A mythologized decade, a souped-up Challenger, and the man behind the wheel are running out of time in Richard C. Sarafian’s 1971 amphetamine-fueled road trip movie VANISHING POINT!

With 15 hours to make it from Denver to San Francisco in a new white Dodge Challenger, the former cop/driver/motorcyclist/boyfriend actually takes up a bunch of stops. Each detour exposes him to another unique character or group: A snake-catcher selling vipers to desert Pentecostals; fellow drivers looking to prove their mettle; a dead-end hippie commune; gay hustlers hitching a ride. With the help of police and media attention, Kowalski becomes more than a desperate washed-up has-been on the run — for a public turning the page on the 60s, he becomes nothing less than an American hero.

We’re kicking off the Trylon’s big summer program by discussing this cult classic as a time capsule and as an action movie, and figure out how it fits among “end of an era” films.

Note: We recorded this episode before the Trylon started showing the standard cut of VANISHING POINT, so we watched the extended cut, which contains a particular scene we think is pretty important to the point of the movie. We’ve noted the difference in the discussion.

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References:

“I Dreamt I Killed the Jaguar” by Finn Odum for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
“The Real Cannonball Run” at SB Nation (Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aATkNVj7eAKbCCPODUPQ3?si=gaecx5aKRBW6NkgRZ51tpw )
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#TakingTheScenicRoute #DCP

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Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “Mississippi Queen” by Mountain from the VANISHING POINT soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 390: VANISHING POINT (1971)

2:02 - Whadja Watch This Week?

27:19 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises, Ltd.)

28:22 - The weird tension of VANISHING POINT as an ‘end of an era’ movie

46:06 - Reckoning with what the ‘60s didn’t end up being

50:43 - How Kowalski becomes a torchbearer for the American spirit

57:38 - The Cannonball Run and the arbitrary desire to race across the desert

1:05:33 - The distinctly American nature of the story

1:10:35 - The Charlotte Rampling scene and the ending

1:23:06 - The Junk Drawer

1:31:17 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1971

1:35:51 - Cody’s Noteys: Vanishing Joint (trivia tangent to Minneapolis-area hangout spots that have closed)