The now-cult movie Gone in 60 Seconds is remembered partly because the 2000 Nicolas Cage remake rekindled interest, but also because a man named H.B. Halicki is famous for being the producer, writer, star, director, and stunt coordinator. He’s a classic example from an earlier era of Hollywood of a guy with knowledge specific to an industry who dreamt up a story then cobbled together the funds to put his vision on the screen. He was a car mechanic who for years had been owner of a Southern California junkyard. In his work life he’d conceived or learned of a foolproof method for stealing and reselling cars. It involved boosting cars that were identical to wrecks, then swapping vehicle identification numbers and other elements so the stolen car disappeared and the wreck was reborn as a new ride. The technique became well known eventually, but back then it wasn’t. That idea provided Halicki’s entree into the world of moviemaking.
You see a Japanese poster above, with one more plus promo shots below. The movie opened in the U.S. in 1974, and premiered in Japan today in 1975. It’s what some people these days like to call car porn, as audiences get to see formula one cars, custom sports cars, limousines, and a customized Ford Bronco owned by Parnelli Jones, who has a cameo in the film. The centerpiece (really more like the endpiece) is a forty minute chase sequence that in order to film allegedly resulted in ninety-three wrecked cars. Storywise, it’s about an insurance investigator who moonlights as a professional car thief, who accepts a contract from a South American drug cartel to provide forty-eight luxury cars by week’s end. The task seems impossible, but failure isn’t an option. Several complications arise. Halicki, playing a character named Maindrian Pace, is called upon to investigate the very thefts his ring is perpetrating. When one of his crew steals a car packed with heroin things start to get really complicated.
That’s all fine and fun, and Halicki’s personal Hollywood success story is an inspiring one, but the movie does still have the touch of amateurism about it, particularly in the acting. That’s to be expected with a quickly mounted production, starring a first-timer who also cast various family members and amateurs in small roles. In the writing area, the characters are mere sketches, which worked fine in other indie flicks from the period like Two-Lane Blacktop, but somehow doesn’t quite come to fruition here. The great director John Huston once said Hollywood had a bad habit of remaking good movies. They should remake the bad ones, he advised. Since the remake wasn’t as good as it could have been either, Gone in 60 Seconds could probably still use a revamp, but until that time comes audiences will have to make do. Halicki thought outside the box (did we mention the forty minute car chase?) which means his original Gone in 60 Seconds is the only one to watch.
