A fascinating car crash of a movie, if you forgive the pun - because it is so absolutely purely Howard Hawks. Its full of fresh faces, the women keep trying to talk like Lauren Bacall, everyone hangs out and is noble in the face of death, there's overlapping dialogue, talk of professionalism, and being Hawksian.
And it could have worked. Hawks has a great feel for the camaraderie of the drivers and their women - they are groupies, though, just kind of hanging around. The basic stories aren't bad - a girl who dated a racer that died worries he's bad luck (this happens at the beginning though... it may have been more effective had we seen their relationship), a womanising driver has a fling with the sister of his boss and she goes head over heels, a man falls for the French girl of his rival but can't get over the fact she's used goods.
But the stories aren't really developed in interesting ways - we never see the bad luck girl with the guy who dies, so it doesn't matter much, and the new driver who loves her doesn't have a reason to do so; the womanising driver and the girl are just together then break up then he disappears from the movie; not enough time is spent on the rivalry.
Hawks needed to focus on the key six - it's hard enough doing that - but then the manager of the team gets all this screen time and so does Charlene Holt. There's a singer in there too. He doesn't do justice for the stories.
More importantly, the cast aren't up to it. James Caan is terrific - he's got "new star" all over him, you can see why people expected him to be one straight away. His character is loathsome, calling the girl he likes a slut because, gasp, she had a former boyfriend, but Caan is excellent. The other two racers, John Crawford and Skip Ward are far too anonymous - I kept getting them mixed up. Norman Alden was fine, but I kept forgetting who he was too. Couldn't they afford Walter Brennan?
Now the girls. Charlene Holt is fine... but I don't think they needed her character. Gail Hire is spectacularly bad with that voice. Laura Devon tries - has some moments - but really needed a better actor to play against. Mariana Hill is fun as a French girl, constantly dancing. She gets to do some scenes with Caan.
There's not enough strong actors as Hawks later admitted. Not enough work on the story. Moments of pure camp like a song and dance number, and one of the racers competing with a hook once he loses his hand.
Still I enjoyed watching it. Everyone being Hawksian and not up to it.
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