I'll have to give Ghost Of Dragstrip Hollow credit because the only actual drag racing in the movie was done by two of the female characters. I thought this was quite unique for 1959. No one in the movie, with the exception of one girl's father, seemed to think there was anything out of the ordinary about female hot-rodders.
The movie begins with the above mentioned drag race through what I assume was "The Los Angeles River" where many years later they filmed the racing scenes in Grease. The Good Girl, Lois, gets away but The Bad Girl wrecks her car. Lois makes it back to the gang's hot rod club but is later confronted by the Police and gets charged with illegal racing. In a plot recycled from many other teen exploitation movies, the gang is going to lose their clubhouse/garage because they can't pay their rent. Connected to the garage is another part of the clubhouse: a small diner/music club ......a garage and a diner....this place is huge!....NO wonder a bunch of teens can't pay the rent!!!
In the diner part of the clubhouse, The Renegades are playing. This band had an interesting line-up, it featured drummer Sandy Nelson (Teen Beat, Let There Be Drums and a slew of drum LPs), Bruce Johnston (future Beach Boy), Nick Venet (who signed The Beach Boys and produced some of their early albums) and Richard Podolor (future producer of Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf). The Renegades play one instrumental, ""Geronimo", which includes firing guns into the air and then are joined by some of the girl members of the club who sing "He's My Guy".
When Lois' parents find out about the trouble she has been in they ground her, but agree to let the gang come over for a party since she can't go out....Ahh, don't you just love permissive parents! In the meantime Lois' crazy Aunt Anatasia arrives with her crazy parrot (Do All Parrots Sound Like Gilbert Gottfried?). She just happens to own a haunted house the gang can use since they got kicked out of their clubhouse.....to clarify, the aunt owns the house, NOT the parrot. Ghost Of Dragstrip Hollow even has some social commentary at the party when a couple of the adults talk about how much pressure the kids are under having to live in the atomic age.
After the boys leave, the girls have a slumber party and and play a new record by The Renegades, "Charge". At the same time they are watching an old black and white Western movie on TV, which featured the Calvary charging the Indians...well I assume the movie was in black and white...but it's actually hard to tell since Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow itself is in black and white. The next day Lois, who is still grounded from driving, has her crazy aunt, who doesn't know how to drive, agree to drive her out to the haunted house. This results in a wild ride with the parrot making wisecracks the whole time (listening to the parrot's voice, I'm pretty sure this must have been Gottfried's father or grandfather!).
A lot of spooky goings-on happen at the old house, but the teens aren't deterred and decide to put on a Spook Ball and raise money. The party features The Renegades doing "Ghost Town" and a very square looking dude, Jimmy Maddin (who just happens to be the music coordinator for the movie and must have decided to coordinate himself into the film) sings a song called "Tongue Tied".
Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow really starts to fall apart at the end. There's another drag race between the two girls, but it happens off screen. There's a talking car (all of a sudden I felt like I was having a Disney flashback). The final odd bit is we find out the person who is haunting the house is someone who was let go from a movie studio. The motive as to why he is haunting this particular house is never explained. An interesting footnote: the guy playing this part is actually Paul Blaisdell, a famous special effects guy, wearing one of his own creations from The She Creature. Despite the weak and confusing ending, if you're into 50s teen movies, you'll probably dig Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.
I couldn't find a trailer, but below is a clip from the movie with The Renegades doing "Geronimo".
This is the type of movie that you would normally see after someone has died and other people get to tell their story. The story will tell how the person wasn't very nice and since they're no longer alive to disagree, they can't repudiate it. The strange thing is that Jan Berry was alive when this TV movie was made in 1978. It's interesting to read what Jan has to say about his own personality: CLICK HERE. I was surprised to find that he readily admits that he was a Type-A, Control Freak, Asshole.
