''Fast Company'' is a 1979
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
action film
Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...
directed by
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...
and starring
William Smith,
John Saxon
John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1936 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor who worked on more than 200 film and television projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Western (genre), Westerns and horror film ...
,
Claudia Jennings
Mary Eileen Chesterton (December 20, 1949 – October 3, 1979), known professionally as Claudia Jennings, was an American actress and model. Jennings was ''Playboy'' magazine's Playmate of the Month for November 1969 and also Playmate of the Y ...
and
Nicholas Campbell
Nicholas Campbell (born 24 March 1952) is a Canadian film, television and voice actor and filmmaker, who won three Gemini Awards for acting. He is known for such films as ''Naked Lunch'', ''Prozac Nation'', ''New Waterford Girl'' and the telev ...
. It was written by Phil Savath, Courtney Smith, Alan Treen and Cronenberg. It was primarily filmed at
Edmonton International Speedway
Edmonton International Speedway, also known as ''Speedway Park'', was a multi-track auto racing facility located in the present Cumberland, Edmonton, Cumberland and Hudson, Edmonton, Hudson neighbourhoods of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The facili ...
, in addition to other locations in
Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
, Alberta, and
Western Canada
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada†...
.
Plot
At a racetrack, aging drag racing star Lonnie "Lucky Man" Johnson makes engine refinements to his car, which is sponsored by the international oil company Fast Company (FastCo). On its first test run it blows up, but Lonnie escapes unhurt. FastCo team boss Phil Adamson is not impressed, telling the head mechanic, Elder, that the team can't afford to win if it breaks the budget. In the "Funny Car class", Lonnie's protégé Billy "The Kid" Brooker gives top dog Gary "The Blacksmith" Black a close run.
At the Big Sky meet, Adamson takes a backhander from the organizer. He says that the fans come to see Lonnie, so while the dragster is being repaired he will replace Billy in the Funny Car. Lonnie doesn't like the idea. Billy likes it less, blaming Lonnie's ego. Lonnie's first ever Funny Car run is against Black, who is angry at the driver switch, especially when he loses the race.
En route to a next race in Spokane, Lonnie calls the dragster mechanic with a few ideas, but is told that Adamson cancelled the repair work. At the meet, Lonnie is less than complimentary on his FastCo TV spot. Adamson is incensed and calls the company to say he's bringing in Gary Black. Candy the FastCo ad girl refuses to have sex with the TV interviewer as damage control, so Adamson fires her. He offers Black the job as FastCo driver.
Candy and Billy have sex inside Lonnie's trailer. Lonnie’s girlfriend Sammy shows up and interrupts them, assuming at first it’s Lonnie in bed. Reunited, Lonnie and Sammy kick out Billy and Candy, and they make love. Lonnie talks about quitting racing. Adamson walks in without knocking, causing Lonnie to punch him to the floor. He says they're finished, but Lonnie assures him the car will race. Outside the trailer, Adamson gives Black and his mechanic Meatball a job.
While on another test run, the Funny Car's engine blows, but Lonnie controls the situation using the cockpit safety gear. Billy angrily accuses Black of sabotage, but Lonnie intervenes on Black's behalf. In the pit, Adamson announces that Black is the new Fast Co driver and the whole team is fired. Lonnie goes for him but is slugged with a tire iron by Meatball.
Billy is despondent, but Lonnie insists they'll still race at Edmonton next weekend and plans to steal the car. Billy and P.J. visit the local motor show and are amazed that Adamson has the car on display. That night, Billy and Candy create a diversion while Lonnie steals the car back. Working overtime, Lonnie, Billy, P.J. get it in shape for the race.
At the Edmonton racetrack, Lonnie's surprise independent entry is announced. Adamson is worried that Black will be beaten, but Meatball says he will win as long as he is in the left lane. Lonnie gives an ecstatic Billy the chance to drive in the race.
At the toss up for the lane choice, Billy wins and chooses left. Adamson ensures a last minute change, much to Billy's annoyance. Meatball pours oil on Billy’s lane. As the race gets underway Billy gets a fast start, but Black tries to run him off the road. Black takes the lead, then cuts into Billy's lane and hits the oil, causing his car to explode in a giant fireball. Billy attacks Meatball at the side of the track and in the struggle, Meatball's overalls catch fire. Billy uses his cockpit extinguisher to save his life.
