daveglass

Vanishing Point (1971), directed by Richard C. Sarafian and starring Barry Newman, is the greatest car chase film ever made. It follows Kowalski, a former racing driver who attempts to deliver a white 1970 Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in just 15 hours. What begins as a reckless race against time escalates into a massive interstate police pursuit. As the chase unfolds, a blind radio DJ named Super Soul begins broadcasting Kowalski’s exploits, transforming him into a countercultural folk hero. The film belongs to a subgenre of exploitation cinema known as carsploitation, which flourished during the 1970s. Often low-budget independent productions, these films were built around high-speed pursuits and spectacular crashes, featuring incredibly dangerous stunt driving, much of which would never be permitted under today’s safety standards. These were films brimming with attitude, with the automobile central to their appeal, representing freedom and rebellion against authority. Vanishing Point is the pinnacle of the genre. It was shot by legendary cinematographer John A. Alonzo, who also photographed crime classics like Chinatown and Scarface. There are shots in this film taken from the side of the road, where cars come skidding past the camera at such terrifying speeds and in such close proximity that you wonder how nobody was killed. Vanishing Point is so revered by Quentin Tarantino that he paid homage to it in Death Proof (2007), making the same model of car the centrepiece of the film’s spectacular final chase sequence. Stuntwoman Zoë Bell, playing herself, explains that it’s the same white Dodge Challenger driven by Kowalski in Vanishing Point, describing the original film as “just one of the best American movies ever made.” (Because it absolutely is.)