The Last American Hero

[Steve Holmes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQVFjJ13eTY&feature=related


As far as car racing movies go (and lets face it, there have been some real dogs), this is a good one. Released in 1973, and starring Jeff Bridges, Valerie Perrine, and Gary Busey, The Last American Hero is based on the early career of Nascar legend Junior Johnson, and his rise from moonshine hauler to Nascar winner. Bridges plays the character of Junior Jackson, who is based on Junior Johnson, although in the modern time of the early 1970s, rather than the 1950s, when Johnson rose to prominence.

Although created on a tiny budget, The Last American Hero manages to achieve what many big budget race movies fail to do, that is, capture both the characters of the sport, and produce exciting on track action that is also realistic. The film has plenty of good short track bullring dirt oval action, plus a Nascar Grand National race at the end, in which several of the era's stars were represented. And the young Jeff Bridges pulls off the role incredibly well, hinting at a big future in the movie business.

A really good movie, and definitely one for the dvd library.

[Steve Holmes]

Heres a couple of the dirt track races from the movie.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJXC35lxPxk

[Steve Holmes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuJpmJeMx54&feature=related

[nzboss]

Sounds like its worth tracking down.
Thanks Steve.

[Steve Holmes]

Sure is, and pretty easy to find on dvd. It was re-relased a few years ago.

[Bruce302]

Anything with Valerie Perrine in is worth watching, and Gary Busey is just the icing on the cake. The only thing that would make it better would be a cameo by Sylvester Stallone.

[HDonaldCapps]

A really good movie, and definitely one for the dvd library.

Not sure which movie you watched, but it was a terrible movie, making "Grand Prix" look like "Citizen Kane" by comparison and I have little love for "Grand Prix." Both "The Last American Hero" and "Greased Lightning" were nice ideas and well meant, but rotten movies.

[Steve Holmes]

Yes, good call Don, and you're right. But lets put this in the context it deserves. We, as car enthusiasts, are used to being served sub-standard quality when it comes to our motorsport movies, and as such, we often tend to lower our expectations, and accept a quality we probably wouldn't accept from any other movie. Afterall, how many of us have managed to endure an entire sitting of Viva Las Vegas just to glimpse the cars? How many of us have copies of Two Lane Blacktop, and somehow convince ourselves its actually not that bad? I'm guilty of all the above.

Almost any non-car enthusiast simply couldn't endure what we readily accept, and sometimes even consider to be pretty good. But we're biased. If its a good story line and quality acting we're after, we don't go looking to the motorsport section of our movie collection, do we.

We're not looking for the same things from a motorsport movie as non-motorsport enthusiasts would. But to that end, I still consider the acting in The Last American Hero to be good, and particularly that of Bridges, and that too of the storyline, for what its worth.

So, when reviewing a car related/motorsport movie, we do so with the view that we're watching it for the racing, not the acting or the story line. And, when reviewing a motorsport movie, we do so from the perspective of a car enthusiast, who knows what other car enthusiasts are looking for in a motorsport movie, and what their expectations of the various non-motorsport scenes are going to be. Lets face it, the people on this forum would more than likely only consider buying The Last American Hero because of the motorsport content included. And as such the movie has to be reviewed from the perspective of a motorsport enthusiast, and the expectations we have. And as a motorsport movie, and it has to be compared to other motorsport movies.

So, to that end, I still consider this a really good (but not great!) movie.

[HDonaldCapps]

Actually, I am NOT a "car enthusiast" or even a "motorsport enthusiast" these days (nor for many years for that matter); rather, I am a historian with an interest in an relatively small, niche area of automotive history. Not sure if that makes sense to most, but that is probably a fair statement of how I view things.

It has been said that the less you know or the better you can rationalize, the more you will enjoy various forms of entertainment, particularly movies and various forms of literature. You don't even want to know my views on the vast majority of "war" movies given that I was (still am I guess now that I think of it) a military historian.

Because I knew several of those involved behind the scenes (...literally well behind the scenes in most cases...) with this particular movie, I did go see it when it first came out and I have considered that one viewing quite sufficient. Of course, it and other similar efforts may have suffered somewhat due my using two of my electives in graduate school taking film classes.

Again, it may have been a nice idea for a movie and there may have been reason to give some of those involved, Bridges for instance, kudos for a good effort in a generally lost cause. However, don't look for a copy in my film collection.

[Steve Holmes]

[QUOTE=HDonaldCapps;6150]Actually, I am NOT a "car enthusiast" or even a "motorsport enthusiast" these days (nor for many years for that matter); rather, I am a historian with an interest in an relatively small, niche area of automotive history. Not sure if that makes sense to most, but that is probably a fair statement of how I view things.QUOTE]

Makes sense to me Don. So do you consider being a "car enthusiast" is to have a general interest in a broad area of the subject, or to be interested in anything motoring/motorsport related?

To my mind, to be an historian of any kind takes huge dedication, and that cannot be achieved without enthusiasm.

[HDonaldCapps]

Never confuse "enthusiasm" with "interest." While dedication is obviously a factor in what the historian does, one quickly learns to keep one's enthusiasm in check given that it inevitably clouds one's observations and subsequent interpretations. Of course, historians tend to be very much "compartmentalized" in that their thoughts as historians are kept quite separate from their personal thoughts -- and enthusiasms. Although I had a long interest in the history of automobile racing, I did not move into the automotive historian camp until relatively late. This was prompted in great part by the realization that most of what was being presented as "automobile racing history" was largely either hogwash or so inept that it was worthless dribble. The few exceptions were truly that, exceptions. The advent of the internet forum held promise for a time, but that promise, alas, has largely been very much unfulfilled. Over time, I have pretty much abandoned any enthusiasm for the sport and drifted further and further into the historian's realm.

