cult film freak: DANA ANDREWS AND JEANNE CRAIN IN 'HOT RODS TO HELL'

Title: HOT RODS TO HELL Year: 1966 Rating: ***1/2 Camp Score: ****

"The horns blowing, the lights, the brakes," says a jaded and nerve-wracked wreck of a middle-aged former salesman Dana Andrews to wife Jeanne Crain. "Jingle bells (on the radio), the whole thing!"

Yet HOT RODS TO HELL only begins as a Christmas movie after East Coast traveling-salesman Dana Andrews suffers a major car accident on December 24th, and, after months of traction, winds up with a motel in Arizona... But only IF he and his family can survive the red convertible (titular) menace with only 80 miles left to their new destination...

Mimsy Farmer in HOT RODS TO HELL

The cocky speed demon behind the wheel is Paul Bertoya with jerky sidekick Gene Kirkwood riding shotgun while instigating hot blonde Mimsy Farmer holds the roll-bar in-between, and while her fickle driver/beau seduces Dana's daughter Laurie Mock... first at a rest stop and then at the motel's connected live-band nightclub... Farmer flirts with the middle-age swinger who sold the motel being tired of those bratty delinquents, now dead set against the "square" new owners in what's mostly a stalking car chase along the sunlit desert road...

That actually can be intense until the heated havoc shows up on Jeanne Crain's hilariously overacting expressions. Meanwhile, one-time A-list Andrews spouts vapid, halting-speech dialogue like "What kind of animals are those?" for which he gets no reply, only a load of HELL that's pure heaven for b-movie fans who thought they'd seen everything!