Two Lane Blacktop

TwoLane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singersongwriter James Taylor, the Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird.

The premise involves two street racers played by Taylor and Wilson who live on the road in their highly modified, greyprimered, brutal 1955 Chevrolet 150 twodoor sedan drag car and drift from town to town, making their income by challenging local residents to impromptu drag races. The movie follows them driving east on Route 66 from Needles, California. They pick up a female hitchhiker in Flagstaff, Arizona played by Bird, although it is more accurate to say that she picks them up by simply getting into their car. In New Mexico, they encounter another car driver played by Oates, driving a 1970 Pontiac GTO. An atmosphere of hostility develops between the two parties. Although Oates is not an overt street racer, and, in fact, seems to know little about cars, a crosscountry race to Washington, D.C. is suggested. Taylor proposes that the prize should be for pinks, or legal ownership of the losers car. Characters are never identified by name in the movie instead they are named The Driver, The Mechanic, GTO, and The Girl. The movie follows the group east through small towns in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee, but no character makes it to Washington, D.C. during the film.After sleeping with the Mechanic and being desired by the Driver during the journey, the Girl disappoints them by abruptly leaving with GTO while they compete at a racetrack in Memphis. The Driver pursues them intently, finding them at a diner where the Girl has just rejected GTOs idea to visit Chicago. The Driver proposes going to Columbus, Ohio to get parts, but the Girl rejects him. She hops on the back of a strangers motorcycle, dropping her bag in the parking lot. The three men abruptly depart from the diner in their respective cars. The insecure driver of the GTO, who tries to impress various hitchhikers he picks up along the way including an importuning homosexual hitchhiker played by Harry Dean Stanton with madeup stories about himself and the GTO, then stops for

Source: Wikipedia