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When their car's gaspump breaks down on their way to a baseball game,
3 highschool teachers (Richard Alden, Helen Hovey, Don Russell) seem to
be in luck when they hardly make it to a gas station somewhere in the
wastelands. Oddly enough there seems to be noone around, so the trio
decides to fix the gaspump by themselves in order to reach the stadium
in time ... when all of a sudden Arch Hall jr & his gril Marilyn
Manning show up. It soon becomes apparent they don't mean good, as Hall
forces the teachers to do his bidding at gunpoint (which, in the case of
Richard Alden, is still to fix the gaspump). Soon he shoots Don Russell
- just for fun - & hardly surprising he turns out to be a wanted
serial killer. As 2 cops arrive, he shows no hesitation in shooting them
down neither, & he makes it clear to Alden that his lease of life
does run out once he fixed the gaspump - unless Alden wants to be shot
on the spot. But after Alden makes a few (failed) escape-attempts, Hall
decides to shoot him just now. A struggle ensues in which Hall
accidently shoots his girl Manning. Infuriated, he chases Alden until he
has him cornered & empties his gun on him. Then he sets out to get
Hovey, but having almost caught up with her, he falls into a snakepit -
facing the maybe only creatures even more ruthless then he is - & is
killed by the snakes. Her ordeal over, Hovey hears about the baseball
game's first strike on the radio ...
That this movie is actually filmed in real time (in the beginning
someone comments on the game starting in 1 ½ hours, at the end, 1 ½
hours later, the game begins) is actually only the least of its merits
(& it might not have been a merit at all, wasn't the direction of
this movie extra-tense). First of all, this movie deals with a topic
quite unusual for a thriller of the early 1960s (serial killers didn't
become a big budget-Hollywood mainstay until the early 1990's actually,
with movies like Silence of the Lambs, Kalifornia or Seven,
to randomly name a few), & Arch Hall jr, who was previously
ridiculed for playing a wannabe teenage heartthrob in movies like Wild
Guitar or Eegah (& rightfully so), does an excellent job
in playing the psycho (based loosely on the then current serial killer
Charles Starkweather). Alden's character on the other hand does not show the same
self assuredness of the usual B-movie hero, often acting cowardly when
he could have easily won the day (a particularly good scene is when he
tries to figure out how many bullets Hall has left in his gun. Hall does
notice this, though, & gives him a chance to find out. Alden loses
his courage, though - Don Siegel, or at least someone who worked on Dirty
Harry, must have been pretty impressed by this scene, for the
trademark-line of Clint Eastwood's character was outrightly stolen from
Arch Hall's "... but you don't know how many bullets I have").
The camerawork by Vilmos Zsigmond is outstanding, too, making best use of the
outdoor wasteland locations & actually turning them into a
claustrophobic setting, while many techniques to heighten the suspense
do show a genuine cinematic language that wouldn't be expected from a
cheap contryside thriller (particularly impressing is the scene when
Hall & Manning are making out on the carseat, high on the power they
(think to) have while outside, on the other side of the hood, Alden
& Hovey desperately try to contemplate their escape - with the
emphasis on desperately).
In all, even though this movie has found some admirers over the
past few years (mainly 'cause of Hall's unusual performance, though), it
is still unjustly underappreciated and more than ripe for rediscovery
& reevaluation.
Highly recommended !
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