Highway to hell… Death Race 2000 (1975)

One of the ultimate cult movies of the seventies and one I’ve never seen before in spite of my young teenage self being fascinated with the promise of so many posters and adverts extolling the value of a film fueled by fast cars, reckless driving and care-free violence…  So, how does the viewing experience match up to three decades of what was less studious self-denial and more just a “failure to see”? Turns out Death Race has something to say and is not just a more dastardly Wacky Races, although the comparisons are clear on that score.

Produced by Roger Corman and directed by Paul Bartel, Death Race 2000 is a vision of a near future not much removed from the here and now. Reality TV may be more pervasive now than in 1975 but it was still an accident waiting to happen and to be viewed. The film features a trio of only slightly over-the-top TV commentators who use prosaic sports rhetoric which somehow makes the nature of the event even more shocking. The national sport of death racing across the USA is a distraction welcomed across the country and aficionados are so swept up with the game they are even willing to be killed by their heroes.

Mildly OTT TV

Clearly something is wrong with a world in which murderous motorists can accumulate points by running down civilians – high scores for children and old people in particular – but we’re never really told how this came to be. There’s a mysterious President manipulating event behind the scenes for what is clearly a Romanesque distraction for the crowds: what’s he got to hide?

Calamity Jane and Matlida the Hun

The gladiators of the road are all caricatures: there’s “Calamity” Jane (Mary Woronov) an all-American cow-girl who skewers her victims with two massive bull-horns attached to her car versus Ray “Nero the Hero” Lonagan (Martin Kove) – a modern gladiator with Cleopatra (Leslie McRay) as his navigator.

Nero the Hero and Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo

Up against them is Matlida the Hun (Roberta Collins) and her navigator, “Herman the German” (Fred Grandy) whose car, "The Buzz-Bomb",  carries swastikas and heavy artillery and the highly strung Italian stallion himself, Sylvester Stallone as the impossibly angry, "Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo accompanied by his very own blonde moll-shell Myra (Louisa Moritz). Joe drives an equally vexed car which has two machine guns and a bayonet attached to its front.

Finally there’s the reigning champion, the President’s favourite and everyone else’s, Frankenstein (David Carradine – who was on 10% of the take for the movie…not many get to out earn Roger Corman on one of his films!) a man who has supposedly been injured and repaired so many times that he is barely human: as much of a machine as his car, cold unknowable and with only one thing on his mind.

Simone Griffeth

For this race he is to have a new navigator Annie (Simone Griffeth), a wholesome-looking girl who, frankly, Frankie doesn’t look your type… 

Mr President

The global/political backdrop is gradually revealed as what looks like an almost all-powerful president pulls the strings. At some point the American “empire” won and it rules the majority of the World. To the victor the spoils of… boredom and to creeping entropy of “nowhere left to go”… the Race is a big part of state entertainment and arouses an almost religious fervour amongst it’s young pop fans… as if Justin and One Direction could drive?

Where's the Buzz Bomb?

Against all this is a resistance movement led by one Thomasina Paine – yes really – played by Harriet Medin. Thomasina wants to, no doubt, exert the rights of man, woman and child to not be killed in the name of entertainment and to overthrow a regime aimed at, literally, amusing its populace to death.       

Her group’s aim is also to destroy drivers along with the race and they begin to succeed with first Nero the Hero succumbing to one of their traps. But Frankenstein is too clever to fall for their traps especially when he realises that his new co-driver might be involved…

Thrills and spills

But everyone has a secret in this film and even Frankenstein is not quite as he seems.

The characterization is of rich comic book textures and the plot proceeds with unlikely scenarios such as the drivers all lined up for a relaxing sensual massage after one stage – allowing Roberta Collins and Mary Woronov to show us a little bit more as they carry their competition a little too far.

Roberta Collins and Mary Woronov "relax"

Frankenstein sees Annie talking to Joe and wonders what on earth she could be telling him… Sure enough he’s been led along a rough garden path into the middle of a valley of slow return… is she trying to help or just sabotage the race? But he seems willing to overlook his suspicions about her motives as the two develop the understanding both on and off road.

As with Wacky Races, the fun is in the telling and not necessarily the result and the sports commentary keeps things fresh as the real battle becomes clearer.

Dusty verdict: In a world in which human life has become so devalued, there has to be hope for a better future – or not - depending on your mood. I’ll let you find out for yourself with the comment that, as Spock once said to his captain: “sometimes it is better to travel than arrive…” or something like that.

Carradine conveys that laid back, carefully tutored threat he managed in Kung Fu and other works and is always watchable: it’s as if he knows what’s going on and is letting the audience in on things.

The others pantomime very well and, arguably Simone Griffeth has the only characterization that rings true as the reluctant revolutionary who falls for the man she thought she’d have to kill.

It’s not great art but it’s still fun with enough humour to prevent it becoming over-bearing and a story that likes itself enough to make the effort to have a point: and if all that sounds a bit convoluted then I would refer you to any number of other Corman and Corman-esque episodes.  

Death Race 2000 is available from Amazon – it’s a future firmly rooted in the brash, four-colour comic book world of the mid-seventies and that’s no bad thing.

The runaways… Caged Heat (1974)

This is a Roger Corman-produced exploitation flick from the “women in prison” genre (I never knew there was one… although it seems to have been quite a thing…) which is notable for having been written and directed by Jonathan Demme. Now, Mr Demme may well have directed Silence of the Lambs and many others but he also directed Talking Head’s Stop Making Sense which has to be one of the best concert films ever made.

