DIRECTOR HOWARD HAWKS RACE CAR MELODRAMA 'RED LINE 7000'

Title: RED LINE 7000 Stars: James Caan Director: Howard Hawks Rating: ***1/2

One of the strangest race car movies of all time is also the most grounded, deliberately mundane, and, directed by an old Howard Hawks starring a young James Caan (right before shooting EL DORADO), it's well worth both watching and re-watching since there's so much going on... yet hardly on the actual racetrack...

In which Caan's one of several racers though mostly holed-up at a Holiday Inn and partaking in various affairs while driving for Norman Aldan, whose pretty tomboy sister Laura Devon winds up quickly bedded with the film's buried lead in muscular drone John Robert Crawford, whose rushed backstory of a farm boy wanting to be the fastest takes away from an against-the-odds story that should have been Caan's instead...

Howard Hawks's RED LINE 7000

Caan who's the most contented and dependable, so much he often seems bored despite a natural screen presence, eventually winding-up in the arms of his future fictional brother's trophy wife, Marianna Hill from THE GODFATHER 2, a spurned French beauty who, like the other relationships mixed and matched throughout this sport genre melodrama, consists of couples basically bickering till they bang...

But what makes RED LINE 7000 shine despite the lack of plot and action is its colorful 1960's template, looking more 1967 than 1965, a two-fold time-piece showcasing that era's womanizing yet equally vulnerable playboy types and their reluctant-till-ready dames, also including Gail Hire (romanced by Skip Ward) as the jinxed widowed co-owner of a groovy hangout nightclub within this unapologetically basic and mellow hangout vehicle.

James Caan in RED LINE 7000

James Caan in RED LINE 7000

James Caan in RED LINE 7000

James Caan in RED LINE 7000 with Gail Hire

Charlene Holt in RED LINE 7000

James Caan in RED LINE 7000

James Caan in RED LINE 7000 with Norman Aldan and George Takei

Marianna Hill in RED LINE 7000 with Skip Ward

Laura Devon in RED LINE 7000

John Robert Crawford in RED LINE 7000

Norman Alden, James Caan and George Takei in RED LINE 7000

Norman Alden, James Caan and Laura Devon in RED LINE 7000

Norman Alden, James Caan and George Takei in RED LINE 7000 with John Robert Crawford

James Caan (RIP Today) in RED LINE 7000

James Caan in RED LINE 7000 with Gail Hire

Marianna Hill in RED LINE 7000 with John Gabriel and Robert Donner

Race game in Red Line 7000 that inspired Tarantino for Pulp Fiction's Jack Rabbit Slims

Race game in Red Line 7000 that inspired Tarantino for Pulp Fiction's Jack Rabbit Slims

Race game in Red Line 7000 that inspired Tarantino for Pulp Fiction's Jack Rabbit Slims

James Caan in RED LINE 7000

 James Caan in RED LINE 700 Res in Peace Born March 26, 1940 Died July 6, 2022

 James Caan in RED LINE 700 Res in Peace Born March 26, 1940 Died July 6, 2022

 James Caan in RED LINE 700 Res in Peace Born March 26, 1940 Died July 6, 2022

Marianna Hill in RED LINE 7000

From RED LINE 7000

Gail Hire in RED LINE 7000

Teri Garr and Carroll Conner in RED LINE 7000

Norman Alden and Charlene Holt in RED LINE 7000

Gail Hire and Charlene Holt in RED LINE 7000

Gail Hire and Julie Devon in RED LINE 7000

Gail Hire and Skip Ward in RED LINE 7000

James Caan in RED LINE 7000

From RED LINE 7000

Robert Donner, Marianna Hill and John Gabriel in RED LINE 7000

Inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Jack Rabbit Slims in RED LINE 7000

From RED LINE 7000

From RED LINE 7000

Anthony Rogers in RED LINE 7000

George Takei with James Caan and Norman Alden in RED LINE 7000

Marianna Hill in RED LINE 7000

Marianna Hill in RED LINE 7000

Marianna Hill in RED LINE 7000

Marianna Hill in RED LINE 7000 with James Caan

James Caan in RED LINE 7000 with Marianna Hill

James Caan in RED LINE 7000