Movies - Two-Lane Blacktop

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	Movies - Two-Lane Blacktop

Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Warren Oates, Laurie Bird, and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson.

Esquire Magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, but the film was not a huge commercial success. The film has since become a cult classic. Brock Yates, organizer of the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash (better known as the Cannonball Run) cites Two-Lane Blacktop as one source of inspiration for the creation of the race, and commented on it in his Car and Driver column announcing the first Cannonball.

Two-Lane Blacktop is notable as a time capsule film of Route 66 during the pre-Interstate Highway era, and for its stark footage and minimal dialogue. As such it has become popular with fans of Route 66. Two-Lane Blacktop has been compared to similar road movies with an existentialist message from the era, such as Vanishing Point, Easy Rider
, and Electra Glide in Blue
.

Plot summary

The premise involves two drag racers (played by Taylor and Wilson) who live on the road in their 1955 Chevy and drift from town to town, making their only income challenging local residents to races. The movie follows them driving east on Route 66 from Needles, California. They pick up a hitchhiker in Flagstaff, Arizona (played by Bird). In New Mexico, they encounter another drag racing drifter (played by Oates, driving a Pontiac GTO) and challenge him to a cross-country race to Washington, D.C. with the winner of the race getting the title to the others' car. The characters are never identified by name in the movie, given only names such as "The Driver," "The Mechanic," "The GTO," and "The Girl". The movie follows the group east through small towns in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee. They never make it to Washington, D.C. and eventually drift apart, with the film ending in a drag race in Memphis, Tennessee after Oates and Bird have departed.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Two-Lane Blacktop ]

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