Vanishing point, easy rider

 Lions got a few Vanishing Point recommendations over the years from the facebook film location group.  The memory of trashy 70's cop shows in syndication was so strong, lions got intrigued by how this one looked especially trashy & bland.  Every trashy 70's movie looks better in HD, especially the nudes. They were all made as cheaply as possible, edited on movieolas.

These movies were spawned by the muscle car era.  Sadly, high performance Teslas never spawned a movie genre.  Yet, this world of high performance automobiles was still the world that the 1950's left behind with furniture that the 1800's left behind.

 Some memories of run & gun night photography in those days.  Until the 2010's, shaky points of light were all you got without a long exposure.

 

Duel, Bullitt, Vanishing point, the Car manely come to mind.  The desert scenes are comparable to Duel.  The sound & speed is comparable to Bullitt.  It's basically what young lion originally imagined Duel to be, all about speed.

It was an age of desert driving before GPS which lions spent most of their life in before 2013.  

 Incandescent light visualizers now resemble what gas lamps must have looked like, 100 years ago.

 

The blind DJ studio got the most attention from the IMDB cohort, manely the open reel tapes intended for a maneframe.  Never mind the idea of a radio station reaching all the way from Colorado to Calif*.  Maybe it had repeaters.  The filming location was Goldfield, Nevada.

 

 

 

 

A world of teletypes the 1930's left behind, imprinting label makers, Fidelipac cartridges which scored all the lion kingdom's 80's memories.  Just 1 brand of TTY, just like there is only 1 brand of monitor now, but the same prop might have taken a road trip

Ancient radio that was listening to police broadcasts.

 

 Typewriters the 1940's left behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Row of telegraph poles recycled many times was shot on the 95, south of Tonopah, NV.   The immortal telegraph poles of childhood were long gone by 2007.  They were ubiquitous though young lion could see them deteriorating during the 80's.  The fence posts remane after 60 years.

 

 

Switchbacks above Austin NV.

Lots of desert vistas of 60 years ago & of course, cars disappearing into the vanishing point.  It was the world as it existed in 1970.  Lions got intrigued by the pre-interstate deserts depicted.  The desert was more inhabited while the roads were more primitive.  Abandoned cabin gootubers only show the abandoned desert as it appears today.

 It was more original & nostalgic than most movies today but a bit aimless without 2x.  The internet noted it was a replica of Easy Rider.

 

 

 Skipping to the ending, he ended up killing himself but it was an exact replica of Asphalt 9.  In reality, he would have instantly been stopped by a spike strip.  The bigger story is why he didn't go around it like so many earlier scenes.  That requires watching the whole thing, where we find out he did try a detour but was boxed in by then.

 

The bulldozer scene in fictitious Cisco CA was in the real Cisco UT.  

 

 By 2012, only the porch of the motel survived, next to the gas station ruins.

 

 

 

Ruins of the gas station.

 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfa6q9bZP8s

There were 2 very similar white buildings.  Ruth's 66 cafe was a wooden building closer to the motel.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/moabutman/498355677

A long gone flickr user mistakenly called the surviving building the cafe in 2003, but a photo of the side when it still was intact absolutely didn't match the movie.

 https://welovetoexplore.com/ghost-town-cisco-utah/

It was the subject of a Johnny Cash song. 

 

 

It was depicted as fairly populated in 1970.  Historicaerials showed the interstate appearing exactly in 1970, so the last year the town would have seen life.  The road is ruined now.  He would not be able to go fast enough to explode.

The movie had him come in from the wrong direction, as shown by the sun rising in the opening scene on the east, behind the dozers.  Then the sun sets in front of the dozers in the west, during the credits.

 

The mane thing missing was Kowalski's motivation, definitely more fundamental than a random bet.  Some commenters called him the last of the free men.  Lions got busted many times, trying to do what was legal long ago.

 

 Could imagine Kowalski & Dontchevski teaming up to steal a starship from Elon.  The system is automated enough to fully stack it, fuel it, launch it with no-one knowing.  Then it's a race between the bad starship & the good starships.

 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Skimmed Easy Rider at manely 2x.  IMDB rated it identical to Vanishing point but lions found it to be a rare case of the remake being visually superior.   It was an exact replica, down to the ending death, the musical interludes, the beating, the random characters.  Kowalski only died because Wyatt & Billy died.

 

Just 2 vista points.   The rest was aimless footage of hippies getting wasted.  

 Its mane claim to fame was Jack Nicholson's breakthrough after 15 years of unknown movie after movie.  

 

The long gone remote desert towns were replaced by long gone mane streets lined by small businesses. Those mane streets still exist in Asia, but they're transitioning to a fully remote delivery from local businesses while US is transitioning to fully remote delivery from a single corporation.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmZ3jNqYz_w

 There was a fascination with the free man in the late 60's, laissez faire in the limit.  That's all gone now.  You're either a fascist or a communist.  The hippies are now the homeless panhandlers & all male.

 Noted from the hippie compound that was struggling to find food, how food scarcity was still a thing in the 60's.  They were skinnier because eating really did impact their budget.  Lions have noted a decline in health, possible high blood pressure, since food ceased being as monetarily limited as it was.  In modern times, buying more is a way to get ahead of inflation.

IMDB noted it was shot in real hippie compounds & unscripted, so probably depicted real struggles.  IMDB also noted our heros became financially independent from drug dealing so they weren't in the same situation as the hippies.

Surprised by the number of women shown in the hippie compounds.  There was a dramatically different attitude in those days.  They weren't allowed in any combat, yet they were way more promiscuous.  It's arguable if combat in those days was more dangerous than today, if hippie compounds were safer than today, if sex was safer than today.