Tue 21 Jul 2015
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: MOVING VIOLATION (1976).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[6] Comments
MOVING VIOLATION. 20th Century Fox, 1976. Stephen McHattie, Kay Lenz, Eddie Albert, Lonny Chapman, Will Geer, Dick Miller. Director: Charles S. Dubin.
If you’re looking for the type of movie that they simply don’t make anymore, look no further than Moving Violation, a car chase exploitation filmed produced by Roger and Julie Corman. Directed by Charles S. Dubin, who is mainly known for his work in television, the alternatingly thrilling, humorous, and sad film doesn’t have the most complex of plots. But it makes up for it in (no spoilers here) some great car chase sequences.
The story follows Detroit autoworker-turned-drifter Eddie Moore (Stephen McHattie) and small town girl Cam Johnson (Kay Lenz) as they attempt to flee a corrupt lawman, one Sheriff Leroy Rankin (Lonny Chapman), who’s hot on their trail. It’s the couple on the run trope that we’re all familiar with.
That Moore is an autoworker is no minor plot point. Rather, it’s instrumental to the pro-labor, anti-authority theme that permeates the film. It’s even reflected in the movie’s theme song, a rather catchy track by Phil Everly which can be heard here:
Moore, the guitar-playing outlaw is the film’s anti-hero. The cops and the local oil magnate are, to varying degrees, the movie’s antagonists. It’s as if the movie is one giant middle finger to authority. Not the most profound of messages and one that may not have all that much depth, but it’s one that certainly was deliberately constructed and designed to appeal to a working class white audience in the mid-1970s.
July 21st, 2015 at 7:27 pm
Some of Charles S. Dubin’s work on series like THE VIRGINIAN and the educational math series MATHNET is really appealing.
It’s good to learn about another work of his here.
Thank you!
July 21st, 2015 at 10:05 pm
Car chase movies generally don’t work for me. I keep wondering what they must ride like after the first jump takes out the suspension. I know they have plots and some are very good, but it is a genre I tend to avoid with exceptions like THELMA AND LOUISE, FEAR IS THE KEY,MIDNIGHT RUN, and PLANES TRAINS AND AUTIMOBILES.
July 21st, 2015 at 10:35 pm
I got turned off car chase movies of this era with the Smokey and the Bandit ones, but the trailer seems to suggest that there might be something more to this one. Besides, I can watch Kay Lenz in almost anything.
Stephen McHattie was a new name to me, but a look on IMDb shows almost 200 credits in both TV and the movies. I wonder if he might be most well-known for doing four episodes of SEINFELD as Elaine’s psychiatrist in Season Four.
But Jon asks a good question. If he were sitting and eating in a Veggie Grill in LA, would anyone recognize him?
July 22nd, 2015 at 7:09 am
Yes, I would. More recently he was “Jesse Stone”‘s buddy, Head of the Massachusetts State Police Homicide Division, in several of the Tom Selleck made-for-TV movies.
July 22nd, 2015 at 9:03 am
Yes, I saw that in his resume on IMDb. I bought a complete set of the JESSE STONE movies once when Barnes and Noble were having a sale, but I haven’t watched them yet. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I haven’t read any of the Jesse Stone books yet.
July 23rd, 2015 at 6:45 am
Don’t let that stop you, Steve. I’ve seen all of the movies – some are better than others – and still haven’t read a single Jesse Stone book.