Moderately enjoyable Frankie, Fabian and Annette drive-in fare, no masterpiece, but watchable and amusing for all the wrong reasons. Frankie and Fabian are tougher than normal, yet Annette's as goody goody as normal, verbally lambasting Frankie for not wanting a home and family, even though it's supposedly Fabian she loves. She's the only one who doesn't seem to belong to the revel genre of teen and young adult movies that American International was moving onto, getting away from the beach and teen romance and Edgar Allan Poe gothic horror stories with a brooding Vincent Price. The film starts and ends with some truly adorable claymation credits that's probably the most original thing about the film.
The story surrounds the stock car race craze, with some very intense race scenes and a few shocking crashes, presumably stock footage. Frankie and Annette do get to sing, but the songs aren't anything worthy of the charts. It's pretty serious stuff for a Frankie and Annette film, only unintentionally funny because of Annette's prissy nature among the young toughs, male and female, that she's surrounded by. Chill Wills does provide a bit of comic relief, but that too is more unintentional because of his hound dog face and Jed Clampett voice. Not as nasty in plot and characterization as later troubled young adult movies that AIP would flood the drive-ins with, but definitely a step to a genre yet to come that fortunately didn't last long.
The story surrounds the stock car race craze, with some very intense race scenes and a few shocking crashes, presumably stock footage. Frankie and Annette do get to sing, but the songs aren't anything worthy of the charts. It's pretty serious stuff for a Frankie and Annette film, only unintentionally funny because of Annette's prissy nature among the young toughs, male and female, that she's surrounded by. Chill Wills does provide a bit of comic relief, but that too is more unintentional because of his hound dog face and Jed Clampett voice. Not as nasty in plot and characterization as later troubled young adult movies that AIP would flood the drive-ins with, but definitely a step to a genre yet to come that fortunately didn't last long.