Vanishing Point

Richard Sarafian directed this minimalist chase film, starring Barry Newman as ex-marine, ex-race car driver and cop named Kowalski. He drives into Denver to deliver a car and pick up another vehicle to drive to San Francisco. To make the fifteen-hour drive to San Francisco bearable he pops a load ...more

The late 1960s and early '70s had no shortage of symbolically charged road movies, and if Vanishing Point isn't quite the same caliber as Two Lane Blacktop or as culturally significant as Easy Rider, in its best moments it comes close. A huge drive-in hit, the film turns its modest budget to its advantage, making a virtue out of its plot's simplicity, and in the process becoming a beautiful example of the now-vanished B-movie avant garde. As Barry Newman's benzedrine-powered drive from Denver to ...more