LADO A
1–J.B. Pickers Super Soul Theme 1:50
2–Bobby Doyle The Girl Done Got It Together 2:47
3–Jimmy Walker Where Do We Go From Here 2:54
4–Jerry Reed Welcome To Nevada 1:52
5–Segarini & Bishop Dear Jesus God 3:57
6–Doug Dillard Experience, The Runaway Country 4:10
7–Delaney & Bonnie You Got To Believe 3:00
LADO B
1–Jimmy Bowen Love Theme 2:40
2–Eve So Tired 2:11
3–J.B. Pickers Freedom Of Expression 5:48
4–Mountain Mississippi Queen 2:33
5–Big Mama Thornton Sing Out For Jesus 1:48
6–Segarini & Bishop Over Me 3:05
7–Kim & Dave Nobody Knows 2:23
" Best Soundtrack ever...There's no other way to say it. This is just pure perfection... in the film, each song is perfectly suited to each scene... but alone, all the song are still great! Definitely recommended! "
" Best Soundtrack ever...There's no other way to say it. This is just pure perfection... in the film, each song is perfectly suited to each scene... but alone, all the song are still great! Definitely recommended! "
1971 - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," as Charles Dickens wrote. It was the era which had just witnessed Woodstock, the first moon landing, the explosive growth of the civil rights movement, and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It was also and odd time in the history of film.
The Beatles, a rock group, had been making movies. Best Picture Oscar nominees that year included "A Clockwork Orange", "Fiddler On The Roof", "The Last Picture Shown","The French Connection" and "Nicholas and Alexandra", with Connection taking home the big prize. Several of these films became instant Cult Classic and remain so today.
Social unrest underpinned much of the tension that permeated American society, with the silent majority still learning to cope with racial equality, hippies, drug culture and free love, and the women's movement.
Car chase movies were nothing new; perhaps the best ever, Steve McQueen's Bullitt, was but a few years old. And another classic automotive action scene, the race for time between officer Popeye Doyle's battered Pontiac and a Brooklyn 'N' train, was among the centrepieces of The French Connection.
Director Richard C Serafian insists his "Vanishing Point", release in 1971 by 20th Century Fox, isn't a drug culture flick, but instead a "tapestry of many different levels of Americana". That may be true, the film's characters sure popped a lot odd speed and smoked more than a few joints in the process.
The film's principal character is Kowalski (first name unknown), played by Barry Newman in only his second major film role, and a grumbling Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Magnum four-speed.
Kowalski is a complex character, a has been car and motorcycle racer, decorated Vietnam veteran, and former cop. Having washed out of most of his previous carrers, he works as an over-the-road car delivery driver hired to deliver a white-over-black Challenger R/T 440 Magnum from Colorado to San Franscisco.
"It was ordained for the begining, by Mr Zanuck at Fox, that Barry Newman was to play Kowalski," says Serafian. He never specifically says why, but alludes to mafia influence over the studio. Newman wasn't at all a bad choice, trim, blue-eyed and handsome, he exuded something of a darker-haired McQueen vibe. Serafian suggested and presented Gene Hackman for the role, only to be summarily discouraged.
Another very important cast member is a young Cleavon Little, in his first major movie performance. Little, whom Serafian claims to have discovered on Broadway, plays Super Soul, a blind clairvoyant DJ who becomes Kowalski's muse, and communicates with him through the airwaves and some "higher" form of ESP. Serafian dubs them soulmates, who connected through the cosmo long before the notions of mobile phones or texting.
Super Soul refers to the police as "the blue meanies" chasing Kowalski at speeds through the desert from town to town.
The question is not
" when he's gonna stop, but who is gonna stop him? "
The last American hero, the electric centaur, the demi-god, the super driver of the golden west! Actor Barry Newman, Kowalski himself, reflects of Challengers old and new, and on the movie that made him a cult icon.
"Vanishing Point is an existentialist film," says Newman. When I read the script, I said to my agent, "this is amazing. It's not just a car chase picture. You gotta understand this".
When it was released in 1971, American audiences at first didn't get it. "But the picture was a smash in Europe," Newman says.
"People still pull up next to me and say Hey! Vanishing Point guy!".
Barry Newman remembers the original Challengers fondly. 'They had so much power, almost too much for the body. You'd put it in first and stand on the gas, and it would almost rear up'.
Newman says all the movie's impressive stunts were performed by Hollywood legend Carey Loftin. "Carey was fantastic. They'd say, Carey, can you roll this car four times and end up right there? And he'd just stare back and say 'yep'."
