The Gumball Rally

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"Gumball Rally" redirects here. For other uses, see Gumball Rally (disambiguation).

The Gumball Rally
1976 movie poster
Directed by	Charles Bail
Produced by	Charles Bail
Written by	Leon Capetanos Charles Bail
Starring	Michael Sarrazin Norman Burton Raul Julia Gary Busey Susan Flannery Steven Keats Tim McIntire Joanne Nail J. Pat O'Malley Nicholas Pryor
Music by	Dominic Frontiere
Cinematography	Richard C. Glouner
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	August 20, 1976
Running time	105 min.
Country	U.S.
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Gumball Rally is a 1976 film about a coast-to-coast road race. It was inspired by the actual Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash run held by Brock Yates that inspired several other movies, such as Cannonball with David Carradine, also from 1976. While Cannonball is an action film, The Gumball Rally is a comedy, just like the later series of Cannonball-based movies starring Burt Reynolds and many others. The Gumball Rally is often considered better and less infantile^{[citation needed]} compared to the later, star-studded exploitations of The Cannonball Run, which even copied the running gags of the police man chasing the racers through the whole USA. Though Gumball Rally's entire premise is copied from the actual cross country race the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash which was created and organized by Brock Yates who wrote the script for The Cannonball Run film.

The Gumball Rally stars Raul Julia, Michael Sarrazin, Norman Burton, Gary Busey, John Durran, Tim McIntire, and Susan Flannery, and was directed and co-written by Chuck Bail.

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With the exceptions of the opening scenes of the race in downtown New York City and the finale in Los Angeles, the rest of the movie was actually filmed in various parts of Arizona.

The saga of the Jaguar-that-wouldn't-start is an interesting one: At first, the producers were going to have the 2 sexy girls in the Porsche 911 driving a Jaguar E-Type. Jaguar's PR people, however, didn't want a Jaguar being used in the movie and were reportedly very matter-of-fact about it. So, as a bit of an "up yours" to Jaguar's PR staff, they instead had the 2 girls drive a Porsche and used a Jaguar anyway as a running joke throughout the race as the car that wouldn't start, and its 2 drivers are clueless as to how to get it running.

The Mercedes-Benz 300SL driven by the 2 elderly men belonged to director Chuck Bail.

Actor Michael Sarrazin was reportedly mistaken for Peter Fonda throughout much of the production of the movie by off-camera onlookers.

The engine on Chuck Bail's 300SL was blown at the start of the race when the old man driving forgot to shift. Smoke can be seen when they pull out of the garage, and when they're racing through the city.

The cars are really going 100mph+ through New York City. It was filmed early on a Sunday with the streets closed briefly.

The garage that is the starting point would appear to be in the lower West Side of Manhattan. The action that immediately follows, however, suggests several different starting points and the routes seem designed for cinematic effect and are by all accounts not the fastest way to get out of Manhattan en route to Los Angeles. The Ferrari Daytona, Camaro, and Cobra teams race north on Park Avenue, only to turn around and go downtown on Broadway to get to the Lincoln Tunnel. Even worse, the Porsche team is seen speeding south down Fifth Avenue from the Upper East Side (miles away from the likely location of the garage), making a sharp right turn at 60th St. and then another sharp right turn into Central Park, essentially going back uptown. We later see the Porsche crossing the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey which is not unreasonable but from the Upper East Side there are much faster ways to get to the bridge than the route shown in the film.

When filming in Arizona the Camaro blew its motor, so Bail rented two Camaros, and used the motors from those in the film car until its original motor was ready to go back in.

The film concludes at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. In a final attempt to ensure a win, Michael Sarrazin's character deploys "Emergency Plan Alpha" to distract Raul Julia's character as the cars reach the Queen. Emergency Plan Alpha was portrayed by the very "distracting" Linda Vaughn. In automotive circles the personable Miss Vaughn is widely-known for her successful PR work for Hurst Performance.

There are several continuity errors involving damage to the cars. In particular, at the beginning of the race, The Fake Cops team (Dodge) sideswipes Lt. Roscoe's unmarked car, damaging the Dodge's left rear quarter panel and popping the trunk lid open, yet immediately thereafter we see the Dodge speed away with no damage. Later, when the Cobra is stuck in rush hour traffic in Los Angeles, we see significant nose and fog light damage which appears in this scene only. Shortly thereafter, just as the Cobra and Ferrari come together in the canals and drive into the shallow water, we see the nose of the Ferrari minus the left fog light and a piece of chrome trim; the damage appears in this shot only.

A good deal of effort went into reproducing accurate sounds from the now classic cars participating in the race. Few movies of the era managed this, and some find the opportunity to hear the V12 Ferrari and 427 Cobra at full song is alone worth the time spent viewing this film.