Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry
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| Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry | |
|---|---|
 Poster |
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| Directed by | John Hough |
| Produced by | Norman T. Herman |
| Written by | Leigh Chapman Antonio Santean Richard Unekis (Novel) |
| Starring | Peter Fonda Susan George Vic Morrow |
| Cinematography | Michael D. Margulies |
| Editing by | Christopher Holmes |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | May 17, 1974 |
| Running time | 93 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is a cult 1974 car chase film starring Peter Fonda, Susan George, Adam Roarke, and Vic Morrow. The film was directed by John Hough. The music score contains no incidental music, apart from the theme song over the opening and closing titles, and a small amount of music heard over the radio.
The story deals with two would-be NASCAR hopefuls; the driver, Larry (Peter Fonda), and his mechanic, Deke (Adam Roarke), who successfully execute a supermarket heist to finance their jump into the big-time auto racing world, extorting $150,000 in cash from the supermarket manager (Roddy McDowall) by holding his wife and daughter hostage.
In making their escape, they are confronted by Larry's one-night stand, Mary (Susan George), who convinces them to take her along for the ride (under the threat of her blowing the whistle on them both). After the heist is reported to the Sheriff, Captain Franklin (Vic Morrow) obsessively sets out to capture the trio in a dragnet, only to find his patrol cars woefully inadequate to catch Larry, Mary and Deke in a high-performance 1969 Dodge Charger.
The trio evades several patrol cars, a high-performance police interceptor, and even Captain Franklin himself in a Bell JetRanger helicopter, before colliding with a freight train in a shocking, totally unexpected ending.
[edit] Trivia
Filmed in and around Stockton, California, mostly in the walnut groves near the small town of Linden, California. The drawbridge jump was filmed in Tracy, California, the swap meet scene in Clements, California and the climactic train crash was filmed on the Stockton Terminal and Eastern Railroad in Linden, California, near the intersection of Ketcham Lane and Archerdale Road (38 01'22.01" N 121 06'18.14" W). The track spur is no longer in use, although the tracks are still in place. The locomotive used in the film to collide with the car is now in the collection of the Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, California. Two 1969 and one 1968 model year Dodge Chargers were used in the film. One was destroyed in the train crash, the 1968 model was scrapped, and the remaining 1969 model was sold to a crew member from the film, but was subsequently totalled in a traffic collision in the late-1970s.
