This surprisingly potent and involving low-budget 60's car racetrack drama centers on the heated rivalry between anxious, but adamant and determined ace driver Mickey Arnold (splendidly played by Harry Millard) and intense and surly aspiring champion Ticker Walsh (the equally excellent Mike Bradford). You see, not only does Ticker resent Mickey for always finishing first and thus seeming second-rate in comparison, but also Ticker has a personal beef with Mickey concerning the accidental death of his girlfriend in a car wreck three months ago. This bitter feud reaches its harrowing all-or-nothing apex at a big race which serves as the thrilling climax for the film.
Director William T. ("Hot Rod Hullaboo") Naud, working from an exceptionally smart, compact and astute script by George Baxt, wrings plenty of arresting drama and sweat-inducing tension from compelling story. Moreover, the uniformly fine acting from a solid cast constitutes as a substantial asset: Besides the two terrific male leads, there are similarly strong performances by Judy Lewis as Mickey's loving, but fed-up wife and smoldering brunette Nancy Berg as an opportunistic hussy who falls hard for Ticker. Pat McAndrew has a memorably funny bit as a drunken barroom floozy Ticker hits on. Thomas E. Spalding's stark, gritty black and white photography, a fantastic sequence at a nightclub in which a slick smoothie singer heartily belts out the swooning ballad "Maybe Tomorrow" and stripper Sheri Benet performs a racy stage number, the tart dialogue ("You can't kill ten years on a front porch"), Elliot Lawrence's groovy swinging bebop jazz score, the remarkably well-drawn and engaging characters, and the expected exciting pedal-to-the-metal tire-shrieking, rubber-burning, eat my dust reckless and dangerous automobile racetrack action further enhance the overall sterling quality of this bang-up little sleeper.
Director William T. ("Hot Rod Hullaboo") Naud, working from an exceptionally smart, compact and astute script by George Baxt, wrings plenty of arresting drama and sweat-inducing tension from compelling story. Moreover, the uniformly fine acting from a solid cast constitutes as a substantial asset: Besides the two terrific male leads, there are similarly strong performances by Judy Lewis as Mickey's loving, but fed-up wife and smoldering brunette Nancy Berg as an opportunistic hussy who falls hard for Ticker. Pat McAndrew has a memorably funny bit as a drunken barroom floozy Ticker hits on. Thomas E. Spalding's stark, gritty black and white photography, a fantastic sequence at a nightclub in which a slick smoothie singer heartily belts out the swooning ballad "Maybe Tomorrow" and stripper Sheri Benet performs a racy stage number, the tart dialogue ("You can't kill ten years on a front porch"), Elliot Lawrence's groovy swinging bebop jazz score, the remarkably well-drawn and engaging characters, and the expected exciting pedal-to-the-metal tire-shrieking, rubber-burning, eat my dust reckless and dangerous automobile racetrack action further enhance the overall sterling quality of this bang-up little sleeper.