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Some talk on car movies.


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On 4.12.2018 at 8:49 AM, Cpt Tuttle said:

Well, since I know that you (and me) have a friend that has a bit of knowledge when it comes to airbrushing, you haven't considered asking him for help with them? That way you could get them completely right too instead of searching for decals that is almost right...

Now that is a good idea;)

Edited by Atmobil
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Not a car movie but a tv-series with quite a lot of driving in the episodes:
The Persauders:

The Dino and the Aston DBS always looks good, and there is a lot of other cool cars aswell. Looks like there is a lot of full episodes on youtube:

 

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Just watched a good one that played on TCM earlier today: "Crime Wave" (1954), directed by film-noir master Andre de Toth. Cast includes Sterling Hayden as a tough cop, and a very young Charles Bronson as (guess what?) a crook.  And as a nice bonus, the always manic Tim Carey.*  Great shots of early Fifties Los Angeles, when the entire police department still fit into City Hall and the Red/Yellow streetcar lines were still operating. 

Speaking of City Hall, Los Angeles residents will LOL at some of the geographical goofs:  one scene supposedly takes place in San Pedro. But we can clearly see the iconic L.A. City Hall a couple of streets over.  City Hall wouldn't be visible from San Pedro, about 20 miles away from downtown.  The movie ends with a chase thru "Glendale," about 10 miles from downtown, but again City Hall is right down the street.

One of the nicest cars in the movie is shown below, a beautiful hot-rodded '30 Ford roadster.  Check out the neat line of chrome fasteners on the firewall.

*TCM sometimes shows the one and only movie Tim Carey made himself, "The World's Greatest Sinner."  It took him many years to finish, and is completely bizarro.  With music by a then-unknown composer named Frank Zappa. 

CrimeWave16c.jpg

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Speaking of TCM noirs, there's also Mickey Rooney's Drive a Crooked Road (1955), where he plays a sports car racer/mechanic who gets roped into driving the getaway car for a bank robbery (a '40 Ford sedan). There's also a good view of him swapping a built-up flathead into the '40.

http://imcdb.org/movie.php?id=46935

Free extra bonus: Getty Images has an outtake of the Packard crash scene, although it's a reversed image:

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/low-angle-tilt-down-packard-driving-off-road-then-stock-video-footage/562-48

Edited by ChrisBcritter
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There is an old W.C. Fields movie called "If I Had A Million", which is rich with old cars, like from the 20's/30's, if I remember correctly. The storyline is that Fields and his wife get run off the road by a "roadhog", destroying their car. At the same time, a wealthy man who is dying randomly picks our hero's name from a phone book and Field's inherits a million dollars.  With that money, Fields goes and buys handfulls of cars and paid drivers to go out and find "roadhogs", and run them off the roads . The amount of carnage, especially in todays dollars, of these old cars, could make a grown man cry. Back when the movie was shot, they were just old cars. Check this one out.                           

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"Gangster Squad" (2013) is set in 1949 Los Angeles and is chock-full of great vintage cars. Ryan Gosling drives a gorgeous blue '41 Ford convertible.  The flick features a pretty epic chase between vintage Cadillacs and Fords, done with CGI, pic below.  More movie magic:  the epic shoot-out at the end of the movie really was filmed in MacArthur Park. But the big water fountain only existed in the movie.

The movie was very loosely based on Paul Lieberman's book "Gangster Squad: Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Battle for Los Angeles." That's a great read, covering a true and complex story. As usual, Hollywood dumbed it down, throwing in a mandatory love story and other unnecessary glurge. The movie also plays fast and loose with the facts.  The real Jack Dragna wasn't the Sad-Sack goofball shown in the movie.  He was the head of the L.A. Mafia and a very dangerous character. 

Another movie covering the same subject, the LAPD "Hat Squad," is "Mulholland Falls" (1996).  In that one, Nick Nolte and his squad tool around in a gorgeous black '49 Buick Roadmaster convertible.

GS.jpg

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How about Tales from the Crypt episode "King of the Road," starring a '69 Chevelle, a total badass '57 Chevy, and some unknown young punk named Brad Pitt. Soundtrack by the late great Warren Zevon. 

Here's the whole thing: 

Here's just the car parts: 

 

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11 hours ago, Snake45 said:

How about Tales from the Crypt episode "King of the Road," starring a '69 Chevelle, a total badass '57 Chevy, and some unknown young punk named Brad Pitt. Soundtrack by the late great Warren Zevon.

That was good! I never watched those shows back then, I thought the crypt keeper was just too hokey.

But the episode was very "Twilight Zone" to me. I may have to catch more of them.

Thanks for sharing. 

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20 hours ago, Oldcarfan27 said:

That was good! I never watched those shows back then, I thought the crypt keeper was just too hokey.

But the episode was very "Twilight Zone" to me. I may have to catch more of them.

Thanks for sharing. 

Glad you liked it. My favorite part is that Zevon song "Roll with the Punches," followed closely by that totally badass '57. B)

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4 hours ago, Atmobil said:

Such a familiar sight, the Amason, but also very exotic with California plates.

...and incorrect-for-1969 licence plates at that ! Those are the 1970-1979 plates (blue with gold letters / numbers ; 6-characters) . If I'm seeing the plate on that Toyota correctly , it appears that its first letter is a "T" , which would indicate 1976-1977 issue plates .

That Toyota sure must be a rare sight anywhere in the world.

While not all--too-common , there were quite a few of those around when I was a youngster .

 

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19 minutes ago, Daddyfink said:

Where do you see Blue plates? Those look Black to me, and odds are they are just Prop plates or new issue Black Plates. 

 

 

On the Toyota . I'm calling the plate's colour in as blue / gold as its characters' sequence is numeric-alpha , which is 1970-1980 (6-character) ; 1963-1969 plates were alpha-numeric .

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