Leofwine_draca RIDE IN A PINK CAR is one in a sub-genre of films exploring the plight of Vietnam veterans returning home and trying to re-integrate into a cold society that doesn't really want them. This film goes for a low budget crime thriller angle but the story is too devoid of originality to really work, but the main problem is that other, similar films like ROLLING THUNDER and FIRST BLOOD are real classics and this just doesn't come close.It actually begins much like FIRST BLOOD, with ex-soldier Glenn Corbett returning home to find that he isn't really wanted. Criminal gangs have taken over his town and his wife has married his brother, leading to much awkwardness. What follows is highly dated and seems to deliberately reference BILLY JACK at times although it isn't as good as that film either. There's some occasional good music, some not bad low-rent action in the form of car chases and the like, but generally a try-hard-but-fails feel.

Comeuppance Reviews Gid Barker (Corbett) returns home to the small town of Benton, Florida after some years away in 'Nam. As it turns out, the townsfolk don't receive him warmly and are all antagonistic towards him. During one of his conflicts with the locals, Gid ends up accidentally killing one of the good ol' boys. That's more than enough for the town to want to lynch him, so he steals the titular "pink car" and goes on the run with his buddy Rainy (Benet), who is also a pariah because he's a Native American Indian. So then there are a bunch of chases and weak confrontations until the final outcome. What will it be? Find out today? Ride In A Pink car is not the best example of the "guy comes home from Vietnam and faces hostility" movie that seemed to bubble up in the 1970's. The No Mercy Man (1973) is a far better film, and, even trumping that fine work is the modern-day masterpiece Rolling Thunder (1977). First Blood (1982) perfected the formula by the early 80's. Unfortunately 'pink car is a casualty along the road getting there. We desperately wanted to like the movie, but it's very slow, dramatic in the wrong places, and there's a severe dearth of action. Perhaps that's unfair if this wasn't meant to be an out-and-out action movie, but we're just thrown into the middle of the plot right from the get-go and it's hard to shake off the feelings of confusion and uncaring. Though, to be fair, the audio and video quality of the VHS release are absolutely horrid. Given a cleaned-up DVD treatment, the movie might deserve a reassessment.The movie is also clearly influenced by the then-current hit Billy Jack (1971) - imagine a regional version. There are some car chases (of the "fruit-cart" style, naturally) and maybe a few mild blow-ups, but the movie needed at least one sort-of-known name. Jimmy Dean, Bo Hopkins, Bo Svenson, Bo....Jackson, somebody! But the music, by Vic Caesar, is enjoyable, and lines of dialogue such as "smells like rancid perfume gone flat", in reference to the local booze, keep the movie from being a total waste, but just barely. The above line was said by Pinky, a man who dresses all in pink, and from whom Gid gets the classic Pink Car. It does seem somewhat effeminate in these post-General Lee times we're living in, however.But strange-looking people, characters continually drenched in their own sweat, and a Sheriff who wears a bolo tie with his Sheriff's outfit don't save the movie. It's too staid. The character of Gid needed more rage. Ironically, the plot has no drive. As stated earlier, our willingness to like this movie was disappointed at every turn. Shot in Rubonia, Florida, Ride In A Pink Car (the cover models on the VHS box were created and have nothing whatsoever to do with the movie), sadly, stalls out when it should be putting pedal to the metal.

Woodyanders A surprisingly taut and involving 70's B picture sleeper which has undeservedly slipped through the cracks and into obscurity. Gid Barker (coolly played with firm inner resolve by Glenn Corbett), a fiercely self-reliant nonconformist loner Vietnam veteran, returns after a two year tour of duty to his jerkwater hometown of Benton, Florida to meet a decidedly chilly and unwelcoming committee that's more like a lynch mob. Back in the day Gid was a hell-raising womanizing troublemaker, so the guys in town are eager to put the thumbscrews to him. Gid winds up killing a man in self-defense when one dude picks a fight with him in a bar. Gid steals a souped-up pink Plymouth Fury and with his loyal, laid-back Native American pal Ray (affable Doug Van) and old flame Shirley (sweet Ivy Jones) in tow goes on the lam. The dead man's vengeful father (a stern, steely Morgan Woodard) forms a posse (the always welcome Bill Thurman as an odious racist deputy among 'em) to track Gid down. Gid in turn opens up a king-sized barrel of pure destruction on the seething, hateful little backwards hamlet. Skillfully directed by Robert J. Emery, this exciting and resolutely tough-minded winner packs an unexpectedly powerful punch, thanks to David Hall's compact, incisive script, a strikingly unflattering portrait of hicksville heartland America as a resentful hotbed of repressive toe-the-line conformity (Gid's refusal to go along in order to get along makes him a much despised and ridiculed pariah), Vic Caeser's jaunty country and western score, complexly drawn characters, thrilling outbursts of deftly staged action, Jack Richards' solid cinematography, across-the-board aces acting, and a painfully on-target "you can't go home" central message. A fine, gritty and shamefully neglected drive-in gem.

dinky-4 The plot is old but serviceable: a man returns to his hometown after years of absence to find that things have changed for the worse. However, for this plot to work, we need to know something about what the town was originally like and how the man fitted into it at that time. We also need to know something about why and how the town changed over the years.The script to "Pink Car" doesn't give us enough of this background information and the result is a dreary, pointless, and not very interesting movie. It also suffers from a surfeit of villains and from a decidedly unattractive cast.Glenn Corbett, who showed promise back in the late 1950s, had lost his youthful appeal by this point in his career and seems at least ten years too old for the part he's asked too play. Leading lady Ivy Jones is drab in a part that calls for style. The "Pink Car" of the title turns out to have little to do with the plot.