Dirty Mary Crazy Larry

Larry wants to be a racing driver and has no money. With Deke, his mechanic, he makes a plan: take a supermarket manager's family hostage, take the money from the safe and buy a race car with it. The robbery works in the morning. Then Mary gets in the car; Larry met her the night before and she refuses to get out. The three set off together. The police are behind them and the escape takes up almost the whole film. John Hough directs. Peter Fonda plays Larry, Susan George plays Mary and Adam Roarke plays Deke. The film belongs to the car chase wave of the seventies, a genre American cinema produced heavily at the time. The chases were shot with real vehicles and stunt drivers, largely without editing tricks. The narrative does not make its characters likeable; all three are selfish and the relations between them keep breaking down. What is most often recalled is its ending; the narrative builds a close with no preparation at all, and that was unusual for the period. It did good business and became a cult film in genre circles in later years. The use of the helicopter and the location shooting are its visual material. Who it is for: viewers who like seventies escape and car films. Who it is not for: there is no depth of character, the middle repeats, and the narrative is nothing but speed.