Chevelles (and
other A-bodies) in Movies and TV -- the disco decade
2/27/00 update: since the 70s, 80s, and 90s pages were spilt,
due to the 30 KB quota, I have decided to reorganize flix with 1973-77
A-bodies to separate pages. I hardly discriminate on the 1973-77
generation, but this was done because the 1980s-Era Movies section was
growing, and there wasn't enough room. The 1973-77 links are at the
bottom of every second page (70s2, 80s2, 90s2) of the genre detailed, which
I now consider a third section of every decade on the Chevelles on Screen
website.
After the airport shootout, one of the security guards hops
into a 1969 442 hardtop, which outruns a Washington D.C. cop car.
In a later scene, after Pam Grier and Yaphet Kotto (Homicide) are in a
restaurant, a 1971 Chevelle station wagon is seen.
Trivial note: Carl Weathers is a hitman in this
blaxploitation flick, and watch for Ted Lange (Issac Washington on The
Love Boat) as a pimp! Yaphet Kotto and Julius W. Harris team together
again since Live and Let Die (1973).
A 1972 Chevelle Concours Estate station wagon is seen exiting
a ferry, which occurs before the second shark attack.
During the opening credits, a 1972 Monte Carlo is seen in
traffic. Gene Hackman is conducting surveillance, and a 1968 Cutlass
hardtop coupe is seen outside the movie theater. In a later scene,
a 1967 Chevelle station wagon drives past by, when he tails his wife's
lover.
Trivial note: first film where a beater 1964 Cadillac
DeVille is seen in a movie. The most famous one is the Caddy from
48 HRS. Watch for a young 18 year old Melanie Griffith!!!
During the opening and closing credits, a 1969-72 Pontiac
Grand Prix is seen as a parked car. When Sheba Shayne (Pam Grier)
is in Louisville, KY, watch for a scene at a car wash, where a 1968 F85
coupe drives past by a hustler's Cadillac. When Sheba is outside
of Pilot's (D'Urville Martin, the director of Dolemite) flat, a 1966 F85
sedan is seen in the parking lot, and during the fairground sequence, a
1969 Buick Skylark hardtop is seen, parked in front of a tent. Outside
the Shayne Loan Co. building, a 1972 LeMans is seen as a "picture car".
A 1965 Pontiac GTO (or LeMans hardtop) is seen during the
gang hit, when the Jezebels and another rival African American female gang
are in a gunfight. A 1956 Chevrolet (decked out with plated steel
panels) is seen during the gang hit, as well as a 1972 Chevrolet pickup
and an early 1960s Corvair.
Eddie Albert is at a phone booth, where he calls a hitman
in Akron, OH. In the Akron, OH sequence (filmed on a Hollywood backlot),
a 1966 Cutlass and a 1969 Tempest 2-door hardtop are seen as "picture cars."
During this scene, a 1973 Oldsmobile 98 Regency blows up.
When Sam Elliott visits his parent's home (he drives a 1968
Vette roadster), a 1967 El Camino is seen in the driveway.
Note: this is consider as one of the early films
with Southern California lifeguards, pre-Baywatch. Parker
Stevenson, who appears as the rookie lifeguard, is the only cast member
of this film to star as a regular cast member of Baywatch.
Currently, as his portrayal of Craig Pomeroy, he even directs several Baywatch
episodes beginning in the 8th and 9th seasons.
Bishop (Austin Stoker) is driving a 1970 Plymouth Belvedere
in traffic, and a couple of pre-1973 A-bodies are seen. They include
a 1970-72 Monte Carlo and a 1965 Tempest pillared coupe. When the
gang-bangers fire upon the police precinct, there is a scene in which they
push several cars (one of the cars is a VW Type III Fastback), and one
of the cars pushed was a 1965 Chevelle hardtop. There is another
scene in which Wells (Tony Burton) breaks into a white 1970 Chevelle 4-door
hardtop sedan (with a crunched LH quarter panel), and hotwires the car.
He is killed, when a gang-banger hides in the back seat.
Trivial note: Tony Burton drove another 4-door Chevelle
(a 1972) in the T.J. Hooker episode "Blind Justice".
Stephen King's horror classic, which had Texas native Sissy
Spacek (Coal Miner's Daughter, JFK) as a teen with telekinetic powers.
There was a scene in which an unknown John Travolta and Nancy Allen (Blow
Out, RoboCop) were in a 1967 Chevelle SS 396 hardtop. In the scene where
Carrie burns down her high school prom, the Chevelle reappears, in which
John Travolta was about to run over Carrie, and she flips over the Chevelle,
in which it rolls over and explodes.
Note: an anonmyous source states that the car that
rolls over is a 1967 Firebird, used in place of the Chevelle.
There is a scene in which a road rage scene between a Mercedes=Benz
sedan and a 1970 Chevrolet Impala takes place in a Jewish neighborhood
in NYC, and a few GM A-bodies are seen. When the driver of the Impala
leaves the repair shop, a 1968-72 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser is seen,
parked on a street corner. When the Impala driver is ramming the
Mercedes, a 1969-72 Pontiac Grand Prix is seen as one of the parked cars.
