The Fast and the Furious

This is a decent if imperfect B-grade action feature, which today offers the added attraction of seeing the contemporary road-racing cars. The story uses a familiar plot idea, and simply adds the racing setting to give it some extra turns. The cast and characters are solid, though none of them really stands out.

John Ireland plays a wrongly-accused fugitive who kidnaps a female racer played by Dorothy Malone, and then heads for the border in her car. Roger Corman's story has some good sequences of action and drama, but there are a number of other stretches where things become dull or repetitive. The climactic race sequence offers an adequate finale, though it leaves you with the feeling of slightly unrealized potential.

The movie has enough strengths to be at least average for its time and genre. If you can overlook a few flaws, it's worth seeing as a way to pass an hour or so.

John Ireland plays a man who escaped from prison and is trying to make his way to freedom in Mexico. Along the way, he takes a hostage (Dorothy Malone) and steals her car. Most of the movie consists of this journey together to freedom.

When I saw that John Ireland starred in this film, I made extra sure to see it as he's one of my favorite "unknown" actors from Hollywood in the 40s and 50s. I love his films because he was a great Film Noir star--kind of ugly and tough--exactly what you'd expect for the genre where "pretty boys" are unwelcome. However, while this film has a few Film Noir qualities (after all, it's about a man wanted for murder), it really isn't exactly Noir and Ireland's character lacks the delicious evilness that I'd hoped to see. While tough and full of snappy dialog, his character is just too likable and the plot too upbeat to be considered Noir by us purists. In addition, having Malone and Ireland fall in love was just wrong--making no sense and thereby damaged the film's sense of realism--something imperative to have in Noir. Plus, all the grainy stock footage of auto races just seemed cheap and out of place. As a result of all these factors, I was very disappointed and so would be other fans of Noir and it's a low budget time-passer and unfortunately not much else.

An escaped killer kidnaps a girl, steals a roadster, and escapes by joining a road race to Mexico.

Well, the movie does make me nostalgic for years ago when a teen in our town rode around in his Jaguar XK like it was a royal coach. Of course, to the rest of us, it was. Anyhow, unless you like vintage sports models and fast cars, skip this otherwise turgid production. Corman shot it in 9 days and it shows. There's plenty of riding around the scrubby LA area, plenty of clumsy process close-ups, an awkward on-again off-again script, and maybe one interior set. In compensation, however, there's the incomparable Iris Adrian doing her patented cheap waitress bit.

I'd love to know what this meagre effort cost the notoriously pinch-penny Corman. He had a real coup, however, getting the luscious Malone, then on the brink of an A-film career, Battle Cry (1955), Written on the Wind (1956). Heck, she even lets her face get dirty. But you've got to hand it to our drive-in impresario. Corman quickly caught on that there was an untapped teen audience out there looking for just such things as silly stories, fast cars, and half-clad women. F and F stands as a stumbling early entry in that direction. His notorious rubber monsters and alien invasions would come later.

This may be one of very few opportunities to see real racers in real race cars on a real - late and lamented - racetrack. Pebble Beach was an early Mecca for road racing fans, and while there are some discontinuities and incongruous events in the story, some of what is shown on-screen will be of value to motor sport historians, who should be able to identify the drivers and cars. As a novelty, perhaps, but valuable.

John Ireland and Dorothy Malone went on to do some creditable work, and are not bad here, but to be honest, they don't have that much to work with. Not entirely a time-waster, at any rate.

Hi, Everyone, This is a good movie for anyone who likes old cars and fast girls. The police drove Nashes. Dorothy Malone looked great. John Ireland does a good job being the quiet, likable kidnapper type.

Snub Pollard from the Laurel and Hardy days is here in a small role. Look for his mustache.

A fill up of gasoline and a check of the oil comes to $4 at full service. That seemed a little high, but it was a name brand station.

The plot is your basic girl/race car driver being kidnapped by the only young guy in town. This is after she is hit on by the local truck driver/detective wannabe senior citizen who remains unconscious for most of the film.

This was probably an excellent movie for a rainy night at the drive-in theater. This film has some nice moments.

If you like John Ireland, watch Red River for one of his earlier roles. Dorothy Malone did a movie I enjoyed called The Last Voyage.

Tom Willett