Johnny Showtime: DEATH RACE 2000

 by JB

How’d you like to see Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu play Frankenstein?

My humble viewing suggestion for Junesploitation today is Death Race 2000, one of over 250 films made by WORKING ACTOR IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS David Carradine. Carradine amassed an impressive list of credits in the 45 years that he was a professional actor. His career took a wild detour into direct-to-video action films in the mid-Eighties: Oceans of Fire (1986), Armed Response (1986), The Misfit Brigade (1987), Six Against the Rock (1987), I Saw What You Did (1988), Run for Your Life (1988), Warlords (1988), Tropical Snow (1989), The Cover Girl and the Cop (1989), Sonny Boy (1989),Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II (1989), Nowhere to Run (1989), Crime Zone (1990), Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989), Try This One for Size (1989), Open Fire (1989), Future Force (1989), direct-to-video Swedish action movie The Mad Bunch (1989), Night Children (1989), Crime of Crimes (1989), Animal Protector (1989), Dune Warriors (1990), Martial Law (1990), The Trace of Lynx (1990), Future Zone (1990), Fatal Secret (1990), Midnight Fear (1991), Project Eliminator (1991), Deadly Surveillance (1991), Brotherhood of the Gun (1991), The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991), Capital Punishment (1991), Karate Cop (1991), Battle Gear (1991), Evil Toons (1992), Double Trouble (1992), Roadside Prophets (1992), Night Rhythms (1992), Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992), and Distant Justice (1992).

Feel free to watch ANY OF THOSE FORTY-TWO FILMS AS WELL. Whew!

I first saw Death Race 2000 when I was in college at one of those late, lamented campus screenings that cable television and streaming services later put out of business. This was the early Eighties and campus groups would show movies on the weekends to raise money. The Official Office of Campus Space Utilization and Parking (or whatever the fuck it was called) would allow registered campus groups to use lecture halls on the weekends for free. Said group would beg, borrow, or steal a projector, rent a film from Films Inc. or Universal 16, print up some handbills, and count the cash. I can’t begin to describe what these screenings did for my filmic education. My first weekend on campus, I saw 17 films. One of them was Death Race 2000.

The film’s arch irony, broad humor, and extreme violence played well to the undergraduate crowd. Did I mention that most screenings were only $2.00?

I am old.

THE PLOT IN BRIEF: In the year 2000, the American government has become a totalitarian regime. It creates a televised Transcontinental Road Race to provide citizens with gladiator-like spectacle and bloody catharsis. By keeping them busy with violent sporting events, the Government hopes citizens will be mollified into forgetting organized rebellion. In fact, the reason Roger Corman wanted to produce this film was to take advantage of the prerelease publicity and hype surrounding Rollerball (1975), a film with very similar themes. Death Race 2000 beat Rollerball to American screens by three months.

The race car drivers themselves are all overblown stereotypes: Frankenstein (David Carradine) is the favorite to win; other drivers include Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone, the year before Rocky made him a star), Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov), Matilda the Hun (Roberta Collins), Nero the Hero (Martin Kove), and Herman the German (Fred Grandy, two years before The Love Boat). Beside the competition of the road race, drivers are encouraged to both kill each other and run over innocent pedestrians to rack up bonus points. It’s a bloody spectacle.

Few films are more June-sploitationey than Death Race 2000. Junesploitation was invented to encourage watching Death Race 2000, or maybe the other way around. We have trenchant social satire, crazy custom cars, outrageous stunts, full frontal nudity, a zippy pace, Radio DJ the Real Don Steel functioning as a Greek Chorus, cult favorite Harriet White Medin as Thomasina Paine... the list goes on and on. As Danny Peary points out in his invaluable Cult Movies books, Death Race 2000 is one of the only non-documentary American films in which a sitting President is dispatched. Peter Fonda turned down the lead role because he said the script was too ridiculous to actually film. David Carradine accepted the lead role because he needed something to “wash Kung Fu out of the public’s memory.”

Funniest line? “It’s a hand grenade.” To get the joke, you have to see the film.