This is supposedly the earliest hot rod / juvenile delinquent film. Released only 2 years after WWII, the scourge of street racing had already devoured America. Some consider this teensploitation movie nothing but an hour long Public Service Announcement against street racing, but it is darker and more complex than that.
These ‘B-movie’ makers didn’t have the Hot Rod / JD formula down-pat just yet. ‘The Devil on Wheels’ lacks the cool rock ‘n roll soundtrack of later films. The movie doesn’t even show fun places mid-century teens went to, like sock-hops and malt shops. For fun, these teens went swimming at their parents’ country club; ‘The Devil on Wheels’ was one of the first movies to show girls wearing bikini tops. For more fun, the teens break into the city morgue to look for the dead body of their hot rodding friend. But we’ll circle back to that later.
What this movie does a great job of is capturing 1940’s car culture in America. This was the age when pops coming home with a new convertible was a big thing for the whole neighborhood. The boys are shocked that the speedometer goes all the way to 120 mph! The early hot rods in the film that protagonists Micky and Todd drive are totally authentic. Their Ford Roadsters are much more accurate depictions of what teenagers would have driven, not the over-the-top, George Barris-built, Hollywood hot rods in later movies. Everyone has a Ford Model A, and the depiction of a drag race on the outskirts of town directly inspired the opening race scene in 1999’s ‘The Fast and The Furious’. The scene was so good, it was later re-used in the 1950 feature film ‘Hot Rod’.
If you’re looking for fun fluff with Mamie Van Doren dancing, plus the requisite lesson on ‘the dangers of street racing’ scotch taped to the end of the reel, this is not that kind of movie. There’s a lot of death in this ‘fast film noir’ and it is quite jarring. To hammer home the morality tale, the filmmaker makes it clear that protagonists Mickey and Todd know that street racing is dangerous, but they just don’t believe it will happen to them. Then the boys hear a rumour that a local racer, a friend of theirs, is lying dead in the morgue because of a street race and they cannot believe it. Rather than just asking the authorities, Mickey and Todd take their girlfriends on a spooky Scooby-Doo-esque break in.
When the cops show up, the kids have to make a run for it. While escaping the crime scene, Mickey crashes into a slow-moving Iroquois sedan, leaving it stranded in the middle of the street. The chasing Todd doesn’t see the stricken car until it’s too late, crashing into it and killing himself and his girlfriend in the process. But wait…there’s more! Mortified, Mickey speeds away and sneaks into his home just in time to hear the news on the radio that the gravely-injured driver of the Iroquois sedan was in fact … Mickey’s mother!
Jeepers creepers this one is heavy handed! Got it. Slow down and don’t street race or you’ll kill your mother.
Whoa, that’s one dark film!
I know, right? Couldn’t they just have the kids street race, go to the drive in, and maybe hear about their friend rolling his hot rod? Did they really need to go to the city morgue?
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Not to worry. Next week’s review of ‘Hot Rod’ from 1950 is much more upbeat.