After lingering in DVD obscurity for years, Anchor Bay finally brings John Hough's 1974 car chase drive-in classic Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry in grand style!

Peter Fonda (of Race With The Devil and Easy Rider) plays a race car driver named Larry who has seen better days. His career isn't what it used to be and maybe it's time he started looking at other options to pay the bills from here on out. Larry and his buddy/mechanic Deke (Adam Rourke of The Stuntman) decide that the best way to get rich quick and move on to greener pastures is to rob a grocery store and out run the police through California to financial freedom in Mexico! Unfortunately, Larry decides to sleep with a woman named Mary (Susan George of Straw Dogs and Enter The Ninja) the night before the robbery is to go off, and she decides for the two boys that she's going to be coming along on their adventure.

When the time comes for the old snatch and grab, the three of them pull of the plan reasonably easy, robbing the store (managed by Roddy McDowell of Planet Of The Apes!) by holding his family at gun point until he hands over the goods. They hit the road in their Dodge Charger, putting the pedal to the floor and gunning it south. What they don't take into account is that the cops who gives them chase, lead by Everett Franklin (Vic Morrow of Humanoids From The Deep), while use every trick in the book to stop them cold. Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry are going to have to drive fast and furiously through the back roads of Southern California to make it out, and they're also going to have to learn to survive life with one another along the way.

Plot wise and character wise, this film leaves a lot to be desired. The story isn't too far off from Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway (at least the initial premise) and neither Larry nor Mary are really all that memorable as people. The romantic subplot panders to the audience and doesn't add much value to the film, and the humorous moments spread throughout the film are neither funny nor interesting.

So why bother?

The car chases, baby. The car chases. Made in the days before CGI ruined big screen stunt driving, Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is chock full of fantastic chase scenes and car stunts that are sure to appease anyone into muscle cars and what they can do. Not only that, but the film also features a lot of great footage of the terrain where the entire thing goes down and plenty of action throughout. Yeah, Peter Fonda kind of sleep walks through it all and Susan George isn't any better than 'just okay' in her role but the sheer volume of high speed chases and jumps and stunts more than make up for it. The pacing is tight, the cinematography is handled very well, and there's a gratuitous 'Vic Morrow as the heavy' factor that can't be disputed.

It wouldn't be tough to argue that the film is hung on a very skeletal plot, but there's enough car chase action, explosions, and fantastic stunt work to make it easy to overlook the fact that we've seen this all before. None of this is original, none of this is high art, but all of this is entertaining. Turn off your brain and enjoy this one. It sure beats the pants of more modern fare like The Fast And The Furious or Italian Connection remakes.

Video:

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry looks fantastic in this razor sharp 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Colors are bold and bright, black levels are rich and deep and there are no problems with mpeg compression at all. Though there are a few spots where you're likely to pick out some edge enhancement if you're looking for it, it's minor even when it is there and in terms of print damage, aside from a speck here and there, there really isn't a whole lot to complain about. A very fine coat of film grain is present on the picture but it's never distracting and overall, the movie looks great.