Moving Violation

Just drifting into town and a crime makes you the perpetrator. A drifter and his girlfriend witness a crime committed by a crooked sheriff, and the whole town is after the wrong people. They have to wait until the next day to get in contact with the lawyer, because it was Sunday. So when they wait, they get in contact with the lawyer, they had hope. It was lost when the lawyer got killed. The drifter who is a war veteran gets geared up to take care of corruption in that town.

It was a mix of action, drama, comedy, and intrigue. A great cast. Plenty of plot, and a great car chase that can go on for miles. It can be enjoyed without having to pay a speeding ticket.

2 out of 5 stars.

Eddie Moore (Stephen McHattie) is an amiable drifter passing through the town of Rockfield. Predictably, he gets harassed by the snake-mean local sheriff, a man named Rankin (Lonny Chapman). His day is brightened, however, when he meets lovely young Dairy Queen employee Cam Johnson (Ms. Lenz). They hit it off and go sneaking onto the estate of the local bigwig (Will Geer) after whom the town is named. From their vantage point they are able to see the sheriff - who, naturally, is also flat out corrupt - shoot and badly wound a greedy deputy (Dennis Redfield) who wanted in on the action. So Eddie and Cam have to spend the balance of the movie on the lam, dodging bullets fired by the sheriff and his cronies, while trying to find a sympathetic pair of ears.

As one can see, this is very much formula-driven drive-in car chase and car crash fare. The characters are for the most part clichés, especially the one-dimensional villainous sheriff. Fortunately, the good thing that can often be said for exploitation entertainment of this variety is its unpretentious nature. It *does*, ultimately, show its viewers a reasonably good time, with plenty of pedal to the metal action and enough explosions to keep a persons' attention from wandering too much. McHattie and especially Lenz are watchable as the hero and heroine, and Chapman is just right as their persistent, nasty nemesis. Geer is too briefly seen, and under-utilized, but does a fine job nonetheless. The supporting cast includes such familiar faces as Jack Murdock, the ubiquitous and always welcome Dick Miller, and Paul Linke, but the movie really belongs to the excellent Eddie Albert, playing attorney Alex Warren, who decides to take the kids' case.

Executive produced by Roger Corman, and produced by his wife Julie, this features a flavourful bluegrass score by Don Peake and a catchy ditty titled "Detroit Man" sung by Phil Everly. It's pretty much average for its genre, but still proves to be engaging enough to watch.

Six out of 10.

In the 1970s, just about nobody understood the drive-in audience like movie producer Roger Corman. So it should come as no surprise that several times in the 1970s, major Hollywood movie studios hired Corman to make drive-in movies for them. "Moving Violation" was one of those movies, but despite the resources of a major studio at hand, it isn't very successful for the most part. The movie does look slicker and more expensive than Corman's independent movies of the time, but not by much. There's almost no effort in writing a story or characters with depth - we don't even learn the name of one of the lovers before the two of them go on the run! As a result, the actors for the most part aren't able to do much with their characters, though Eddie Albert does shine in his somewhat brief role. As for action sequences, it's mostly car chases done in standard mode, so they lack excitement. If you're desperate, this may help 91 or so minutes to pass by, but even then you might wonder if this is a good way to use your time.

I had my doubts about this movie because it was a Roger Corman production. This usually means very low production values. I was surprised as to how good it was. What helped was that it was on a preminum channel with no cuts, edits or commercials. The only thing that I did not like was the car chases because they were speeded up way too much. I was almost like the Keystone Cops. I don't mind chases that are slightly speeded up but these were like a cartoon. The performances by Steven McHattie, Kay Lenz, Lonny Chapman and Eddie Albert were all first rate. I recommned it as a Sat. afternoon movie.

While watching "Moving Violation" I wanted to know where this movie was filmed. There wasn't any reference to filming locations on the IMDb web site. In the process of watching the movie Moving Violation, I saw street signs for HIGHWAY 23, POINDEXTER AVE and also some railroad tracks. Going to Google, Highway 23, Poindexter Ave and the railroad tracks for Southern Pacific are all in Moorpark Caifornia. At the end of the movie at the court house scene when they were going to give themselves up, there was a miniature oil well derrick next to the steps to the court house. Moorpark has some oil wells, as were visible in some of the movie scenes. Does anyone know where the fruit grove scenes were filmed ?