Action/Drama
1 hour and 21 minutes
Not Rated
Written by: R. Wright Campbell
Directed by: Roger Corman
Produced by: Roger Corman
Cast:
Mark Damon
William Campbell
Luana Anders
Patrick Magee
They Treated Beautiful Women as If They Were Fast Cars ... ROUGH!
Here we come upon one of the rarest of films ... the boring Roger Corman film. Sure, Corman has had some "cheap" productions - but by no means are any of his previous works as boring and non-compelling as The Young Racers.
In the early and mid 1960s, there was a major influx of melodramas. Films like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Shoot the Piano Player, and Marnie had set the trend of Hollywood produced melodramas. Why on earth anyone thought these films were entertaining is beyond me.
The Young Racers suffers from what burdens most melodramas: a predictable, soap-opera, storyline. Talk-talk-talk, love. Talk-talk-talk, betrayal. Talk-talk-talk, anger. Talk-talk-talk, emotions. Essentially, every moment of dialogue is so overblown with emotions, it becomes boring. The film never goes anywhere, it simply lingers on the plateau of extreme emotions.
The storyline itself is predictable. A young ex-grand prix racer attempts to get close to another racer who ruined his engagement, by pretending to be interested in writing his biography - only to expose him as a womanizing, speed-freak, sociopath - forever tarnishing his image. What's predictable is that the two men actually start caring for one another, and by the end of the film, all is forgiven and everyone is good friends. How this script ever got someone like Roger Corman behind it is beyond me. The man's previous, and later, works all have some level of excitement, exploitable elements, and intelligence behind them. The Young Racers has none of those three qualities.
I suppose the argument could be made that the film is in fact a carsploitation film. This is an argument, however, that I do not agree with. Sure, the film's got plenty of fast cars, racing one another throughout what precious few grand prix sequences there are, but ultimately these take a back seat to the film's melodramatic plot. Thus, because the cars are not part of the central focus of the film's story, The Young Racers cannot be labeled as an exploitation film, let alone as a carsploitation film.
The acting is atrocious. One would expect more from Corman regulars like Luana Anders and Patrick Magee, who both did a tremendous job in the Francis Ford Coppola/Roger Corman film: Dementia 13. Here, it appears that all the actors must have been told by Corman to act as "over-the-top emotionally" as possible. When in love, be as in love as you can. When angry, be as angry as you can. This continuous over-playing of emotions only hurts the movie, and makes it feel flat - the exact opposite of what it should be doing.
The film is not all terrible. It boasts some marvelous settings - Paris, England, Belgium - but these settings don't do enough to pull the film out of its tiresome story. The cinematography in the film is astounding. Director of photography Floyd Crosby is responsible for this. Crosby captures beautiful wide shots of the European cities, and throughout the racing sequences gets some remarkable shots as well.
The racing sequences should have been the film's saving grace, but unfortunately these fail to give the film a sense of excitement that was so needed. Watching these sequences is almost as entertaining as watching a nascar event. The audience is watching these fast cars racing and passing one another, ultimately hoping that a crash, accident, or act of God will happen just to spice things up. Unfortunately, none of these things happen - until the very end of the film, and even here the crash is so unremarkable that it's as easily dismissible as the rest of the film.
The Young Racers suffers from an over-display of emotions, that makes most 1960s melodramas boring beyond any point of being a good motion-picture. Its cinematography is remarkable, but it's not enough to help recommend the film as a whole. Whether this was Roger Corman's attempt to cash in on the growing success of melodramas in the early 1960s is debatable, but the point still stands that this is below the standard of quality that Corman is usually associated with.
2/10
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