Surly, thuggishly handsome Dick Davalos superbly carries the day with plenty of rugged, growly, super-slick hipster punk attitude as Rick, a brash, hustling, opportunistic amateur drag racing young turk who willingly compromises what few teensy, faintly held on values he has in order to make it big in the harshly competitive world of professional stock car racing. Backed by pitiless rich sponsor Brian Donlevy (who's pure icy perfection as a ruthlessly avaricious jerk who strictly cares about money and winning), Rick cuts loose his savage, animalistic instincts on the track, taking "dingy," lunatic rival driver Hawk Sidney (a typically wired turn by the ever-manic Sid Haig, who appears here sans beard, but with a near complete head of hair) down a few pegs, romancing sweet, bubbly, gum-chewing wild cat groupie Jolene (an exuberant performance by the adorable Beverly Washburn, the most catty and spiteful of the Meryl family sisters in Hill's wonderfully warped "Spider Baby"), striving to best composed, always in control reigning champion Ed McCleod (the excellent George Washburn), and flirting with McCleod's forlorn, neglected wife Ellen (movingly played by Ellen McRea in her film debut, who later changed her name to Ellen Burstyn and received a Best Actress Oscar for her remarkable work in Martin Scorcese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore").
More of a moody, incisive, stingingly critical and flatly unsentimental film noirish character study centering on the horrible spirit-crushing price fiercely aggressive macho males pay for engaging in a taxingly brutal dog-eat-dog sport like stock car racing than your usual mindless smash 'em up car racing action romp, "Pit Stop" might very well be Jack Hill's most sharply atmospheric and tautly self-contained picture to date, a starkly dramatized stunner that casually oozes a certain pungently thick, heavy, oppressively brooding no-kidding grayish and uncompromising sense of overweening moral blackness. The metal-mangling, tire-yelping, dust and dirt flying everywhere race car sequences possess a tense, kinetic, dangerously loose and truly harrowing quality, depicting the ultra-masculine confrontational world of professional stock car racing as totally crazed mondo destructo demolition derby-style pandemonium. Moreover, the burning male desire to win at any cost and be the greatest at something is boldly shown as a kind of severe, seething, deep-seated psychosis.
Sumptuously shot in stark, shadowy, steely black and white by Austin McKinney, with a superlative finger-snapping, kicked-back cool hopping blistering fuzztone guitar-driven beatnik rock score by John Fridge and the Daily Flash, uniformly tops acting from a first-rate cast, and a bracingly caustic, penetrating, rough-edged script by Hill, "Pit Stop" makes many startling insights into the grim, ugly barbarism and cold-heartedness at work in male aggression and competitiveness, courageously stating that winning can come at the cost of one's soul and body. Hard, gritty and flinty, done with real guts and style by Hill, "Pit Stop" rates as a raw, nervy, very daring and unjustly overlooked winner that's well worth seeking out and deserving of substantial cult film status.
More of a moody, incisive, stingingly critical and flatly unsentimental film noirish character study centering on the horrible spirit-crushing price fiercely aggressive macho males pay for engaging in a taxingly brutal dog-eat-dog sport like stock car racing than your usual mindless smash 'em up car racing action romp, "Pit Stop" might very well be Jack Hill's most sharply atmospheric and tautly self-contained picture to date, a starkly dramatized stunner that casually oozes a certain pungently thick, heavy, oppressively brooding no-kidding grayish and uncompromising sense of overweening moral blackness. The metal-mangling, tire-yelping, dust and dirt flying everywhere race car sequences possess a tense, kinetic, dangerously loose and truly harrowing quality, depicting the ultra-masculine confrontational world of professional stock car racing as totally crazed mondo destructo demolition derby-style pandemonium. Moreover, the burning male desire to win at any cost and be the greatest at something is boldly shown as a kind of severe, seething, deep-seated psychosis.
Sumptuously shot in stark, shadowy, steely black and white by Austin McKinney, with a superlative finger-snapping, kicked-back cool hopping blistering fuzztone guitar-driven beatnik rock score by John Fridge and the Daily Flash, uniformly tops acting from a first-rate cast, and a bracingly caustic, penetrating, rough-edged script by Hill, "Pit Stop" makes many startling insights into the grim, ugly barbarism and cold-heartedness at work in male aggression and competitiveness, courageously stating that winning can come at the cost of one's soul and body. Hard, gritty and flinty, done with real guts and style by Hill, "Pit Stop" rates as a raw, nervy, very daring and unjustly overlooked winner that's well worth seeking out and deserving of substantial cult film status.