Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Cannonball is over. Attention. Attention.
Break down drivers. The police are on their way to bust the race. The post time has been moved up to exactly sixty seconds from now.
Trailer: Cannonball.
No cannonball is gonna be passing you like you weren't even there.
Anyone can enter and anything goes in a squealing, smashing outlaw race across America. Wanna make a
little bet on a Transamerican Grand Prix. Can you handle $20,000?
Gentlemen, no eternity. Mister Redman, mister Buckman.
I believe we run into each other once or twice.
It's a cross country demolition journey. I meet the witness for you. And if you so much is coming in a hundred miles than me, you're gonna wind up with my
tire tracks right up your lane.
The winner gets a hundred thousand. The losers keep what's left of their cars. Nice, Get me the highway patrol.
We're trying to get a word here with Brad Phillips, organizer of the race. Brad, tell me, your race has been called an outlaw sporting event. Do you have any comment on that? Well, the police and safety officials around the country get upset because our drivers tend to exceed the speed limits.
One speeding ticket and you're back in prison.
Oh, god. There's trouble.
It's a three way free throw that hits with the impact of a head on collision. I thought this car could beat anything on the road.
It's part of the winner. Cannonball.
Pete Wright: Andy, this movie. How did we get dragooned into doing this movie?
Andy Nelson: This is you know, we're doing our Roger Corman celebration all year long, and our members are voting on films that he was involved in in one way, shape, or form. And, yeah, for this month, we asked members to vote, and I'm trying to remember what the specific angle was that we went with. I think it was just a car chase, car race, car chase.
Pete Wright: In the middle of our driving series. Makes sense.
Andy Nelson: Because exactly. So here we are. So we gave people 10 options, and cannonball is what they picked. Or I should say, cannonball!, because big old exclamation point.
Pete Wright: Yeah. You should say that. I mean, you won't because that's a little high energy for right now. Just say just know when you hear us say cannonball, we meant cannonball.
Andy Nelson: I might just say cannonball every time I bring it up.
Pete Wright: Okay. Alright. Just an interjection. Just before war. Because you're you.
Alright. So what did you think of this movie? Now we've talked about the cannonball run before conceptually, not the movie.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. We've we've mentioned I'm trying to remember when we discussed it. Was it was it in our death race two thousand?
Pete Wright: Yes.
Andy Nelson: I think it was in that because that essentially is what this is, just a a future version of the Cannonball Run.
Pete Wright: Yes. And we were, I think, both surprised to hear that the Cannonball Run was, one, a real thing. Two, a lot more movies than just the Cannonball Run had been made about the Cannonball Run, and that we wanted to talk about more Cannonball adjacent
Andy Nelson: films. Hear. Hear. Yes. That's right.
Yeah. It it's a real surprise how many of them there are, but this is, you know, the first ish. There were two actual unofficial films made about that that particular race in 1976, this being one of them.
Pete Wright: How did it hit you?
Andy Nelson: I had fun with it. I enjoyed my time with the story, you know, where where basically I mean, it's kind of like any of these cannonball run types of films where, again, just for people who aren't familiar with it as we keep bringing it up, it is a basically coast to coast race. Unofficial, unsanctioned, illegal, generally because people are driving at illegal speeds. And the film follows a number of different drivers, and we kind of get to know each of their different personalities as they all race to get across the coast first. In this particular case, in this film, I think the real race goes from New York to LA.
This one goes from LA to New York. I have fun with these films. I have fun with this type of film. I think there's just something I mean, I grew up watching the Cannonball Run films a lot, like they were in very regular rotation. And likewise, I think I talked about, like, the wacky races that Hanna Barbera did, which is in in kind of a global version.
I just enjoy this type of story where you're following a whole bunch of different people trying to race, you know, across the country or around the world, whatever the case may be. This film definitely has that low budget feel to it. You're not necessarily getting, like, a studio budget that gives them the money they need to really accomplish stuff, but still they pull some stuff off. And I was I actually had a lot of fun with it. I you know, it's I think it's a a very enjoyable easy watch, the sort of thing that just, think, can fit right into this type of film, and I can I can easily enjoy it?
Pete Wright: Yeah. And I'll I'll say that same thing. I I watched the movie. I enjoyed my time with the movie. That you feel the budget.
Right? Like, there are I I never really get a sense that they crossed the country. I think they crossed Arizona, and then they were in New York. Right.
Andy Nelson: I just think they lavated out of California. I think they just went from LA to the deserts outside of LA, and then
Pete Wright: And then they're in New York. Yeah. Yeah. So I I just I felt that. Like, there wasn't that sense of scope to this movie, and so many people's cars blew up.
Like, it just felt like there's more death maybe than in the Cannonball Baker seat of Saranacci memorial trophy dash, the real race.
Andy Nelson: Well but I think that was part of the fun. I think I mean, specifically I mean, there is one explosion early in the film, but I think specifically most of the explosions are that giant pile up where somehow every single car explodes. Like, it was ridiculous. And I just thought that that was probably Paul Bartel, the director, throwing something in because, one, he's not that excited about cars and car racing movies. And so just, you know, probably just put it in just because it was something more fun and interesting to do.
And two, probably because there's something Roger Corman liked, and he enjoys those sorts of things. Honestly, though, I say that I don't know how much he was actually involved specifically because it was more him as an executive producer on this one through his New World Pictures. The actual producer was Samuel w Geldman. So who knows regardless? It still could have been an order coming down from the big man.
Pete Wright: Well, you know, I mean, maybe he he felt a little bit exhausted after death race two thousand. I mean, this just felt like a pile on to to that. I think that that final sequence of lumbering explosions on the highway. Right? There's, like, there's no real vigor to it.
It doesn't feel like an intentional stunt. It feels like we're just gonna just every car is just gonna continue to run into the car before it. And I found myself laughing out loud because at the same time, the three women in the van are slowly navigating the hairpin turns through the wreckage while the cars are actively careening into themselves.
Andy Nelson: So funny.
Pete Wright: It was very funny.
Andy Nelson: Well, that's what I I think Bartel had to do that for comedic purposes because it wasn't action filled. It was very just kind of like these slow this car is just they kept crashing into this pileup, and they they instantly would explode. It was so ridiculous that I just had to laugh. Hey there, all you gear jamming cinephiles. Andy here, and I've got some news that'll make you wanna put the pedal to the metal.
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