This film has a very simple premise. Two gear heads in a Chevy sedan drive around the southwest challenging car nuts to drag races. Eventually they end up in a coast to coast race with the owner of a GTO. It's mano a mano with souped up cars.
Two Lane Blacktop has one of the most interesting casts I have seen in films. Musicians Dennis Wilson and James Taylor are the gear heads. Apparently the director Monte Hellman liked how they looked. Hellman knew he did not have a couple of actors on his hands and kept their dialog to a minimum. There is a strange girl groupie played by an actor named Laurie Bird who shuffles between these two guys. Finally there is character actor Warren Oates as the driver of the GTO. Oates gives an amazing performance as a braggart racing around the southwest telling one outrageous story after another.
The backgrounds and locations in the small towns and gas stations and road side dinners really help set the mood for the film, and add to a unique feel for the film. This is one of the most impressive films of the 1970's dealing with the male persona in the American culture.
Universal Studios financed this low budget film in an attempt to get in on the action of the low cost but money making Easy Rider. However when the film was finished they hated it. Perceptive critics at the time understood that Two Lane Blacktop was an existential masterpiece disguised as an AIP car race movie.
The film's screenplay was by the amazing writer Rudy Wurlitzer who was also responsible for the unique nature of this story. The running time is 102 minutes.
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