cult film freak: MIMSY FARMER AND RITA HAYWORTH TAKING 'THE ROAD TO SALINA'

Written by James M. Tate / 8/07/2026 / No comments / ed begley , georges lautner , mimsy farmer , neo noir , rita hayworth , robert walker jr. , sophie hardy , spanish , thriller

MIMSY FARMER AND RITA HAYWORTH TAKING 'THE ROAD TO SALINA'

8/07/2026 | No comment

Mimsy Farmer in THE ROAD TO SALINA Year: 1970 Rating: ****1/2

At the end of Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL VOLUME 2, a cascading prog-rock instrumental backs a beautiful American blonde, driving through rural Mexico, for the conclusion of her revenge-epic mission...

As both the song and situation were lifted from French auteur Georges Lautner's Spanish-shot/set 1970 giallo/noir THE ROAD TO SALINA when a gorgeous car-driving American blonde is instead just arriving...

Rita Hayworth in THE ROAD TO SALINA

Inevitably providing brooding protagonist Robert Walker Jr. a reason for the dire situation during the sporadic frame story (including an ongoing narration), telling a local lawman his tale about showing up at a middle-of-nowhere gas station/cafe, run by an older woman played by Hollywood Golden Age icon Rita Hayworth...

The GILDA star still looks somewhat attractive as a world-weary lady suffering the kind of heart-broken loneliness (courted only by affable old-timer Ed Begley) that's usually given to aging post-ingenues...

Mimsy Farmer in THE ROAD TO SALINA

Here finding plot-central solace in being completely convinced that Walker, a road traipsing loner who happens upon this vacantly-dismal central locale, is her son who died three-years previously...

An enigmatic and bizarre dilemma making Walker the kind of vulnerable character both thoroughly confused and utterly determined... doubly-ignited once gorgeous blonde Mimsy Farmer (who had recently driven another handsome lone-wolf nuts in the counter-culture drama MORE) shows up...

Mimsy Farmer in THE ROAD TO SALINA

With wide sad-eyes and a sullen full-bottom-lip pout between tremendously bright smiles, American-imported Euro-starlet Farmer predictably mesmerizes Walker in the cliche noir fashion, quickly turning him into a smitten sap... yet he still investigates the gothic mystery of why he's being called Rita Hayworth's returning-from-the-dead son and Mimsy's long-lost brother: despite the latter quickly making him her own personal beach-sprawled lover...

Actually, two ROAD TO SALINA soundtrack songs were used by Tarantino... here injecting sporadic momentum into a deliberately slow-burn thriller, character-driven by two great-looking male and female leads while keeping the viewer guessing throughout director Lautner's creative camera-angles and searing close-ups, where the lost souls are as equally doomed as the sparse POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE-inspired purgatory location.