Happy 88th Birthday, Monte Hellman! Born today in 1932, this American editor, writer, executive producer, producer and theater and film director began his career as an editor's apprentice at ABC TV.
He later made his directorial debut, being a creature feature. This was with the 1959 American black and white horror/sci-fi film 'Beast from Haunted Cave', produced by American director, producer, and actor Roger Corman ('The Masque of the Red Death').
This was the film that began an association between Corman and Hellman that lasted for fifteen years.
Hellman would later work on several of Corman's films and would also finance several features that Hellman would direct.
He would later gain critical recognition for his Westerns of the 1960s of which he is known. These included the 1966 American Western/Acid Western film 'The Shooting' and the 1966 American Eastman Color Western/Revisionist Western film 'Ride in the Whirlwind'. Both of these films starred Jack Nicholson.
Among his credits, Hellman is best known for editing and directing the 1971 American drama/road film 'Two-Lane Blacktop'; his lasting contribution to American cinema.
In this cult favorite road feature, The Mechanic (the Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson) and The Driver (singer-songwriter James Taylor) live only to drag race and maintain their 1955 Chevy. Heading east from California with no particular agenda.
They give The Girl (Laurie Bird) a ride, and en route she incites jealousy between the men by sleeping with them both.
Meanwhile, the trio encounters an overbearing G.T.O (Warren Oates), a wanderer who agrees in challenging to race them to New York as each side puts at stake their most prized possession: their car.
Harry Dean Stanton has a cameo in the film as a gay road solicitor. He was credited as Oklahoma Hitchhiker.
No summary can do justice to the existential punch of 'Two-Lane Blacktop'.
With its gorgeous widescreen compositions by Jack Deerson and sophisticated look at American male obsession, this stripped-down narrative from the then-maverick Hellman is one of the artistic high points of 1970s cinema, and possibly the greatest road film ever made.
However, 'Two-Lane Blacktop' is far more introspective, quiet and expectations-defying than its ilk. No cool rock soundtrack. No existential dialogue. No archetypal characters.
And while its ending is as emotionally violent as Dennis Hopper's 'Easy Rider', it's far more challenging and incendiary.
Over time, 'Two-Lane Blacktop' would go on to achieve cult status before being canonized as one of the benchmark works of the New Hollywood movement.
According to English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer Kim Newman, he says: "A depiction of a country in a profound state of bad faith, the film has a lot of on-the-road detail [...] but presents a central set of relationships between uncommunicative folks who are as stuck in their cars and on their courses as toys on a boy's racing game."
In 2012, the Library of Congress selected 'Two-Lane Blacktop' for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Hellman is also known for participating in later cult film favorites.
Most notably, he is best known for serving as co-executive producer on Quentin Tarantino's 1992 American independent crime film 'Reservoir Dogs'. It was Hellman's past work that had been a major influence for Tarantino.
Hellman has been active from 1959–present.
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