You have to ask permission to join. I would never want to be a member of a club that would allow me to join.

You'll notice that, by the end of the narrative, the character GTO (Warren Oates), so full of **** before, is converted to the vision of the Driver (Taylor) and the Mechanic (Wilson) that Starlightblack explained a few posts back. The value of the authentic.

For those who DO like this sort of dark, anti-consumerist/existentialist picture, I'll recommend a few others in case you haven't seen 'em yet:

-Five Easy Pieces (Jack Nicholson)
-The Mechanic (Charles Bronson original, not Jason Statham remake)
-The French Connection (Gene Hackman)
-Planet of the Apes (Charlton Heston original, no remakes--sorry, no cars here.
Horses!)
-Vanishing Point (Barry Newman original)
-Easy Rider, of course

oh, and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by R. Pirsig

all great early '70s stuff. No, your wives will not like these either.

I know this has been mentioned before on this forum a few years ago, but for
those who missed the previous post, the same Orbit orange Judge reappeared
in more than one tv show after the movie wrapped. It was in studio inventory
and was dragged out on more than one occasion for tv duty. One place it appears
is in a chase scene on the cop show Adam 12. You can find this episode on Hulu
and watch it on your computer. I watched it on Hulu about a year ago. I'm sorry but
I can't recall which episode it is on. Maybe someone else here knows the number
of the episode it appears in.

"Two-Lane Blacktop" is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Some good car scenes, but it's boring, slow moving, poorly acted (except for Warren Oates), and overall a total disaster. Yet somehow, the critics seem to think it's a classic. Leonard Maltin gives it 3 stars out of 4, and that's the rating the cable channels use when they air it. So in Maltin's opinion, this POS movie is as much of a classic as Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, and a hundred other true classic films that made hundreds of millions of dollars and have spawned another billion dollars in sequels.

"Two-Lane Blacktop" is a 1/2 star movie, on par with "Plan 9 From Outer Space".

What's happened over the years is that because Maltin loved the movie, other reviewers feel like they missing something when they watch it, like it's too sophisticated for them to understand. So they analyze the movie, every line of it, as if it's poetry. They begin to interpret scenes and dialogue as if there's something more there than there really is.

So let's say there's a scene where the girl is quiet, staring out a window of the '55, a writer starts going into a whole description about how she's longing for true love, wandering the country, her parents don't care about her, she wants adventure, etc.

In reality, it's a lousy scene, no dialogue, there's nothing there.

Then you have modern writers using OTHER reviews from the past, and then they take their own intellectual slant on the dialogue and direction of the movie, as if that gives them credibility. Like they "see something" that others don't get.

No, it's just a horrible, boring, slow moving movie, only interesting for a few car scenes.

And this coming from me, a James Taylor and Beach Boys fan!

When I have insomnia & time to scan the late night cable lineup and want to see a Pontiac flat getting it in an old movie, there's only one choice. I'll wait through the movie to see Gene Hackman thrashing the 4 door '71 or 72 LeMans in the French Connection. There is no way there's a 350 2bbl under the hood of that LeMans.

Well stated, Roger! That ol' LeMans took a BEATING!

I happen to like Two Lane Blacktop, the acting as mentioned earlier is bad, except Warren Oats .But the movie reminds me what this country use to be like. Rt66, American Iron(no imports with fart cans),old dinners,old full service stations etc.No fast food joints at every corner and strip malls.

I definitely agree with that! America used to be such a great country. If they re-did this movie today, the girl would be texting all her friends throughout the movie, the Driver would be some sort of porno fiend, the Mechanic would be black, the GTO character would be some weird effeminate dude, and the roads would be bumper-to-bumper traffic. http://www.smilieshq.com/smilies/happy0009.gif

I've seen the TLB Judge on a few episodes of Kojak reruns as well....umm maybe I shouldn't of mentioned I was watching old Kojak reruns.............

Interesting! Anyone figure out which episode it was on? There are 102 episodes of Adam-12 on Hulu right now. I don't think I have the patience to watch that many... ;)

Here you go . . . the TLB Judge first appears at 20:29.
Chase sequence starring the Judge and a couple of Plymouth police cruisers . . .

http://www.hulu.com/watch/46145/adam...0,vepisode,1,0

Lloyd, that was cool! I captured a frame from the video. It appears the schnoz was drooping a bit. Was this show before or after the Baretta crash-through-a-fence shot? I wonder if they had to repair the nose?

Thanks, Lloyd! That was neat to see the TLB Judge again. In fact, @ 20:55, it looks like there's a 70-73 Formula parked on the side of the street during the chase. Certainly very cool to see an espisode shot when these cars were still drivers and sitting on every street corner... Nice! :D

Also, I assume that it's been determined by now that the TLB Judge was a RAIII car, not a RAIV. I know "GTO" in TLB says it's a "455 with Mark IV Ram Air" (which we all know never existed), but the actual car was a RAIII, right? (I just saw the words "Ram Air" on the hood scoops leading me to believe this. I'll have to watch TLB again to see if the "Ram Air IV" decals are on the scoops in that movie)

Nope - it's a Fremont Plant, RA IV M40 car . . .

Dunno 'bout that, Mike.

That Adam-12 episode first aired March 15, 1972. Have to find the Baretta episode info to know for sure, I suppose.

OK, that 1972 Adam-12 episode was definitely prior to this 1975 Baretta episode . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WsAfD3UGPA

From "Kojak" season 1 (1974), episode 14 . . .

First glimpse of the TLB Judge hood at around 47:09 into this Kojak episode . . .

http://www.hulu.com/watch/164/kojak-...fore-they-wake

Off-topic, but I just stumbled across another Kojak episode (season 2, episode 14). At 6:25 into the episode Kojak arrives upon a crime scene in his GF's 1970 GTO 'vert!

Lloyd, funny you mention that 70 vert, it was in a few other Kojak episodes. In one it was a backround car that went by two times in the matter of minutes. I guess the producers didn't think we'd notice over 30 years later...