Directed by
Jonathan Kaplan
Writing credits
Ken Friedman
Joan McCall screenplay
David E. Peckinpah
(Jonathan Kaplan, Anthony Edwards, Bonnie Bedelia, etc. – various uncredited contributions)
Cast
Bonnie Bedelia ………. Shirley Muldowney
Beau Bridges ………. Connie Kalitta
Leo Rossi ………. Jack Muldowney
Anthony Edwards ………. John Muldowney (age 15-23)
Hoyt Axton ………. Tex Roque
Paul Bartel ………. Chef Paul
Tom Duffield ………. Rahn Tobler
Steve Evans ………. Himself
Dean Paul Martin ………. Sonny Rigotti
Bill McKinney ………. Don ‘Big Daddy’ Garlits
Dick Miller ………. Mickey White
Anchor Bay
DVD Release Date: August 15, 2006
Running Time: 113 minutes
The Film
By looking at the DVD cover, one can come to the conclusion that Heart Like a Wheel has a limited audience. Most men don’t want to watch movies with female leads that have “Heart” in the title (barring the occasionally slasher flick naturally). Most women don’t want to watch a movie centering on the National Hot Rod Association. Drag race fans tend towards the testosterone oriented, and might scoff at a girl-power melodrama.
Long story short, no one would watch this movie with me.
At any rate, Heart Like a Wheel stars aunt of Macaulay Culkin and Mrs. Die Hard, Bonnie Bedelia, as three time NHRA top fuel champion Shirley Muldowney. Shirley gets married in highschool, births a baby boy, and drag races the local street toughs of Schenectady, New York, all under the watchful eye of her country-singing French-Canadian father Tex Roque. Tex is played by Hoyt Axton, the late country folk singer, known for writing some of Three Dog Night’s biggest hits.
Shirley moves up the drag racing ranks, as her marriage to her seemingly schizophrenic husband slash mechanic Jack (Leo Rossi) crumbles. After daddy dies, Shirley takes Connie Kalitta’s funny car (and subsequently Connie), and leaves her family to race full time. Her funny car explodes during one of her races, but she still manages to smoke in the hospital bed afterwards while covered with burns. Why not? Shirley moves up to Top Fuel, wins a championship, and takes umbrage when all the credit goes to her now Crew Chief, Connie. So she ditches him, culminating in a race between the two for the a Top Fuel Championship.
Beau Bridges is fun to watch as the boorish, adulterous Connie Kalitta. Bonnie Bedelia is tolerable enough, delivering lines like, “The only thing I do fast is drive!” We get over half a dozen races, a couple of crashes, one barbecued racer, flashlight fu, wrench fu, one all out trackside brawl, and a gratuitous french chef.
Film fans will note a young Anthony Edwards as Shirley’s son/mechanic John. (Even at the age of 19, he had a need, a need for speed.) Joe Dante’s stock player, Dick Miller shows up a couple of times rather inexplicably as Mickey White, a character whose point must have ended up on the cutting room floor. Big time movie buffs will note that Tak Fujimoto (Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense) as the film’s cinematographer.
Heart Like a Wheel is a cheesy melodrama typical of its era, complete with montages fueled by the music of the Byrds and the Turtles. Basically, it plays like a feminist version of White Line Fever.
DVD Features:
Sub-titles: None. Boo-urns.
Commentary by director Jonathan Kaplan: Kaplan, product of a show-biz family and Roger Corman protege, spends most of the time breathing heavily and talking about himself. While he makes a few interesting comments and some apt criticism of modern cinema, the whole thing seems more like an obscene phone call than a DVD commentary.
“Shirley Muldowney: Behind the Wheel” featurette : We get some old footage of the real Shirley Muldowney, who looks more like Jamie Lee Curtis or Illeana Douglas than Bedelia. We also get some recent interviews with the real Shirley, Connie, Don Garlits, interspersed with clips of the movie. It is surprisingly entertaining over its 35 minute run time, though a tad disappointing to see Connie Kalitta as an old fat guy with a lazy eye and a bad comb-over.
“Friends – Rivals – Champions” featurette with real-life racers Muldowney, Don Garlits and Connie Kalitta discussing their careers : This featurette consists of the three retired races talking to each other while sitting on stools. It might be entertaining for rabid NHRA fans, no so much for me.
Poster and still gallery: There’s not much here.
Theatrical trailer: We get the Trailer to HLaW and some trailers to films like Rhinestone, Turning Point, and Kenny Rogers vehicle Six Pack.
Deleted Scenes: Several minutes worth of deleted scenes all packed onto one DVD chapter. There is no select-a-scene option, there are no description in advance, there are no explanations given for the deletions, and there is no reason to watch this random collection of unfinished bits of material.
| InsidePulse’s Ratings for Heart Like a Wheel | |
The Inside Pulse
If you are nostalgia-hungry, and looking for a cheesy, early ’80s feminist melodrama about a young girl who loves two things, drag-racing and mechanics with violent mood swings, Heart Like a Wheel is probably your best bet. As for me, I’m still trying to figure out whose heart is like a wheel and how that particular heart is particularly wheelish…
