Fairly typical AIP juvenile delinquent exploitationer, with a couple of standard ingredients: fast cars, a love triangle, and comic relief. The triangle is between childhood friend, poor Steve Tyrell and rich John Ashley, over “fast girl” Fay Spain. This was an early lead role for Ashley, who apparently got the part because he impressed writer Lou Rusoff with his Elvis Presley impression; accordingly Ashley does a bit of an Elvis impression singing a sort of title song with Frank Gorshin (who’s the comic relief, a beatnik type). (Ashley would later do a Presley type number in AIP’s How to Make a Monster.)
Parents have a stronger presence in this than I remembered from AIP films (Spain’s parents in particular are quite prominent) – but then, I guess this was 50s AIP as opposed to 60s beach party AIP where there were no parent.
You can’t help wishing there was more car action, and the murder plot is introduced too late – Ashley runs someone over in Tyrell’s car (this is accidental and the film would have perhaps worked better had it been a deliberate set up). Also they cheat at the end without having a really big car chase – although I did like the fact that Fay Spain steps in for Tyrell. The same team later appeared in a re-hash of these elements, Motorcycle Girl.
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