But just as Annie ducks and screams, Frankenstein makes a sharp left and, instead of “euthanizing” the old people, plows through the watching crowd of hospital staffers, white coats and nurse’s uniforms flying like so many bowling pins. “Euthanasia Day at the geriatric home,” Frankenstein mutters.
#DEATH RACE 2000 STALLONE DRIVER#
For Death Race 2000 he hired Paul Bartel, who had worked on Corman exploitation features such as Private Parts.“What is that?” asks Annie Paine, navigator to the legendary race-car driver Frankenstein, as nurses and doctors set wheelchair-bound elderly people in the middle of the road, right in the path of their speeding car. He would later take a chance on Ron Howard and James Cameron. Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma had worked with him early in their careers. No doubles.”Ĭorman had a reputation for giving a first break to young directors. “They mostly let the actors drive the cars,’ recalled screenwriter and second unit-director Charles B Griffith. And Curfew went to the very top in hiring original Top Gear Stig Ben Collins to coordinate its driving scenes.ĭetermined to make every cent count, Corman cut out the middle man. Tom Hardy is on record as saying he expected it to be a mess until he actually saw it. Mad Max Fury Road nearly fell apart in the sands of Namibia. I went to a custom car builder and told him I didn’t have much money…All he had to do was the body, which didn’t cost very much money because basically it was just a used Volkswagen.”Ĭar chases are notoriously complicated to film. “I was looking for a theme for each car: the gangster car, the western car, the Nazi car. Corman went to great effort – if not much expense – to ensure, in particular, that the cars looked the part. Later, a character stretches leisurely on a roadside and – wham – a “Nazi” car covered in Third Reich symbols shoots past, squelching his head.ĭeath Race 2000 is that kind of film – silly, offensive, thrilled to tweak the audience’s nose.
Down he goes and, pop, red dye spurts everywhere. In one scene a stunt-man playing a bystander is pursued by a car into a lake. In another sequence a fan of Frankenstein sacrifices herself by standing in the middle of the laneway so that he can mow her down. He does so without blinking.īlood bags were used freely.
As a sick joke, he swerves to avoid the invalids in the middle of the road and instead ploughs down screaming nurses. “Euthanasia day at the geriatric hospital,” enthuses Frankenstein at one point as he and his driving partner Annie (Simone Griffeth) hurtled down the tarmac. Curfew has its charms and if you enjoy Sean Bean looking a bit peeved – as if about to have his head chopped off – it’s the cyberpunk destruction derby for you.īut it is no Death Race 2000, which blended exploding blood bags and chainsaw-subtle social commentary as if they were always meant for each other. That gonzo spirit of Death Race can be found in the new Sky show Curfew, a big budget, star-packed bash 'em up set in post-apocalyptic London. Death Race was gory, ridiculous and smart – one of the most iconic b-pictures of the decade. It was also a rubber-burning romp that would inspire future generations of road movies. When it zoomed onto screens four months later Death Race 2000 was revealed to be a savage satire of the Hollywood industrial complex. But that is exactly what they were doing. Sex and violence were two of Corman’s favourite things when it came to putting posteriors on seats. Yet, though the actor in question was happy to wade in fake blood, he blanched at flashing his buns on screen.Īs they stood there debating how much towel should cover a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone’s gluteus maximus, neither Corman nor any of his crew could have imagined they were making a future classic. Nobody, not even the director who had rescued the actor from obscurity, could talk sense to him.Īt issue was a bared bum. One of the lesser known stars of Death Race 2000 was throwing a tantrum. But the crisis at that moment confronting Corman – Hollywood's most notorious penny-pincher – was very real.
#DEATH RACE 2000 STALLONE MOVIE#
He had high hopes for the project – a dystopian road movie set in a crazed future American where the public is addicted to reality television and a bloviating showman nests in the White House. Yet on this rare occasion he was eager for things to proceed as smoothly as possible. A confrontation was boiling over on the set of his new film and Corman had dashed across town to calm the situation.Ĭorman typically churned out movies the way sausage factories churn out strings of rubberised meat. On a November afternoon in 1974 producer Roger Corman pulled up outside the Los Angeles Centre Studios complex in the city’s Westlake district and entered the building at speed.
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