Henry Blythe Halicki was an unusual man. He had a good business, he had enough money for dozens of cars and at least for all the equipment that was required for the filming of the film. But at the same time, Comrade Khalitsky did not look for sponsors in Hollywood, he wrote scripts for his films, produced them himself, got behind the wheel of a car himself and personally performed a considerable part of the tricks on camera. Why would a man with money need all this?
Taking into account the fact that most of Henry Blythe’s rather large collection consisted of model trains, piggy banks, picture books and pedal machines from the 50s, it can be assumed that Halicki – as society likes to say about those who do what he likes – never fully matured, I tried to return to my childhood and escape from reality. From my point of view, just money didn’t make him happy, but cars of all shapes and sizes – very much. And having the opportunity to roll and smash not miniature models, but full-size sedans and coupes, Henry gladly did just that. What is the name of that popular cliche where a rich character behaves like a spoiled princess? So, Henry Blythe Halicki is like one of the options for how to make such a character good.
In general, anyway, in fact, it was Henry Blythe who gave the world two independent films that are considered iconic among motorists. People of my generation have probably heard about the first of them at least indirectly: the film Hijack In 60 Seconds with Nicolas Cage in the title role, released in the two thousandth year, is an updated production of the 1974 Khalitsky film of the same name. And the second film and the topic of today’s article is The Junkman of 1982, translated as The Junkman.
There was a certain trouble with this film: during the reissue, for some reason, the entire soundtrack was cut out, which from our point of view is an extremely unpleasant thing. Being a man of the 50s, Halicki filled his picture with rock and roll – which suddenly turned out to be replaced by synthesizer music. And it would have been fine if it was good, but what we got was someone’s lazy work of pressing two keys.: The new soundtrack is not that it didn’t get into the spirit of the film – it was something to listen to… Nothing. Extremely gray and empty, the music of the reissue took a lot of pleasure from watching the movie. As a result, the original cassette was purchased, from which the sound was removed, subsequently connected to the updated picture of the reissue.
Cruisin' Merc, one of George Barris' custom designs, flashes a couple of times in the film. Very little is known about this car; at the time of the translation of the film, it was not possible to identify the car at all, so in the audio track this Mercury is simply listed as "this car", dedicated to James Dean. All I could find about this car after a long search was a short article in a magazine from the 80s. Which, however, rather advertises the Junkman movie, but doesn't really tell anything about Cruisin' Merc.
The second problem turned out to be the available Russian translation of the film. As a couple of examples: managers sometimes turned into chief illuminators, Cadillac El Dorado turned out to be the canyon of the same name, Cinerama Dome became for a moment… The Columbus Center? And the town of Salinas, to which James Dean was heading before his death, was renamed a certain Roth-Bi, the existence of which I personally doubt at all. In fairness, it should be said that this is not the worst translation, but the number of confusing errors is more than sufficient, and the need for a new translation when viewing is very noticeable. That’s why we translated the film anew – and, as a bonus, combined it with the already mentioned original track of 1982, full of rock and roll and some other pleasant little things.
And if you are not sure if you should watch this movie, then let me tell you a few facts about it. As you probably guessed, this is a completely car movie: two chases take at least half the time, contain a minimum of dialogues and a maximum of action. Our main characters are, in fact, Cadillac Eldorado 80th and Chevy Corvette 81st. The villains are the 78th Dodge Magnum and the 77th Ford Thunderbird. In addition to them, there are quite a few cameos, both from the world of cars and from the world of people. Almost two-thirds of the film takes place against the backdrop of the James Dean Festival, and therefore hot rods and lead sleds are constantly flashing on the screen, the king of custom George Barris himself appears for a couple of seconds, as well as musicians Hoyt Axton, Freddy Cannon and The Belmonts band are waiting for us as ourselves (yes, yes, the ones whose history stretches back to the songs of The Wanderer and Dion DiMucci).
The plot of the film is simple, but at the same time very interesting. The fact is that Halicki plays in the film… the director of his first film, who has just shot another film. And Hijack In 60 Seconds is a movie from, so to speak, the universe of The Junkman. A little crazy, right? It’s a pity that Henry Blythe made only two films – he clearly had very interesting ideas. At the same time, acquaintance with the first film of Comrade Khalitski when watching The Junkman is not necessary – apart from a couple of references, you will not miss anything. It’s enough just to know that Blythe’s first job was called Hijack In 60 Seconds, and the main character in it was called Eleanor (or Eleanor) – she was played by a 1971 Ford Mustang. That’s it, now you know it and you can safely watch The Junkman.
Despite the fact that most of this film was shot in 1980, and it was released in the 82nd, the film is nevertheless thoroughly imbued with the atmosphere of the decade that had just passed at that time – everything on the screen looks as if the seventies were standing in the yard. Hairstyles, appearance, characteristic yellowish tint everywhere… It’s hard to say whether Henry Blythe was trying for some reason to capture the spirit of the past tense, or the eighties just hadn’t had time to get to California yet, but what happened happened.When I first started working on the translation of the film, I was sure that The Junkman came out in ’78. So despite the tag 80s on this article, this movie is rather intended for lovers of aesthetics of the previous decade.
As already mentioned, the soundtrack has been restored to its original state. It’s clear that with so many invited musicians, it was impossible to do without a song written specifically for the film – and The Junkman has three such songs at once. Only one of them officially came out, the rest had to be shot directly from the cassette – but, fortunately, in the film itself they play almost from beginning to end without any sounds in the background. So we managed to get the entire soundtrack in its entirety, and you can download it from this link:
And it is impossible not to focus on the fact that, as already mentioned, Henry Blythe loved not only to drive cars, but also to smash them.
Specifically, the film The Junkman at the time of release was the record holder for the number of cars broken on the screen: more than 150 cars were ditched during filming.
By the way, the second place at that time belonged to the movie The Blues Brothers – 103 cars were killed there. So if you can’t look at such a horror in any way, I perfectly understand you and advise you to pass by this picture. In fairness, it should be said that no rarities were destroyed: Halicki was actually the owner of a dump truck, and if you look at the freeze frames, you will see that a considerable number of cars at the time of the accident were already dented and battered. And those cars that are in the center of the frame were simply not rare at the time when the film was shot. Still, smashing a car in the year of its release and smashing a car thirty years ago are two different things.
That’s probably all there is to know; I tried my best to be laconic and not take up too much of your time. The RockThisTown website team wishes you a pleasant viewing and hopes that you will enjoy the work we have done!
