Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974)

Larry Rayder:  You know what a man would do right now if he were smart?
Deke Sommers:  What?
Larry Rayder:  I don't know, I thought you'd know.

There comes a time in a guy’s life where he seeks a movie with some good car action in the form of a solid chase.  The car chase idea within movies has been around for a long time, but come 1968 a new level of realism was introduced with the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt where the engines were real, the tires really screeched and the drivers fought that steering wheel hard.  The chase only lasts about 7 minutes but its real, its gritty and it’s a blast.  You can almost feel those cars and drivers working hard as those black donuts squeal.  

Most of today’s car action in movies is (to quote a friend who now lives in the country) “pasteurised and homogenised”, meaning that it’s been faked or watered down.  A great example of this is the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds”.  We have the original 1974 (with its cheesy acting – but hey, it’s the car chase that matters!) and the 2000 remake with Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie.  The 2000 remake has a final chase lasts for about 9 minutes with a nice CGI car flying through the air at the climax of the chase whilst the original has a final chase lasting about 40 minutes, with no CGI (in fact the driver almost died in a nasty stack during filming).  Then there is The Fast and he Furious franchise, but hey we won’t go down that watery path.  A notable exception to this modern watered down car chase theory is The Bourne Identity from 2002 where the director wanted a real gritty feel to the chase and to be frank, he succeeded where many others in this modern time have failed.  

Yes, the 70’s in particular was a good era for car action films.  That decade gave us Smokey and the Bandit, Vanishing Point, Gone in 60 Seconds, The French Connection, The Seven-Ups, Mad Max and our movie today Dirty Mary Crazy Larry.

The movie itself isn’t really one you would call deep and meaningful when it comes to a story and character development but at its heart it’s a chase movie with realistic car action and that’s what really matters here.  It’s simply about a heist and the getaway that goes on afterward which consumes most of the movie.  

Larry (Peter Fonda) is ex NASCAR racer who teams up with Deke (Adam Roarke) his mechanic, to pull off a robbery at a local store however they get more than they bargained for when Mary (Susan George) decides to come along for the ride and of course the Police are hot on their tail.  The very interesting thing about the movie is that there was quite a bit of improvisation when it came to the script.  There wasn’t really much rehearsal because they were in a car at high speed often with the sound man in the boot.  There were also times when the Director, John Hough, was also in the back seat of the car filming whilst they were speeding along.  So what we have here is acting that is reflective of “on the edge” high speed driving with some stunts thrown in, so the anxious voices in some scenes, especially from Mary, is simply because they were travelling at high speed or were having another car ram into theirs.  You don’t get that these days, most probably for safety reasons and it often shows in modern movies.  But here people are almost run over, cars are on the edge and the climax of the chase scene involving a Helicopter is simply jaw-dropping especially when you consider the risks that were involved both to the car’s occupants and the Helicopter’s.

This film also made the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T 440 popular in a similar way to how Vanishing Point made the 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 popular.  Yes, these classic 70’s movies could never be remade again the same sort of way and for that reason they will stay in the top 20 car chase films of all time, so stay tuned cause some more of these will be reviewed in time.  

The Bluray used for the review here is a dual layered double feature with the second movie being Race with the Devil (a good thriller also with good driving action involving a Winnebago).  The film, to my knowledge, is only available from the USA and currently brought out by the “SHOUT Factory”.  Its region free so it will work on Australian Bluray players and it’s also available in DVD form.  

The movie is shown in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio so it will fill up your widescreen tele and apart from a few scenes in lower light where it can appear a little washed out, the Bluray looks really good and the audio is in 2 Channel DTS HD Master which sounds clear.  There are also a few extras as listed below that are worthwhile.

• Audio Commentary with Director John Hough
• Ride the Wild Side – A 30 minute featurette
• Theatrical Trailer
• TV and Radio Spots

Overall the movie gets a 4 out of 5 (taking into account the good car action) along with the same rating for the Bluray but only 3.5 for the image quality.  

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