All that said, "The Last American Hero" was a better article by Tom Wolfe than a movie. I have come to the conclusion that few have actually read the article that appeared in Esquire many years ago (early 1965), or have forgotten just what it actually focused upon. The article was notable more for it being written by Wolfe for a New York-based magazine than for what was actually written, the style being somewhat different than the usual Southern sports prose.

Given that I was "hanging around" the GN scene at the time, not many were all that impressed by the writing, but rather that someone took the trouble to write about Junior without making him like as if he were a racing version of Pa Kettle or some redneck gomer from Tobacco Road. Junior was many things in those days, the biggest one being very sharp and smart.

[Howard Wood]

To my mind, to be an historian of any kind takes huge dedication, and that cannot be achieved without enthusiasm.[/QUOTE]

Steve,

And thank you for the enthusiasm which has created this quirky, eclectic forum. I love the wide menu of topics and input, from David McKinney's historical accuracy (build lists for Terrapins!) to Gerald and Bob's wimsical musings on the "Y & Y" thread, it is all pure gold!

I keep an occasional eye out on (and even more occasional contribution) to the 10-Tenths chassis archive forum when it touches cars or events I may have had a passing association with because it is an important archive, if a little dry. However that other well known historical archive, the TNF, seems to have degenerated into a forum for strange men spewing ego and insult at each other.

Viva la difference!

[HDonaldCapps]

However that other well known historical archive, the TNF, seems to have degenerated into a forum for strange men spewing ego and insult at each other.

Which, alas and alack, is not at all what I intended when I founded it close to a dozen years now. David McKinney is trying to salvage something from the wreckage, so maybe not all is lost....

Switching gears a tad: I think that English is quite inadequate at times as a language, one word having a multitude of meanings and shadings, but rather than an "enthusiasm" or even an "interest" in history, one can have a "love" of history. It is the genuine joy the comes from being involving in research and sorting things out that drives people like me. We strive for objectivity, clarity, and definitiveness in our work, which are, of course, goals we rarely achieve -- at least to our satisfaction. We tend to be a pain in the butt to many because, among many other things, we tend to look for context as well as often asking questions that can be awkward. We also tend to contrarian, a trait that can be infuriating to say the least. That is simply the result of habitually asking questions and probing for possible interpretations -- or simply taking a different view and being tactless enough to blurt it out....

[Howard Wood]

I had hoped that you did not think I was taking a pot shot at you,or worse at D McK, quite the contrary. As I will be in the UK next Sept I thought I might try to fit in the Goodwood Revival and so trawled through countless pages of the Goodwood thread on TNF, hoping at the least to get some guidance or ideas on simple things like what was the best day etc. To be frank I could not believe the self important crap and invective that was spewing forth, much of it directed in David's direction.

All those years ago when D McK and others were busy colating the details I don't think many, including myself, appreciated the imprtance of what they were recording. Revisionism occurs in all areas of history and on all sides.

[HDonaldCapps]

"Revisionism" is not necessarily an epitaph nor is it a sin. Indeed, the "revising" of the earlier interpretations of the past has often brought us closer to those ever elusive truths found in history. One of my former professors hammered the idea that "Popular history is not necessarily History" into his acolytes; by this he meant that often what is thought to be and usually taught as history is fraught with problems -- usually missing context, full of omissions, as well as presenting perception as the reality, always a dangerous thing when it comes to history. And these problems only begin to scratch the surface.

One problem with the Junior Johnson story is that it serves to perpetuate the notion that moonshiners -- especially those in Wilkes County and the surrounding environs -- were the bedrock for the origins of stock car racing. While it makes for a nice story, it little more than legend and myth -- wrapped within more than a few outright lies -- which does not quite fit the actual history of the origins and development of American stock car racing.

[AMCO72]

I thought Henry Ford 1 said.....'history is bunk'.....or maybe he said...'all history is bunk', among many of the other things he is quoted as saying, some of them a bit obtuse!!!......'whether you think you can, or you can't, your right'....Henry Ford 1st.

[Steve Holmes]

"Revisionism" is not necessarily an epitaph nor is it a sin. Indeed, the "revising" of the earlier interpretations of the past has often brought us closer to those ever elusive truths found in history. One of my former professors hammered the idea that "Popular history is not necessarily History" into his acolytes; by this he meant that often what is thought to be and usually taught as history is fraught with problems -- usually missing context, full of omissions, as well as presenting perception as the reality, always a dangerous thing when it comes to history. And these problems only begin to scratch the surface.

One problem with the Junior Johnson story is that it serves to perpetuate the notion that moonshiners -- especially those in Wilkes County and the surrounding environs -- were the bedrock for the origins of stock car racing. While it makes for a nice story, it little more than legend and myth -- wrapped within more than a few outright lies -- which does not quite fit the actual history of the origins and development of American stock car racing.

Don, there was a large 3km B shaped track carved into the land on which LAX now sits in 1934, paid for (I believe) by E. B. Gilmore. The cars that raced on the layout were late model roadsters, mostly '33 and '34 Fords with the fenders and headlights removed. Were these considered and/or promoted as stock cars?

[HDonaldCapps]

That was Mines Field and, yes, there were definitely considered stock cars. The length of the track varied somewhat for various events, being anything from about 1.9 miles to about 1.5 or so. In 1933, the Elgin Road Races were temporarily revived with stock car events. The Oakland Speedway held an annual stock car race until 1941 was another example of stock car racing existing prior to the November 1938 race that is often cited as the race that started it all. Nor was there an oval track in/near Stockbridge, Georgia that was created and run by stock car racing moonshiners, another of the persistent myths.