This time the focus is on a wonderful classic film – the Thunder Road of 1958. A cult black-and-white classic in the USA and something distant and unknown in our country. In America, Thunder Road was such a classic that, according to Wikipedia, it was shown in some southern drive-ins as early as the 80s, almost thirty years later. Why is the movie so good? Yes, because this is one of the best stories about moonshiners and other illegal moonshiners of that time. The dealer is trying to control all the small moonshiners in the district by any means, but not everyone wants to be controlled and resist as they can.
There are a lot of purely American nuances that I can’t vouch for, and I bet not every modern American can, but knowledgeable people say the following: Robert Mitchum, who played the main role in the film, had a hand in the script and the title song, was also the producer of the film and, rumor has it, a considerable part He also directed the film. So, Mitchum was extremely attentive to the little things and nuances that can only be known for sure to those who are directly involved in the subject of the film: the technical details of moonshiners’ cars, the specifics of moonshine production are constantly discussed on the screen, and the nuances of the subtle and changeable alliance between bootleggers and the law are also shown. It was all this that turned the film into the cult classic for the USA that it is now.
One more caveat: Robert wrote the role of the younger brother of the main character not for anyone, but specifically for Elvis Presley. And the singer really wanted to play this role, but his manager, no less famous among Presley fans than the King himself – Colonel Tom – requested as a fee for Elvis’s participation in the film an amount that exceeded the entire budget of the film, and negotiations quickly came to naught. Perhaps, if it weren’t for Tom Parker, the Thunder Road in the southern states would still be twisted.
Well, cars, of course. What we look at today as a classic, at that time it was considered just machines, and for moonshiners they were tools at all, part of the business. They were constantly used, broken, crumpled, the police shot at them, they were repaired, and a fast, good car often became Frankenstein, assembled from spare parts of many different cars. The film perfectly conveys this mood. One of the main cars of the film – Ford Custom – is assembled from spare parts of the 49th, 50th and 51st year models and charged with a proprietary V8 with three carburetors. Fans are still arguing about the exact year of manufacture of this car, and although the film itself says that the 50th, the conversations continue. Later, the main character changes this Ford to a slightly less remarkable Fairlane 500. And, of course, since the film of the 50s, there are still plenty of classic American cars on a variety of planes, so motorists like me will not leave offended.
In general, the film is a five-plus. The actors play great. The plot is fascinating. The denouement is approaching inexorably. After all, this is The Ballad Of the Thunder Road. I advise everyone to see with their own eyes.
