Red Line 7000 [1965] [DVD]

The story of three racing drivers and three women, who constantly have to worry for the lives of their boyfriends. Jim Loomis and Mike Marsh drive for Pat Cassarian. Jim expects his fiance Holly, but before she arrives, he dies in a race. Since she hasn't got the money to travel back, she stays.

Director Howard Hawks returns to territory that he'd first tackled in 1932's The Crowd Roars, but somehow this contemporary racetrack movie doesn't quite measure up. The Technicolor (photography by Milton Krasner and Haskell Boggs) is particularly fine, with that Paramount gloss much in evidence, but then newcomer James Caan is a woeful lead and the process shots are poor, making the whole look rather like an Elvis Presley movie with fewer songs. Still, for ardent Hawks fans, all of the director's themes are in place, and Star Trek enthusiasts will cherish an early film role for George Takei.