It's the typical tame the bad boy story where John Ashley finds out he is air tube on a stage, only he has to change his ways from fast cars and bad girls and walk a tightrope. Along with Jody Fair and Gene Vincent, Ashley provides really nothing in this American International b film that outside a few amusing bits with the old gals and some sardonic quips has little to recommend.
American International Pictures led by cigar chomping Hollywood stereotype Samuel Z. Arkoff produced lots of these teen exploitation B Movies in the 50's and 60's and Hot Rod Gang is one of them.
"John Abernathy III" (John Ashley) is about to inherit a large sum of money from the two aunts he lives with but all he wants to do is to race cars. He also likes rock and roll music and sings every now and then in the club house he and some friends have rented when they're not working on their hot rods.
John Ashley is wanted by the law for driving recklessly through a puddle (no kidding). He is later framed for stealing hub-caps (no kidding).
Lucky enough to catch and record this off of AMC a few years ago. The only thing about this movie that makes me want to view it again is to see what Gene Vincent was like at near the height of his fame.
For the final day of the 1958 best movie poll on ICM,I decided to look for one last title to view on YouTube. Looking down the YT page,I found a flick with a short & sweet run time,that led to me starting the hot rod up.
Okay, this movie is titled "Hot Rod Gang" and it was released in 1958, so a person's first instinct is that it's a horrible teen movie with little plot and atrocious acting. In reality, the film is pretty good, with decent music, good acting and some good touches of humor.
OK, was this a spoof, documentary, parody, comedy? I don't care, it's like some person 2 generations removed from the era used it for an excuse to write up every cliché for some subculture.
Followers of the late Gene Vincent, one of the pioneers of the Rock and Roll music genre will have lots of reason to watch Hot Rod Gang. For the rest I can say there's hot rods, but only a couple of bad apples among the teens, hardly enough to call it gang.
