I’ve noticed an increasing trend, especially with e-books, where the title tells you exactly what you’re going to get. I can’t imagine who would be looking for “A Forbidden Age Gap Surprise Baby Romance”, but you’re in luck in you are, as My Secret Daddy was apparently written for you. Then there’s the output of the Lifetime and Hallmark networks, none of which likely has any surprises, even for its fans.
In that spirit, I hope I’m not spoiling anything for anybody when I say 1979’s Fast Charlie…The Moonbeam Rider might as well have been made three or four decades earlier. This will be comfort food for some, complete with a con man who will learn to be honest, the rag-tag crew of war buddies who rally around him, and a single mom with an adorable kid in tow.
Not that the title suggests any of that. Set in 1919, David Carridine plays the con artist, wandering about rural America on Moonbeam, his motorcycle. He goes from one town to another, scamming the locals with bogus raffles of his ride. The winner is always a plant in the audience, from whom he retrieves the bike later.
Then he makes the mistake of pulling this ruse using a waitress played by Brenda Vaccaro. She decides to keep the bike unless he gives her $200. He says he will have to send her the money from St. Louis, and she wisely insists on going with him.
I enjoyed seeing the persistence of Vaccaro’s character. This is somebody who has clearly been deceived before, and is going to make sure she doesn’t get hurt again. More than anything, she is going to protect her young son, which means there will be three riders on that motorcycle for the long trek.
St. Louis is the destination because that’s where the nation’s first transcontinental motorcycle race will begin. Carradine’s scams have all been to fund the entrance fee and equipment he will need to compete. I thought it was strange the race was billed as “transcontinental” when it runs only from St. Louis to San Francisco, but that’s moot.
I would say even that distance would be intimidating back then, as there were so few paved roads. Heck, much of the racing as shown here is through areas where there aren’t any roads. This movie begs for product placement from a hemorrhoid cream.
All of the race footage appears to be real, and I found it impressive no effects such as a rear projection were used. Some of what is shown looked quite dangerous. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, as that is typical of a Roger Corman production. What did surprise me is that, overall, the production values are higher than any of his other movies I can recall seeing.
I mentioned Carradine’s rag-tag crew and these are fellow WWI motorcycle messengers whom he deserted when the going got too tough. These guys initially want to see him dead, except for Terry Kiser, whom he liberates from prison. It was very strange to see man who played the title character from Weekend at Bernies this young and, well, not dead. By the end, the crew will bond into a single unit and each man even finds within themselves the ability to forgive Carradine.
It is no surprise who wins the motorcycle race in Fast Charlie…The Moonbeam Rider. This isn’t a movie that is meant to be surprising. It instead follows a well-worn story structure, but follows it well. The characterizations are thin, yet these are people I found myself rooting for. Basically, it is the polar opposite of Corman’s Death Race 2000, where Carradine had played a very different character in a very different kind of cross-country race just four years earlier.
Dir: Steve Carver
Starring David Carradine, Brenda Vaccaro, L.Q. Jones
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray