Ian McShane would, no doubt, so we're going with this one tonight...
I go back and forth on remakes - but this second version of the classic from the heyday of Roger Corman's New World Pictures at least includes Corman as a producer - giving him his first major studio picture in decades. Suck it, Fast and Furious franchise!
However, it also singles The King of Pop Cinema out as the producer of the original film - leaving out the contributions of the film's writers and the author of the original story - at least until a tiny credit in the end crawl.
The movie is a big and noisy car crash epic with even clunkier dialogue than you might expect. But it's a good cast - including Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane, and a badly miscast Joan Allen - and it does keep moving thanks to director Paul W.S. Anderson.
But if we're going to watch this one, let's make this a...
Saturday Night at the Movies Double Feature!
That way we can also screen the original movie...
Now that's more my style - and look at the cast here: David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, Mary Woronov, and LA disc jockey "The Real" Don Steele. This version was directed by Paul Bartel, who battled producer Roger Corman tooth and nail to include the film's campy humor - which Corman was notoriously against until the finished film included it and was well received. These days Corman tends to misremember that he pushed to get the humor added. Well, he is up there in years...
And a special LGOOH! shout out to this blog's friend Beverly Gray - whose excellent blog Beverly in Movieland is always worth visiting. Ms. G (as I like to call her) was toiling in the trenches at New World pictures in those days, and it was she who gave the film its wonderful twist ending - all hail Beverly Gray!
I have both of these movies in the video vault ready to race into my player at any time - even this very evening - if you care to race over to my place to check them out with me!
Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!
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