Movie review - "The Great Texas Dynamite Chase" (1976) ** ½

An example par excellance of 70s New World “tits feminism” – an exploitation movie with strong female characters who frequently take their clothes off. The women in this case are Claudia Jennings and Jocelyn Jones. Jennings is an escaped prisoner who robs a bank using dynamite to save the family farm; Jones is a bank teller who helps her in Jennings’ initial robbery. The two decide to team up to rob banks; Johnny Crawford plays a love interest for Jones. Most of the action is jokey and tongue in cheek until it gets serious towards the end with some deaths.

The script is episodic, (one bank, then another bank) – Danny Peary in his book on cult movies correctly pointed out the film really needs someone chasing the girls instead of just random cops. 

The two leads dress in skimpy shorts and tight tops and are very sexy and often nude, particularly Jennings, who has a hot love scene with her own love interest. (NB if you want to know the reason why this film appeared in a book on cult movies it is mainly because this is the best known performance from Jennings, a kind of Queen of the Drive Ins in the 1970s who died in a car crash in 1979 and became a cult figure).

Totally unpretentious and bright enough; the final shot of the two girls galloping off into the sunset is genuinely rousing. Interesting for similarities to Thelma and Louise – the men in the film are either lecherous morons or dumb helpful studs. One thing – the two are shown to rob banks with dynamite. The thing with dynamite though – unlike a gun, if you use it isn’t the robber going to blow up as well?