off as a vehicle to launch the heart throb, crooner, a'La Elvis Presley, but that would be doing the actual film making a disservice. It's a very hip, inventive movie that takes some cinematic chances for the era it was made. Shaky cam, interesting camera angles, and lighting,very artsy when compared to the contrived schlock of a typical Elvis movie.

Perhaps, not a break out role for Mimsy Farmer, (did she ever have one?) she is breathtakingly, beautiful here. Like a vulnerable Amy Adams. I'd watch it again just for her.

All in all, a pretty decent, lazy Sunday afternoon, flick. If your asking, "Should I ?" I'm saying, "Yeah, why not"

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.