Continuing our series of writers recommending hidden films to stream is a call to watch a stylish 1969 B-movie about figure eight racing
“There’s a suicide born every minute,” quips cynical sports promoter Grant Willard (Brian Donlevy), as he watches figure eight racing drivers dropping – or rather, flipping – like flies. Indeed, the race, with its entropic intersection, seems like utter lunacy at first glance – a one-way ticket to crumpled steel and fatal injury. Yet there’s something uniquely seductive, even irresistible, about the spectacle: the mesmerising rhythm of crashes and crossovers; the
music of purring engines and screeching tyres; the way the dust from the track, intermingled with wispy exhaust fumes, catches the glow of the floodlights; and of course, the aggressively masculine bravado of the winner.
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