Erica Gavin

This was a full decade before that film but Demme was still cool enough to have one of the Velvet Underground, John Cale, provide the soundtrack for Caged Heat – was this enough to save him from producing another formulaic chunk of Corman cheesecake? From what I saw the answer is a qualified yes, the film is pacey and raw and doesn’t linger too long on the pulchritudinous prisoners… then again the version I watched is 79 minutes long versus the full-length 83… what happened in those missing four minutes?

The Doctor greets his new patients...

Whatever, this film has a decent pace and plot and features some good performances throughout its large cast, Demme had to work hard to persuade Corman to make another prison chick flick but the latter agreed on the condition that his director produced something novel… just so long as there was enough sex and violence to keep the punters happy. And Dame duly obliges with a film that has something for liberals as well as lechers… these women are victims as much as their, er, victims and they are punished too harshly by an unforgiving system that revels in their suffering.

Pandora protects Belle from Maggie

There’s something of the humour of Russ Meyer aided by the presence of Vixen herself, the excellent Erica Gavin, but the film doesn’t treat its women as objects in the same way and there’s more characterization and believability than in a Meyer boob-fest.

The story begins in breakneck fashion as a woman and two men try to evade the police after a botched drug deal. They are pursued by a long-haired cop dressed up to match his prey... he downs one of the men and, as the other escapes, traps the woman, Jacqueline Wilson (Gavin).

Cheryl Rainbeuax Smith

The scene shifts to a prison and a sexual dream of one inmate Lavelle (Cheryl Rainbeuax Smith) which ends with her trying to knife her lover through the prison bars… ooer this is going to be complicated and steamy… but, in truth the heat kept within this cage is more driven by resentment and anger at the treatment than any suppressed sexuality no matter what the salacious trailer says.

Dream sequence for Miss Wilson

Of course the women are frustrated but they are also abused by comedy guards resembling extras in Smokey and the Bandit as well as short-haired butch women officers and a wheelchair-bound governor who is deeply imprisoned by her own denial. Barbara Steele plays this role with tongue ever so slightly in cheek, clearly relishing the chance to play the baddie after surviving so many Hammer horrors as the victim. Mr Demme is no fan of authority figures and the Governor is clearly taking out her own physical and mental inhibitions on her inmates.

Two sides of Barbara Steele

But she’s not the weirdest oppressor in the Connerville Institute for Women, far from it as the prison Doctor (Warren Miller) uses his situation to conduct illegal experiments on the inmates and to fulfill his twisted impulses… a genuinely creepy turn from Mr Miller.

Jacqueline Wilson arrives to face the well-worn dehumanization of prison regime as the new inmates remove their clothes and leave dignity at the door for their first strip-search. Once inside she finds her new roommate Lavelle unwilling to talk but neighbours Pandora (Ella Reid) and her best buddy Belle (Roberta Collins) are full of useful tips on survival.

Roberta Collins and Ella Reid

Jackie’s no push-over though as she demonstrates in her first encounter with Maggie (Juanita Brown) the toughest nut in Connerville. The two clash after Demme’s camera manages to drag itself away from the bodies in the shower room. The guards stop the contest before too long and the combatants claim they both slipped in front of the governor… you sense the old routines of solidarity in the face of the screws will get them through…

Show time...

The only light relief comes from a show in which Pandora and Belle perform in drag – they’re a knockout but go too far for the Governor who withdraws in shock, then falls asleep to reveal her own frustrations in a memorable dream sequence, unleashing her possible self with a leggy cabaret show for her inmates.

Solitary

Life moves fast in the prison, Pandora ends up in solitary for her exhibition but Belle works out a way of sneaking her food in one of the lighter moments. Jackie gets caught up in Maggie’s attempted escape and both end up in barbaric “correction” – electric shock treatment from the Doctor… His treatments have broken many women before them and he’s itching to try his revolutionary lobotomy treatment on someone but only after he’s drugged and molested them.

The Doctor's unethical treatments are exposed

There has to be a way out of here… and Maggie makes a desperate break for freedom in the middle of their closely guarded "agricultural therapy”… Jackie hitches a ride after one girl gets killed and she realises she cannot face anymore “correction” and punishment…

The two ride off but will it be that simple to escape both the prison itself and their responsibility to their fellow inmates… I think you know what the answer might be.

In front of the flag

Dusty verdict: Caged Heat is about friendship in the most difficult of circumstances and, whilst there is some sexual content, the overall feelings between the girls are loyalty and solidarity. As Maggie reveals to Jackie, she tried to make herself the toughest person she could be because she had to – that was the only way to survive.

Maggie gets a gun

They are exploited by a system only designed to punish and to remove their potential for further wrong-doing – literally in the case of the bad Doctor and the only sensible route forward is rebellion and escape. The kind of escape and second chances everyone dreams of… whatever their personal “prison”. So far so seventies… but so what it is good fun and well-acted by its committed cast.

Erica gets ready to drive

Juanita Brown is a force of nature, fierce and yet with a heart of gold whilst Ella Reid and Roberta Collins are the films’ Redford and McQueen. Erica Gavin is the audience’s route into this world and she shows how good an actress she is as you quickly forget the excesses of her earlier work and you root for them all.

Caged Heat does not live up to its title and it’s all the better for it! It’s available on DVD from the usual sources and well worth watching for all the right reasons.