Google
 

The Road to “Hell” is Paved With Unintentional Laffs!

June 26th, 2007 by Scott Marks

hell.jpg

Hot Rods to Hell / John Brahm (1967)

The date had been circled on my calendar for months. June 25th couldn’t come soon enough.

Hell hath no fury stronger than a home video release.

Sometime around my Bar Mitzvah, a friend called and told me about a film he’d seen in which some guy and his family is terrorized by teen punks. We watched it together that night via telephone taking particular delight in drunken Dana Andrews wrenching his bruised back after catching a football.

Subsequently, I never missed a WGN screening, but that wasn’t enough. I had to experience Hell, all eight circles, on the screen. A bunch of us pitched in and rented the faded 16mm Films, Inc. copy and went on a weekend bender, screening it at least a half dozen times.

Tom Phillips (Dana) drives his family through the dessert en route to the motel (in the middle of nowhere) of their dreams. Plagued by a trio of clean-cut, beer can throwing hooligans, the Phillips’ journey yields more laughs than 99% of intentional comedies. From the slurred line readings, well-intentioned morality pleas, sun-drenched day-for-night cinematography, thudding reminders of Tom’s chronic back pain and the Mickey Rooney, Jr. Trio, this is the textbook example of a film that’s so bad it’s educational. Originally intended for TV, M-G-M’s lion shat this into theaters. The TCM “restored” print contained on the DVD includes more dialogue and different music cues than the version we grew up on.

It just keeps getting better. If anything, the restored copy looks too good. It needs more green scratches. Even without the washed out color Dana retains his funeral parlor blush and fire-engine red lipstick. Nothing short of The Day the Clown Cried or the missing reels of The Magnificent Ambersons could thrill me as much as being able to hold a pristine copy of Hot Rods to Hell in my hands. It even has the trailer!

For those of you who may be uninitiated, buy it sight unseen. You won’t regret it.

I’ll see you all in Hell!

Tags: ,

Filed Under DVD, Reviews