Fury on Wheels

AKA Jump

(1971)

“A Cannon Production” – The Beginnings of The Cannon Group, Inc.

Christopher C. Dewey is listed as producer on this film and there’s no sign of Dennis Friedland so I assume he was not involved with this production (yet he’s listed a year earlier in Beast in The Cellar (1970)). Fury on Wheels (1971) is listed as 1969 and 1971 in many places.

From all the checking I’ve done it was definitely released in the USA as “Jump” in 1971. It may have been around before that (maybe that’s why there’s no Friedland listed and he’s mentioned in that 1970 Time magazine article), so if you have any definitive information on this pleaselet me know. See the Contact Me page.

Not a great film (not even a good film) but important for Cannon archiving as it shows us that Cannon (and their logo) were around a while before Golan-Globus appeared.

Dennis Friedland http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0295080

Christopher C. Dewey http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0223119

Some screengrabs from the film are below with poster and home video covers too. Also some comments from viewers.

Click for larger images

click for large view original UK VHS from Intervision

Marc Edward Heuck

at

DVDManiacs.net

Watched a couple more super-early Cannon Film productions from the New Jersey/Christopher Dewey & Dennis Friedland era this past week. I'm beginning to wonder why no one has taken a look at their body of work before the better-known Golan-Globus days, as there's quite a bit of, for lack of a better word, "outsider" filmmaking going on. (As in "outsider music," that hip catch-all for Wesley Willis, Bingo Gazingo, and Jandek)

SOUTH OF HELL MOUNTAIN (1971) was likely intended as a straightforward Western Gothic drama about a nasty pa and his two sons (one good, one bad) who double cross a band of miners for their gold, and then hide out in a cabin for the night with a lonely teenager and her randy alcoholic stepmother. (Daddy has gone away to find his own fortune to save their home - any Cinderella parallels are intentional) However, something must have happened during the course of shooting because this main story is intersected with truly wacky new footage (by a different director) of the daughter now catatonic in an insane asylum, alternately tortured by a lesbian matron and interrogated by a Pinkerton detective investigating the gold theft. Many bridging scenes that should be there to tell the main story are either cut or were never filmed, so lots of "playwriting" dialogue is looped in to cover these narrative gaps. While it does have a sorta neat trick ending to explain how the girl went insane, it's another film that serves its best function as snark fodder at a party. Interestingly, it is one of the few Dewey/Friedland Cannon films to have gotten its first video release by MGM during their "big box" days, as opposed to Paragon or Vestron, who had initially released most of the pre Go-Go Cannons.

FURY ON WHEELS (1971), or JUMP as listed at the imdb, is a pretty dull and straightforward "hicksploitation" film with Tom Ligon as a disgruntled country boy determined to take his beat-up but powerful Chevy to Florida to become a champion racer. What makes the movie most interesting is its supporting cast: a young and sleazy-looking Conrad Bain, an even younger Jack Nance, voiceover legend Norman Rose, and Collin Wilcox-Paxton, best known for the "ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS" episode "The Jar." (Reportedly, Judd Hirsch is in the movie somewhere but I didn't spot him, yet that didn't stop Paragon from prominently featuring his name on their box cover!) Also, the songs are performed by "Sunshine" singer Jonathan Edwards and are produced by Martin Mull! The print used for Paragon's tape features lots of bad looping and blanked-out obscenities, which would imply a TV cut, but these may have been present in the theatrical version too, as the only posters I've found for the movie list it as rated GP; can someone verifyif it had previously gone out with an M or R rating?

Taken from http://www.dvdmaniacs.net/forums/printthread.php?t=16191 ©Marc Edward Heuck & dvdmaniacs.net

Bootleg VHS, I think. UK rerelease –clik for larger

Click for larger images

Fury On Wheels (1971) (a.k.a. Jump)

Tom Ligon, Logan Ramsey, Collin Wilcox Paxton, and a cast of unknowns, then and now!

This movie was also called "JUMP" at some point, and in some locations, for reasons that will become clear in a second.

What we've got here, in this seldom-seen deep-South drive-in stinker, is the story of wannabe race car driver, Chester Jump (Ligon). Yep, his name is Chester Jump, and ol'Chet has "a rage for speed, an urge for women, and a drive for glory at any price" ....well, at least that's what the theater poster promises!

Anyway, Jump is trying to escape the ratty ol'shotgun-shack he's a'livin' in. You see, his Pappy is a tobacky farmer, who hasn't planted a crop in 5-years, because he'd rather sit on the porch, and swizzle-pull on his trusty fifth of hickory hooch. And, on top of that, his Bible-thumpin' Mama is a total whack-job, and is apparently orbiting another planet, in another galaxie...in her mind.

So, in order to make a buck for his family, and put some dinner on the table, now and then, Chester has got hisself a nasty ol' 1964 Chevelle street racin' money machine that's all dun-up in primer-red. This baby has to have a big-block stuffed under it's hood, as hard as it smokes the tires, although the exhaust dump probably helps, too!

The odd thing is, Jump doesn't drag race. He's got a paved figure-8 course laid-out on the street over by the airport that he prefers (???). You'll love watchin' Chet spank a dark blue 1971 Mustang Mach-1 for $170, in order to prove that he really is a "butter'n'egg man" (???). And, then watchin' Chet leave the premises full-tilt, and bein' able to keep right up beside the airliner that is takin' off on the runway next door!

Anyway, at first, the Chevelle is just Jump's street machine, and then Chet transforms it into a mud throwin' oval tracker. Oddly, the Chevelle actually looks in better condition as a short track stocker than it did as a street car. How's that possible, you ask? With a new red-white-blue paint job, that's how!

Anyway, Jump's ultimate goal in life is to race in, and win, the Tampa-100 short track late-model stock car race, that is held at the Golden Gate Speedway. So, he teams-up with an ethically challenged, and mentally unstable, car dealer sponsor by the name of Babe Duggers.....although, this pretty-well describes about every car dealer, dudn't it?

Anyway, Chester, Babe, and Babe's grumpy German chief mechanic, "The Dutchman", set out to compete in every dirt-track race in the Chevelle they can find. The only diversion to Jump's goal will be the odd daliance with a down-home carhop, waitress, or secretary. Or two, or three, or four, or, well, you get the idea.

Does Chester Jump finally reach his goal in life down in Tampa? Well, it's hard to tell. But, I guarantee you'll be very stunned where the Chevelle makes it's final appearance in the flic. I'd suggest that you watch and see for yourself what happens, but then that'd mean you'd actually have to sit thru Fury On Wheels to the bitter end, and I don't want to be entirely responsible for that. Let's put it this way, you might be surprised, or just puzzled. Or, maybe just relieved that the closing credits are finally rolling.

However, the short-track racing scenes at Golden Gate are authentic for the period, and kinda fun to watch. Notice the "HUGE" tires on the right-side of the FLAwida stockers.

But, after sitting through Fury on Wheels, the viewer will discover one thing for sure, that being, why this movie is seldom-seen....the hard way! The really scary part is imagining what the target-audience for this flic must have been in the deep-deep-South....yikes, and I do mean YIKES! Bizarre.

Anyway, as Chet would say, "done, and done".

Taken from and copyright ©2008 http://www.sd455.com/moviefuryonwheels.htm

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