My Favourite Movies: Vanishing Point

I blame my brother for this I really do. As some of you might know I have never driven a car and have never had a driving licence. Most of the time I hardly notice cars except when I’m stuck in traffic with them. So why is it that I enjoy car chase movies so much? My brother – the petrol head, that’s why. He’s the one who used to drag me along to these things – not that I took much dragging.

Anyway the plot, such as it was, is that ex-cop, ex-road racer Kowolski (no first name) is delivering a 1970 Dodge Challenger to San Francisco and bets his friend that he can deliver it before 3pm just two days later. To do this he needs to drive non-stop whilst taking speed to help him keep awake and alert. Early on in his journey he has a run in with some highway patrol cops who chase him to the State line. They hand the pursuit over to the next State and the chase develops. On the edge of California a radio DJ hears about the chase and starts broadcasting messages to Kowolski and portrays him as the last American hero fighting for his freedom on the open road. It’s all very 1970’s, Existentialist and quite possibly Nihilistic too.

Even the cops don’t know why they’re chasing him and Kowloski himself – played by Barry Newman – has no reason to continue the chase. It’s not a film brimming with a whole lot of sense. But maybe that’s the point? Kowolski meets a few people on his journey. Some are good and help him, some are bad and try to hurt him. He is pretty much indifferent to both kinds. We get a few flashbacks that explain part of his character but nothing substantial. He’s pretty much an enigma from beginning to end. As I say it’s a rather odd film and a particularly odd film for me to like. Maybe I just saw it at an impressionable age? I don’t think I saw it when it came out – I would’ve been too young to get in. Maybe my brother sneaked me in? I can’t remember that far back.

I won’t ruin how it ends only to say that it keeps in with the style of the rest of the movie. The car is, of course, one of the un-credited stars and must have made a young Cyberkitten’s paws sweat with excitement as Newman drove it effortlessly along seemingly endless blacktopped roads at high speed. The movie is about freedom and lost innocence as far as I can tell. Maybe it was part of the backlash against the naïve optimism of the 60’s. Or maybe I’m just thinking about it way too much as always?