Review

I saw Thunder Road on Saturday afternoon TV in the early 1960s when I was about 10 years old. I thought the film was "really cool". Why wouldn't I, it had guns, tough guys and hot cars. By the time I was about 15, Thunder Road had gained a kind of cult status with my pals. That was a good 55 years ago.

Yesterday I saw Thunder Road again. This time on TCM. I can see why it still has (or perhaps has a new, wider) cult status. It's not because it is good cinema. It is more because it is odd cinema. The reality is, Thunder Road isn't really a very good movie, at least not by today's standards. There are no computer-generated special effects, of course. That would help. The overall film budget is clearly not there. Perhaps the one thing that jumps out at me more than anything is the absolutely terrible acting by nightclub singer Keely Smith. If you are looking to put yourself in a kind of bemused agony, her performance alone makes it almost worth seeing the movie. Robert Mitchum's son, James Mitchum, doesn't do much better.

Anyway, despite expressing these elements of negativity, I'm glad I revisited the movie, all these years later. I can still appreciate it, although not as much, or in the same ways I did back in my youth. I gave it 6 stars. I think that's fair.