The Wreck

This chapter, about Two-Lane Blacktop’s post-production and release, relates how Monte Hellman cut together a European-style, slow-paced film. Esquire magazine had put the movie on its cover, calling it “the movie of the year,” and raising expectations. Universal executives ask for a more traditional ending and want James Taylor to sing in the movie or at least contribute a tune to the soundtrack, but Hellman refuses to budge. Preview audiences are confused by the film, and Universal doesn’t market the movie to people who actually would appreciate it. Audiences at theatres, who expect another fast-paced Easy Rider, are disappointed and reviews are mixed. Hellman blames the failure on Universal’s animosity to the film and excessive publicity, and others blame Hellman for using untrained actors, failing to use a finger-snapping soundtrack and making the film too slow and quiet for American audiences.

Stalled

This chapter relates how CBS Cinema Center Films agreed to make Two-Lane Blacktop and Monte Hellman chose cinematographer Gregory Sandor to shoot the film using wide-screen Techniscope. Over the objections of casting director Fred Roos, who brought in dozens of young, trained actors, Hellman chose rock stars for the two lead roles.: James Taylor, then a heroin addict who nevertheless was not using during the shoot, would play the Driver and Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boys’ drummer, a juvenile, drug-taking, erratic young man who had befriended the cult murderer Charles Manson, would play the Mechanic. Hellman’s girlfriend Laurie Bird would play the Girl, and Warren Oates would portray GTO. Hellman and associate producer Gary Kurtztravelled across the country scouting locations that they would use with minimal set dressing, since they had only a $1 million budget and no production designer. Then CBS dropped the film.

The Finish Line: The Film Catches Fire

Two-Lane Blacktop becomes a cult classic, honoured with inclusion in the National Film Registry and released by the prestigious Criterion Collection. This chapter features interviews with some directors who say Monte Hellman and his most famous movie influenced their work – Kelly Reichardt, Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson. Reichardt says she admires the film’s rigor, construction and realism. Linklater says he likes the movie because it defies expectations, and he has paid tribute to it in some of his films by featuring a GTO. Anderson says he admires the film because it is like a genre movie with the genre taken out. This chapter also features interviews with musicians who have paid tribute to the film, one with a mock soundtrack album, and the other with a video remake. Many hip young people think Two-Lane Blacktop is cool.

Picking up Speed

In this chapter, Monte Hellman goes to Seattle for a retrospective of his films, mounted by Scarecrow Video. The store draws up a petition, ultimately with more than 2,000 signatures, to request Universal to put Two-Lane Blacktop out on video, but it is not until several years later, in 1999, that Anchor Bay Entertainment releases the film for home viewing, and the videos sell many copies. New Hollywood, the ear in the late ‘60s to early ‘80s when studios empowered auteur directors, has now gained cachet and is regarded nostalgically, and the reviews for the video are much more favourable than those for the theatrical release years earlier. The film’s timelessness due to its lack of trendy clothes, hairstyles and set dressing, or prominent musical score that would date the film, add to its appeal.

Potholes

The film company finishes shooting the picture in this chapter.In Boswell, Oklahoma they use up the town’s water supply and two locals with a shotgun in a pickup truck run them out of town. The Universal executive Ned Tanen visits the set and becomes convinced the film will be a hit. James Taylor’s first hit song, “Fire and Rain,” climbs to the top of the charts, making him famous. Taylor’s newfound celebrity helps attract journalists to the travelling set, and all the publicity raises expectations for the low-budget existentialist car-racing movie. After Jaclyn Hellman’s sense memory exercises, which became fierce and antagonistic due to her distress over her husband’s mistress being along on the shoot, and Hellman’s withdrawal of the script and hands-off directing style, Taylor vows never to make another movie, and he never has.

A Restoration

This chapter tells how Two-Lane Blacktop gained recognition years after its release.Warren Oates and two other lead actors die, giving the film an aura of poignancy—Laurie Bird from a drug overdose and Dennis Wilson from drowning while drunk. The movie becomes an example of the risk of profit-driven studios empowering auteur directors. As years pass, Monte Hellman gains accolades and esteem, and Two-Lane is considered his masterpiece. The movie has several themes in common with his other films, such as a voyage, references to death, and outsiders in an unpopulated area and living on the fringes of society. Like his other works it ignores genre conventions. It also exhibits his visual style, most notably in the gas station scene, with the camera focusing on one spot as characters come and go, with simultaneous action in the background, and not much camera movement.

The Fast Lane: Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll Stars

In this chapter, the film company arrives in Tucumcari, New Mexico to shoot the gas station scene where the race is set up – a tour de force of cinematography. Jaclyn Hellman blows up at her husband, Monte, over his affair with the leading lady, 17-year-old Laurie Bird. Some of the cast and filmmakers indulge in drugs, but they don’t hinder the filmmaking much except for Dennis Wilson, who is stoned nearly all the time and can’t remember his lines. But he and the amateur, off-balance Laurie Bird cause Hellman to call for 10, 15 and even 25 takes when they blow their lines. Joni Mitchell visits her boyfriend, James Taylor, and the actor Harry Dean Stanton arrives for his scene, in which he plays a gay cowboy hitchhiker.

On the Road

In this chapter, the filmmakers start shooting in Los Angeles, then take to the road, stopping in Needles, California; Flagstaff, Arizona; and Santa Fe, New Mexico, often travelling on smaller highways because street racers tend to avoid freeways populated by cops. A divide separates the hip actors and filmmakers from the more traditional, highly trained crew. The “above the line” filmmakers think the crew are right-wing yahoos, the crew thinks the filmmakers are inexperienced, pothead hippies. Indeed the untrained actors – Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird and James Taylor -- flub lines, whistle and otherwise ruin scenes, necessitating repeated takes. Hellman withholds the script from his untrained actors, giving them only their lines for the day, generating their resentment. Hellman’s wife, Jaclyn, takes the amateur actors through sense memory exercises, dragging up painful recollections from their past and further irking them. Warren Oates joins the cast.

A Jump Start

This chapter details the finding of a home for the film, and describes contracts signed and last-minute preparations. Universal Studios had set up a youth unit to attract younger audiences, and the unit’s executives, Ned Tanen and Daniel Selznick, gave the green light to Two-Lane Blacktop. Executives higher up had reservations about the filmmakers’ long hair and how they would be perceived in Southern states and were concerned about the filmmakers’ ability to shoot entirely on location while travelling across country. Universal’s attorneys were concerned about 17-year-old Laurie Bird playing nude scenes described in the script. Not only would Bird, Monte Hellman’s girlfriend, come along and play the heroine, but his wife would join the travelling set and serve as dialogue coach to the three untrained lead actors. They were hippies, but producer Michael Laughlin foresaw trouble (and he and the studio suits turned out to be right).

Starting Line

In this chapter, which details pre-production, the eccentric, socialite producer Michael Laughlin, married to movie star Leslie Caron, hires cerebral hippy director Monte Hellman to make Two-Lane Blacktop, written by television actor/director Will Corry. Hellman has acquired a small cult following for his films for Roger Corman, The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind.Hellman’s friend, actor Martin Landau, recalls Hellman had run a theater in Los Angeles, where he directed a production of Waiting for Godot. Cult author Rudy Wurlitzer writes a jazzy, existentialist script about two young hot rodders adrift in the world who race a fancy guy across country west to east. Wurlitzer models the character of the Girl on Hellman’s girlfriend, Laurie Bird. The chapter includes a history of hot rodding, and a history of road movies, and details how Two-Lane largely ignores road-movie conventions.