Drag Racer (1972) User Reviews

Surprise! It's for hardcore drag race fans!

[kenoshaki · 9/10 · 9 June 2010]

This movie caught me off guard. I was expecting a goofy 70's film with bongs and vans with a little racing thrown in.

Boy was I wrong! This is a great movie for hardcore drag race fans, especially if you grew up during the pre-corporate pro crap we have today.

Most of actors are familiar faces playing TV "guest star" roles of the 60's and 70's like the Rockford Files, Bonanza, Starsky and Hutch etc. You see them and you go, hey I know that guy! What did he play in?

Many 70's era drag racers that went on to be famous racers and tuners are also "stars" in this movie.

A real surprise was the actors that play the car owner/tuners are really involved with the car at the track! They pour the traction compound, guide the car, push start the car, push it back from the burnout! You would never see that today.

Lots of racing! Very little "filler". Some bad directing and some overacting, some underacting. Sketchy editing and bad camera work.

The nitro pop in the pipes is captured almost perfectly! If ESPN would have sound quality like this in their drag race production more people would watch, that is for sure!

Overall, this should become a cult movie now that it's out on DVD. Pretty girls, easy to follow story, and lots of vintage racing.

Too bad the producers used that terrible film (early video?) that so many used during the late 60's and early 70's that has faded and lost some detail.

Even with some shortcomings and abrupt ending I give it 9 toes up!

A Down and Dirty, Realistic Drag Racing Flick

[rdfranciscritic · 22 December 2023]

Revered as "a versatile and underrated B-movie renaissance man," connoisseurs of '60s biker flicks know John "Bud" Cardos for his acting resume under the early career lenses of director Al Adamson and Richard Rush in the films Hell's Angels on Wheels (1967), Satan's Sadists (1969), and The Rebel Rousers (1970). Then there's Bud's early hicksploitation romp, The Road Hustlers (1968), with its tale of racing backwoods bootleggers going up against a corrupt local sheriff.

Thus, Cardos is well prepared for his move behind the lens as a director in this drag racing romp that provides a rare, starring-role for equally-revered B-movie and television character actor John Davis Chandler; his more familiar character roles of his 100-plus credits include The Young Savages (1961) with Burt Lancaster, Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) with Kris Kristofferson, and Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976). Chandler always captivates the screen.

Considering most racing flicks of the '60s were reimaged "beach flicks" that substituted asphalt for sand (and starred either Frankie Avalon or Fabian), this dramatic, youth-oriented tale dispenses the romantic slapstick of those sandy predecessors as we meet Jeff (familiar '60s TV actor Mark Slade): a young man who, if he's not working on cars, he's racing them around town, racking up speeding tickets. His life's goal is to tear the quarter mile in a top-fuel dragster -- to the chagrin of his well-to-do girlfriend who wants him to give up racing and work for her father.

A racing team (run by fellow biker flick-actor Jeremy Slate, as well as John Davis Chandler) that's burned through three drivers, their reputation sullied as result of the track-death of one of their racers, is desperate for a win to keep the team on the track. They give the fast-talking Jeff a shot; his later misunderstanding with a top promoter at a post-race party, who holds a grudge against Jeff's team for the accident, derails those plans.

As with the bigger studio racing flicks of time, such as Red Line 7000 (an early James Caan role), Thunder Alley, and The Wild Racers (Fabian) new-found romance ensues (via '60 familiar "beach actress" Deborah Walley from Elvis Presley's 1966 racing-romp, Spinout; the film's only lull courtesy of romantic row boating and horse-riding), but takes a back seat. Cardos opted to bring the track's gritty realism to the forefront (via a mix of stock and shot-in-camera footage) as the cast mans the pits alongside real-life racers and their cars on the famed drag strips of the day.

It is unfortunate Drag Racer proved to be the lone writing effort of '60s TV bit-actor Robert Glenn; he either knew (lived) the lifestyle or did his research, as he crafted a thoroughly engaging narrative propelled by realistic characters emoting spot-on industry dialog for a film that takes you into the day-to-day grind of what it's like to live the life of a drag racer. John Cardos deciding to keep things on the track -- with lots of racing and great footage from the yesteryear's of the golden age of drag racing -- is the icing, well, rubber, on the racing slicks.

As you watch, you may notice Tom Cruise's smarmy Cole Trickle from Days of Thunder (1990) mirrors Jeff's career rise and personal growth, while Jeremy Slate's gruff "pit-father" figure reminds of Robert Duvall's skeptical Harry Hogge. Yes, the acting, here, is more rough in spots while the cinematography and editing may be a bit on the amateur than that Cruise effort, but it adds to the film's realistic, pseudo-documentary quality.