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Mask of Dust (Race for Life) (1954)
Topic Started: Apr 18 2012, 09:14 PM (449 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Washed-up Grand Prix racer Richard Conte wants to keep racing to prove he hasn’t lost it; his wife wants him to quit before he gets killed; his team racing boss is ready to pull him out of the driver’s seat for good. When Conte’s buddy is killed, though, our man Richard straps himself into a death car for one last chase at redemption.

This movie really is about 10 minutes long with about an hour’s worth of stock footage of car racing, and a lot of British drivers make cameo appearances, so if you are a fan of this sort of thing, or you were 57 years ago, well, this movie’s for you. Me? Well, it’s a harmless enough way to pass 70 minutes, but I must admit that I was stunned at how little was here besides the racing footage. It reminded me of one of those latter Three Stooges shorts where they dropped in one day’s worth of new footage and called 80% stock footage a brand-new release.

The bonus material claims that Lippert gave Hammer Conte and $50,000 as its contribution to this production, and I can’t believe that Hammer didn’t skim off part of that money for something else. Terence Fisher directed, but has nothing to work with. For completists only, like me, I guess. And by the way, it's about as much a noir as The Incredible Mr. Limpet, with none of the whimsical charm. I'd love to think that somewhere, somehow, somebody found this DVD in a cut-out bin, brought it home, watched this movie, and said, "Well, now I know what noir is." This is on Vol. 7 of the Hammer Film Noir Double Features from VCI, paired with Paulette Goddard in whatever the hell that thing was called.

The American poster is so far removed from what's actually in the film that Bob Lippert's designer should've won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

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