 Now you see him, now you don't.  
The open road adventure Vanishing Point is one of cinema's most beloved cult classics. You know the story probably. Barry Newman plays a guy hired to drive a beautiful 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Magnum from Denver to San Francisco. He decides to do it in record time, and this brings him the attention of police, who try to stop him. It's austere, introspective, and mystical, and is an interesting commentary on the rootlessness and disillusionment of Vietnam War vets. Highly recommended. And as a bonus, not only do you get to watch that Challenger move at high speed, but there's the classic naked-woman-riding-her-motorcycle-through-the-desert scene starring Gilda Texter. The scene made Texter famous, but she only appeared in a few more productions. Ironically, though, she had a forty year career in another area of cinema—costume and wardrobe design. We consider Vanishing Point to be her best wardrobe work. You see two Japanese promo posters above, six production photos below, and can read further discussion of the film, at this link.      
 Your life can change forever in a thousand miles of open road.        
Vanishing Point’s hard-driving anti-hero Kowalski is nobody special before the fateful moment he decides to deliver a Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in fifteen hours. He has to drive like a bat out of hell to do it, and suddenly what could have been a meaningless trip becomes instead a deadly serious rebuke to authority. Kowalski burns up mile after mile of open road, ripping along in a wash of dust and noise, and occasionally stopping to meet some of the denizens of the vast American west. This is one of the best counterculture movies ever made, in our humble view. Like Easy Rider, it portrays the establishment as fiercely opposed to freedom, and exposes its patriotic rhetoric as empty of substance. The two movies are almost companion pieces, telling us that when you rattle your cage, trouble will always be waiting around the next bend, or just over the horizon. Vanishing Point premiered in the U.S. today, 1971.
|
 |
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott
In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city's African-American population were the bulk of the system's ridership. 1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire
In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure. 1963—Warren Commission Formed
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However the long report that is finally issued does little to settle questions about the assassination, and today surveys show that only a small minority of Americans agree with the Commission's conclusions. |
|
|
It's easy. We have an uploader that makes it a snap. Use it to submit your art, text, header, and subhead. Your post can be funny, serious, or anything in between, as long as it's vintage pulp. You'll get a byline and experience the fleeting pride of free authorship. We'll edit your post for typos, but the rest is up to you. Click here to give us your best shot.
|
|
