MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
The Road Warrior (1981, 95 minutes)
The Third World War has left the planet in ruins. The scum that remains, scavenging in the Australian outback, dressed like radiation-damaged survivors of the Oakland Raiders’ Black Hole, are constantly on the lookout for precious “gazoline” to keep their vehicles running. They will kill anyone who gets in their way.
“I remember a time of chaos in a wasted land,” drones the narrator. “I remember the Road Warrior, the man we called Max, back when the world was powered by the black fuel. Gone now, swept away. Without fuel, the thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Cities exploded and the world crumbled.”
Max (Mel Gibson) patrols the two-lane blacktop in the same leather police uniform he wore in 1979’s Mad Max. But his wife and child have been murdered by the sociopaths roaming the land, uncontrolled. There is no more police force. Max is now an army of one, cruising the blighted countryside in his rusted-out muscle car with a supercharger poking through the hood and a half dog/half dingo in a red scarf seated next to him.
When a pair of thugs pulls alongside Max in a filthy limousine, pointing a sawed-off shotgun in his direction, Max kicks in the blower, screaming over a hill at top speed. When he suddenly comes upon two overturned vehicles burning in the road, he skillfully rips a full-speed “S” turn, forcing his pursuer to smash into one of the wrecks. Max steps out and turns over a hubcap to capture gas dripping from the fuel tank of an 18-wheeler.
Down a dirt road, he comes upon a one-seat gyrocopter. As he approaches, a crazed scarecrow of a man, dressed in shorts, a long purple scarf, pink tennies and aviator goggles, bursts from underground, pointing a crossbow at Max’s head. “Drop the gun, down, down,” wheezes the gyro captain (Bruce Spence), whooping and dancing like a man who’s been broiled by the sun. “You crafty little man!” taunts the captain as Max maneuvers him next to the car. The snarling dog suddenly leaps through the window and has the captain pinned to the ground in seconds, bargaining for his life.
“Fuel, thousands of gallons of it! As much as you want!” he pleads. “Where?” demands Max. “Twenty miles from here, permanent, they are. Refining. Ka-joonk, ka-joonk, ka-joonk! Too hard for me, but a man of your ingenuity … Kill me and you’ll never find out.” Half an hour later, Max and a shackled captain are perched on a rocky pinnacle, gazing down at an oil rig and a mini-refinery. “Four days I was up here,” mumbles the captain, “thinkin’ how’s I gonna get the gas. Then this trash arrives,” he points at a dozen cutthroat bikers, circling. “Drivin’ round and round like angry ants at the smell of gazoline!”
