Real Gone

Continuing our car movie extravanganza, Gone in 60 Seconds, the 1974 one, not the Nicholas Cage one.

This car-happy film was written, directed, produced and starring by car-nut HB Halicki, and features about 150 cars from his personal collection, many of them smashed to bits. Halicki plays a fancy car thief with an assignment to steal 47 specific cars (model, year and color). He assigns them code names and gets to work.

The first section shows Halicki and his team bickering, joking and stealing, making short work of the list. But a 72 yellow Mustang code-named Eleanor eludes him until the end. When the other 46 cars are ready for delivery, he takes on Eleanor, and immediately picks up a police tail.

The second half of the movie is a ~40-minute car chase that takes Halicki and several police departments all over LA, through parks, up sidewalks, wrong-way over freeways, through dirt lots, on and on, to a lovely little twist ending.

Now, Halicki was an indie producer/director/actor/stuntdriver, practically an amateur. The acting succeeds because the cast are mostly really what their roles are, mechanics playng mechanics, cops playing cops, etc. The car chase is not up to the level of Transporter, say, or even Blues Brothers (although they destroyed a similar number of cop cars). But, like the rest of the movie, there is an agreeable level of energy.

The movie looks pretty low-budget but clean within its limitations - Halicki is no Ed Wood. But I'd say the best part is the solid 70s look. Every man has mutton chop sideburns, a porn 'stache and aviator glasses. The locations and "extras" (passers-by) are a nice look at that long-ago time.

But Eleanor is the real star.