Adamson panics and flees to his plane. As it taxis down the runway, Lonnie jumps in the Funny Car. He catches up just as the plane takes off, clipping the end off a wing. Adamson fights for control but the plane dives into a parked FastCo oil truck, exploding on impact.
The next morning, the team members discuss the future. Lonnie promises he'll have new funding in place soon, but first he and Sammy are going to share some quality time.
Cast
*
William Smith as Lonnie "Lucky Man" Johnson
*
Claudia Jennings
Mary Eileen Chesterton (December 20, 1949 – October 3, 1979), known professionally as Claudia Jennings, was an American actress and model. Jennings was ''Playboy'' magazine's Playmate of the Month for November 1969 and also Playmate of the Y ...
as Sammy
*
John Saxon
John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1936 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor who worked on more than 200 film and television projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Western (genre), Westerns and horror film ...
as Phil Adamson
*
Nicholas Campbell
Nicholas Campbell (born 24 March 1952) is a Canadian film, television and voice actor and filmmaker, who won three Gemini Awards for acting. He is known for such films as ''Naked Lunch'', ''Prozac Nation'', ''New Waterford Girl'' and the telev ...
as Billy "The Kid" Booker
*
Don Francks
Don Harvey Francks (February 28, 1932 – April 3, 2016), also known by his stage name Iron Buffalo, was a Canadian actor, musician and singer.
Career
Don Harvey Francks was born on February 28, 1932, and was adopted shortly after his birth. H ...
as Elder
*
Cedric Smith as Gary "The Blacksmith" Black
* Judy Foster as Candy
*
George Buza
George Buza is an American-born Canadian actor who is best known for voicing Beast in the '' X-Men Animated Series''.
Personal life
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he moved to Toronto, Ontario, as a young man and became a Canadian citizen in 1998.
C ...
as Meatball
*
David Petersen as Slezak
*
Michael Bell as Chuck Randall
Production
The film is the first of his feature films for which Cronenberg did not originate the screenplay. The production of ''Fast Company'' brought Cronenberg into contact with
cinematographer
The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...
Mark Irwin,
art director
Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...
Carol Spier,
sound editor Bryan Day, and
film editor
Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology.
The film edit ...
Ronald Sanders, all of whom became regular crew members on his films. Actor Nicholas Campbell, who plays William Smith's young sidekick, also went on to appear in three more Cronenberg films, ''
The Brood
''The Brood'' is a 1979 Canadian psychological body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, and Art Hindle. Its plot follows a man and his mentally ill ex-wife, who has been sequestered b ...
'', ''
The Dead Zone'', and ''
Naked Lunch
''Naked Lunch'' (sometimes ''The Naked Lunch'') is a 1959 novel by American writer William S. Burroughs. The book is structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes, intended by Burroughs to be read in any order. The reader follows the narr ...
''.
Although ''Fast Company'' - an all-action, non-horror, non-psychological
B-movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...
- remains an anomaly in Cronenberg's filmography, it has never lost its place in the affections of its director, who is an enthusiast of cars and their machinery ("which I get very metaphysical and boring about") and sometime racer.
This was the final film for
Claudia Jennings
Mary Eileen Chesterton (December 20, 1949 – October 3, 1979), known professionally as Claudia Jennings, was an American actress and model. Jennings was ''Playboy'' magazine's Playmate of the Month for November 1969 and also Playmate of the Y ...
before she was killed in a car accident later that year, seven months after the film's release.
Reception
''Fast Company'' received generally positive reviews. It holds an 88% approval rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, with an average rating of 6.6/10.
References
External links
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*
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{{David Cronenberg
1979 films
1979 action films
Drag racing
1970s English-language films
Films scored by Fred Mollin
Films directed by David Cronenberg
Films shot in Edmonton
Canadian independent films
Canadian auto racing films
Canadian action films
1979 independent films
English-language Canadian films
1970s Canadian films