Vanishing Point (1971)

It’s hard to find a serious flick centered upon racing cars that isn’t a metaphor for something more than driving around in circles at high speed. Vanishing Point (1971) is one of the more blatant of the auto-sports message movies. Coming from a time when a maverick wave of American filmmakers were attempting to infuse their big-screen entertainments with deep, meaningful, subtextual elements, Vanishing Point is on the surface a chase film. A great and celebrated car racer accepts a commission to drive a Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. The authorities (death) give hot pursuit. The doomed driver receives guidance from a blind deejay he cannot see (faith and fate) and pauses along the way to chat with desert freaks (excuse to insert naked hippie chick).