Gone in 60 Seconds Movie Review

Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

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Written by: H.B. Halicki
Directed by: H.B. Halicki
Starring: H.B. Halicki, Marion Busia, Jerry Daugirda
Rated: PG [PG-13]
Watch the trailer

Plot
When a South American drug lord pays Pace to steal 48 cars for him, all but one is in the bag, precipitating a desperate car chase with the police as Pace drive and his Eleanor, a Ford Mustang, across Southern California.

Verdict
This is the idea for a movie that is somehow stretched to ninety minutes in part due to a forty minute car chase. It's a budget movie and it certainly shows. While it showcases a few cool cars, it leaves a lot to be desired. The dialog seems to have been added after the fact and most of that dialog is in the first forty five minutes. It's a premise that's squandered, but you have to give Halicki credit for doing everything, including financing and stunts.
Skip it.

Review
I was surprised that the Ford Mustang got top billing in the credits. I also wondered why the man has four pairs of sunglasses on his dash. 

This is a budget movie and it shows. There's an entire scene out of focus, and a night scene where you can barely see anything. It seems like a lot of the dialog was recorded after and was dubbed over scenes. One sequence is dialog over the crew working in the shop. There's a disconnect due to that which makes figuring out what's happening even more difficult. The upside is that there isn't much happening. At a few points during filming, Halicki had to stop filming and repair cars to fund the project.

Eleanor the 1971 Ford Mustang

There's not much story here, and even less once they start stealing cars. It's kind of fun, but I'd like more. We see them steal cars repeatedly but there isn't much dialog or even action. There aren't conversations, just narration and even that is shaky.

The crew only steals insured cars which leads them to return a yellow Mustang named Eleanor and find another. This features the longest car chase in film at forty minutes long. Ninety car were destroyed in the sequence. With the low budget the chase scene isn't the most exciting. It's a lot of pivot and turns to evade the cops. This doesn't have much of an ending either.

I'm surprised it took so long for a remake, the premise blends fun and action. This movie just didn't have the budget to fulfill that.