Below is the story of Jan and Dean as shown in Deadman's Curve: The Jan and Dean Story (DMC). I emphasize shown since, as with any biopic, some facts are condensed for the movie and other facts are put into the movie for dramatic reasons. When I know something is obviously wrong, even for a casual fan like me, I have made a note of the real fact(s).
DMC opens with Jan (Richard Hatch) and Dean (Bruce Davison) hanging out and this is a shorthand way to let us know that they are friends. The puzzling fact that is never shown in DMC is WHY Dean would remain friends with someone who belittled and mistreated him over so many years. I've even read the biographical chapters that Dean has written on The Jan and Dean website and I cannot quite get a grasp on why they remained friends. My only guess is that Dean is the type of person that once he's your friend, he'll be your friend for life.
Up next we find Jan and Dean and another friend harmonizing in the showers after high school football practice . DMC immediately cuts to Jan recording the three of them in his garage. The friend drops out, but Dean stays on. The friend's name in the movie is Billy, I assume this was supposed to be Arnie Ginsburg (even though they do mention the name Arnie a couple of times in the movie) who originally recorded with Jan as the duo Jan and Arnie. When Dean asks Jan "what about football?", Jan says football season is over and he's going to create "the sounds of summer" ....I kid you not, that line was actually in the movie, I even backed it up several times to be sure I heard it correct. Now Jan was smart (his IQ was supposedly 181 before the accident), but I don't think he was smart enough to have thought that far ahead or to have been a prophet. This is just an example of DMC making up its own history for the sake of a good story, as I mentioned above.
Dean joins the army and Jan releases their song with ONLY his name on the label, according to the scene we see in DMC. Actually "Jennie Lee" was a song released by Jan and Arnie. Needless to say Dean's not real happy about this; but, after Dean gets out of the army, the pair hook up again and start their successful recording career.
It just happens that one time while they are touring, they get lost in a town somewhere in Texas....right in front of a radio station! The DJ at this station is Bob Smith: The Jackal (who is played by Wolfman Jack, whose real name was Bob Smith!). The actual truth is that Jan and Dean continued their college careers and recorded and performed on weekends or during college breaks. It is very doubtful that they would have been driving from California to Texas. Jan and Dean get The Jackal to play "Sidewalk Surfin'" from one of their albums and at the end of this scene, Dean gets on his skateboard and Jan pulls him with his car as they leave town with the song playing on the radio.
Jan is going to get drafted and he goes to the induction station and tells them they can't draft him "He's Jan and Dean". The Sergeant tells him "We took in Elvis and he was a lot bigger star than you are Boy!". Jan huffs out of the office and according to the movie, this is when he had his wreck on Dead Man's Curve. This scene is all fabrication and you can read the real story HERE
This is about the half-way point of the movie and the latter half is about Jan and his recovery. Jan finally gets to the point where he wants to perform again and grudgingly asks Dean to help him. Jan decides he will have to lip synch his part. The crowd catches on and tries to boo him off stage. After an emotional address to the audience, Jan sings live and the audience gives him a standing ovation. At the start of this scene look for Bruce Johnston and Mike Love (in one of his sartorial disasters) of The Beach Boys. If you look carefully at the audience you can see the real Jan Berry watching his movie self performing on stage.
DMC began with Dick Clark introducing Jan and Dean in 1966, after which the movie flashed back to 1957 carrying us from that year until the early 1970s. I have read that DMC was supposed to have been a mini-series, instead 15 years of the lives of Jan and Dean were condensed into approximately 100 minutes. Thankfully the director Richard Compton was used to working in TV and should be given credit for being able to make such a coherent story in the time frame he was given. The only real problem with DMC was that I felt it skewed more toward Jan and could have easily been called: Dead Man's Curve: The Jan Berry Story featuring Dean Torrence. I would have liked to have seen a little more about Dean, but then that would have probably required another 100 minutes!
A special Thanks to skippercollector who sent me the photo of the the rare vhs Video Gems release.
