Death Car On The Freeway

Death Car on the Freeway (1979)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: The late Hal Needham

Starring: Shelley Hack, Frank Gorshin, Peter Graves,  George Hamilton

From: The Shpetner Company

Here's something unusual from me: an obscure late 70's made for TV movie (made for CBS, to be exact) that I found out about recently; on a podcast I was listening to someone wrote in asking for advice on a movie he saw but did not know its title. He gave some info and evidently he never uses Google as one of the hosts found it right away; it was this movie but the host did not notice that it was from Hal Needham. The movie sounded interesting to watch (think of the old Spielberg movie Duel in terms of plot), has quite the 70's TV cast (besides who I mentioned already, there's Harriet Nelson, a.k.a the mom from the 50's classic Ozzie & Harriet, Dinah Shore, Abe Vigoda, and even Sid Haig) and it sounded horror-related, or at least it's a thriller. But, then I heard yesterday that Mr. Needham passed away and I figured tonight was the perfect time to watch it.

Like I said, the plot is similar to the Spielberg TV movie Duel, from '71. Here, a mysterious person in a bitchin' Dodge van chases after random women on the Los Angeles highway and causes problems. He repaints it to try and thwart the authorities. Lady reporter  Janette (Hack) covers the case in a strong way, which causes problems as it's the late 70's so there's rampant sexism from the police chief (Graves) and from her fellow reporter ex-boyfriend (Hamilton) who pretty much acts like Ron Burgundy, but in a serious way. He was a real stubborn A-hole.

There are certainly plenty of vintage cars to watch and enjoy if that's your thing, from that 70's van to a really early Civic (it looks a lot different now... and it's a lot larger too), the much maligned Mustang II and a Chevy Chevette. Oh, and the killer is known as THE FREEWAY FIDDLER. No, he does not fiddle himself while driving. Rather, when he goes on the attack he blasts some crappy country song where the fiddle player is going wild, as if he's Charlie Daniels on a coke binge.

Overall, the movie is fine. If it would have been R then things would have gotten more hardcore and there'd be more of a bite to it. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was and as you can see, various aspects of the film tickled me pink, especially while watching it in late 2013. While there was plenty of sexism to be seen at least it came from rude idiot guys and Janette doesn't accept any of that crap; feminists would of course appreciate such things. She is determined to do things on her own without the help of any man as she tries to stop the Fiddler.

If you want to see a Hal Needham version of Duel (with his trademark car crashes and explosions and other stunts; Hal even has a small role as a stunt driver) where the second unit director was later the director of Action Jackson, Stone Cold, and I Come in Peace-yes, Craig R. Baxley-with some wackiness and some groovy music (typical 70's stuff... I wasn't talking about the fiddle song), then you might as well watch it on YouTube.