Red Line 7000 (1965)

Just like any "gear head" film, the humans are always supporting cast. The real stars are the cars. Within the first 21 minutes, you will see plenty of classic race tracks, cars, motorcycles, trucks, socket wrenches, loud pipes, race posters, cool sunglasses, beautiful girls, and everything else that excites the average auto buff. Yes, the acting isn't great, but do you really care about Caan's love life more than that beautiful split-window '63? Of course not. This movie was made in the heart of the 1960s, the genesis of true sports cars. There are other gear films out there that are better, but 7000 is worthwhile.

This film is said to be minor, but the opposite is true. It is absolutely masterly how Hawks tells his story and paints an archetypal portrait of the U.S.A. in the sixties. The racetracks with the cars circling in endless rounds symbolize the circle of life: the drivers who die in a car crash are replaced by new drivers who get also in accidents, the girlfriends of the drivers are left by them just to find a new driver to cling to. The drivers look alike, the girls are all alike, nobody is sticking out. Everything in this world is superficial and on the outside. The brands are everywhere in the movie: Ford, Pepsi, Holiday Inn. The dialogs get to the point fast, there is not a word too much. It is an extreme economy of storytelling. The camera by Milton Krasner is fantastic. Howard Hawks loved car races, he drove races himself, even constructed a car. He absolutely knew what he was talking about.

As a die-hard racing fan and a lover of the sport's history, not to mention early-mid 1960s vintage, I thoroughly looked forward to watching this film. And it first, it was quite good. The opening scenes at the Daytona International Speedway, highlighted by the kind of horrific, fiery accident that was all-too-commonplace during that era are well done. So are the rest of the racing scenes, save for one rather ridiculous bit of action at Daytona later in the film.Unfortunately, once the characters get away from the track, the movie starts to go downhill. The dialogue is uncomfortable and often downright bad, and the whole soap opera plays out rather disappointingly. Like most racing films, it shows great promise, but winds up well off the pace. I rate it 4 out of 10 thanks to the great racing scenes and the performance of James Caan. The rest, unfortunately, is all very forgettable.

In Todd McCarthy's Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood, the impetus behind RL7000 was a) Hawk's 10-year old son Gregg was into cars, or b) Hawks wanted to prove he could make a commercial film quickly for a million dollars. Too, Hawks loved cars, studied Mechanical Engineering at Cornell, raced cars after college, and made the racing film The Crowd Roars (1932) giving him the opportunity to work with Cagney (and wrangle a Deusenberg for himself from the Deusenberg company in exchange for product placement). In a sense, both films are indulgences which never translate into a coherent picture.RL7000 comes off a bit more like a Roger Corman film than a Hawks film, probably due to budgetary constraints. We see lots of young unknowns, dancing, loud music, interludes of unevenly-acted drama interspersed with bouts of frenetic action. Caan is a good, brooding Bradoesque study, though he squints and smirks to distraction, Marianna Hill looks great, and seeing cars like Cobra Daytonas is pretty enjoyable for mid-60's sports car fans. Ultimately, the film has problems because Hawks doesn't get what he wants out of the actors. All of his other films have very strong acting; Hawks could always get great performances from Wayne, Grant, Bogart as well as the veteran character actors he used. He didn't have such luck with most of the primary cast of three men and three women. Their bonding as lovers and as male and female groups is integral to the credibility of the film, and it just doesn't happen.Another possibility explaining the film's weakness is that this is the only one of Hawk's final six pictures (Rio Bravo to Rio Lobo) without writer Leigh Brackett on the team.One also senses that Hawks tried too hard to be "hip," perhaps in reaction to the fact that some critics had complained that his previous picture "Man's Favorite Sport?" seemed old-fashioned. Thus the plot is periodically suspended for some truly bizarre song and dance numbers, even by mid-60's standards. It seems inconceivable that "Wildcat Jones" was given us by the same Hawks who gave us the immortal "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" number.I want to like this movie, since I do subscribe to the school that a great director can never make a truly bad film. I also happen to love "Man's Favorite Sport?" which often critically lumped in with RL7000 as the two off-the-track films between a pair of Wayne/Hawks collaborations before and after. Furthermore, there are some vocal critics who love the film, such as Robin Wood. So I guess I need to watch it a few more times and hopefully can write a better review next go around.