cult film freak: DAVID CARRADINE REDIRECTED IN PAUL BARTEL'S 'CANNONBALL'

Title: CANNONBALL Year: 1976 Rating: ****

It would be as surprising if roughshod stuntman director Hal Needham made a sophisticated Shakespeare adaptation as classy/gentlemen Paul Bartel being one of the best high-octane car-race/chase auteurs in the grungy 1970's and, following the popular dystopian-future dark-comedy DEATH RACE 2000, he made the first and least known action-flick based on the genuinely real and extremely illegal no-rules cross-country Cannonball...

Created and manned by Brock Peters, who only appeared in the famous 1981 Needham ensemble with superstar Burt Reynolds, making THE CANNONBALL RUN the only legitimate showcase...

Mary Woronov, Diane Lee Hart and Glynn Rubin in CANNONBALL

Although Paul Bartel's CANNONBALL is more like the edgy and dangerous race itself, more befitting the likewise shoddy and low-grade exploitation/drive-in cinema...

Wherein the actors aren't as famous, as it's not a 1980's version of MAD MAD MAD WORLD like CANNONALL RUN but a 1970's Roger Corman production using several of his stock actors, like Mary Woronov with two sexy van-riding co-pilots, seducing cops away from giving them speeding tickets like Adrianne Barbeau/Tara Buckman would later...

Martin Scorsese, Paul Bartel and Sylvester Stallone in CANNONBALL

There's also a pivotal biker fight... which here's more specifically geared to DEATH RACE star David Carradine, back in the driver's seat with his same slow-burn quiet cool and, although teamed with beautiful girlfriend Veronica Hamel and faithful mechanic Archie Hahn, he's just as maverick/rogue as ever...

Squaring off with DELIVERANCE hillbilly rapist villain Bill McKinney, who, like Sylvester Stallone the previous year (making a cameo as a mafioso with Martin Scorsese), wants to win at all costs: coupled with a subplot of Carradine being targeted not only to lose, but die...

David Carradine in CANNONBALL

Other contestants further epitomizing the 1970's grindhouse-aura, while basking in a groovy electric guitar soundtrack, are Robert Carradine and Belinda Balaski as surfer hippies in a hot corvette and a cheesy guitar-crooning Gerrit Graham: while chubby married man Carl Gottlieb's paired with Stallone's previous DR2000 co-pilot Louisa Mortiz...

A hangout ensemble that's not exactly serious yet they aren't silly and punchline-inducing like the Burt Reynolds classic, all just-real enough in their muscle cars (ranging from a Camaro to a Mustang to a Dodge Charger) backed by Paul Bartel's fast-paced direction, combining low-budget guerrilla camerawork and documentary-style editing — that made both of his consecutive car-car cult classics really shine.