During the road rage scene, where the Impala bashes the Mercedes, a 1972
Oldsmobile Cutlass is seen. In a later scene, where an elderly Jewish
woman fingers Sir Lawrence Olivier as a Nazi dentist, a 1969-72 Pontiac
LeMans hardtop is seen as one of the parked cars.
Several 1st generation A-bodies are seen, which include a
1968 and 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass hardtop coupe, a 1970 Tempest, and a 1971
Cutlass. There is a scene where an Austin P.D. cop car rams a flatbed
truck, and the truck crashes into a parked car. A 1966/67 Skylark
coupe is briefly seen, parked behind the crashed car, a few rows back.
Trivial note: the Volvo (the pic car) has a 1975
vintage Texas plate (note the blue 76 sticker). From 1976 - 1994,
vehicle license plate stickers were common, until the early 1990s.
After the September 1, 1991 state law (mandatory proof of financial responsibility,
a.k.a. auto insurance) plate theft was a problem, and this led to the adoption
of the windshield stickers since 1995. Only plate decals are still
used on motorcycles, trailers, dealer vehicles, and vehicles without windshields.
During the scene in the wrecking yard, a 1967 Pontiac Tempest
or LeMans hardop coupe is seen on top of a stack of crushed cars, and a
1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass 4-door hardtop sedan is used by the local town
waitress. In a later scene, a deputy sheriff drives the Cutlass,
after Arlene (Terry O'Connor) flees on a motorcycle.
A 1977 Pontiac LeMans sedan (Buford T. Justice's squad car)
is used throughout the film, and is abused frequently. (1) the LeMans
loses its roof; (2) the driver's side door is bashed off the car; (3) the
right front rim falls off the car in the final scene. A 1971 Monte
Carlo ends up wrecked, when the Bandit is being pursued by the cops.
William Devane spots one of the villains (James "Rosco" Best)
in front of a Juarez brothel, and a 1969 Chevelle Nomad station wagon is
seen in traffic.
There is a scene in which Tony Manero (John Travolta, in
his famed role of all time) is waiting on a street corner, and he hops
into Bobby's 1964 Impala hardtop sedan. When the Impala makes a shapr
U-turn, a 1972 Skylark sedan is seen, which blows its horn. In a
later scene, Tony and Stephanie McDonald (Karen Lynn Gorney) are walking
down the sidewalk to a coffee shop, a 1964 Pontiac Tempest ragtop is seen
as one of the parked cars. In a later scene, in front of Stephanie's
Manhattan apartment, a 1968 Buick Sportwagon is seen as a parked car on
the street. The Sportwagon is seen when Tony delivers a mattress
and some personal belongings to Stephanie's new apartment in Manhattan,
and the same set (possibly filmed on the same day) was used after Tony
gets off an NYC subway, after his friend, Joey, committs suicide.
In this particular scene, Tony is in his famed white suit, and arrives
at Stephanie's apartment, after getting off a subway car. During
the scene before the subway shot, Tony walks away from his friends (his
friends get into the Impala, and Tony walks on, in which he had nowhere
to go), a 1971/72 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon is seen, parked
on the street. A 1973-77 Buick Regal is briefly seen outside the
2001 Odyssey Disco, after Tony forces himself on Stephanie in the back
seat of the Impala.
Trivial note: There are two versions of this film,
the original R-rated version, and the PG version. The PG version
is 113 minutes long, with some scenes deleted and milder language substituted.
Some of the deleted scenes not seen on the PG version includes a scene
in which Mr. Fusco sneaks out the hardware store, after two men are looking
for him, and another acene in which Tony answers the intercom to Stephanie's
apartment. In both versions, the ethnic slur "sp*c" is used.
A few cameos are present in this classic: (1) John
Travolta's sister is the pizza lady in the prologue of the film; (2) John
Travolta's mom is the hardware store customer that is purchasing a can
of paint; (3) Fran Drescher
(The Nanny) appears as Tony's dance partner, in which his brother visits
the 2001 Odyssey discotheque for the first time.
In a scene that takes place in Denver,
CO, a 1964 Chevelle sedan is seen parked at a gas station (note the 55
Bel Air coupe in the garage!). Right after Charles Bronson and Lee
Remick cross the US/Canada border, a 1970 Chevelle convertible is seen
in traffic. In a later scene, which supposedly takes place in Houston,
TX, a 1967 Pontiac LeMans is seen in the parking garage of the Hyatt Regency,
where a 1977 Town Car rams a 1968 Coupe De Ville and a 1970 Pontiac Catalina.
Factual error: the downtown
skyline that is briefly seen (the sequence reads: Houston, TX) is some
other midwestern city. There is no railroad track in front of a downtown
area, but the REAL Downtown Houston has a rail line that runs above Buffalo
Bayou. The street scene depicted in the Houston sequence is a two-way
street, and the only streets in Downtown Houston that aren't one-way streets
are Main, Franklin Street, and Commerce Road. This also includes
a highway scene which has an Interstate 45 road sign.
The Hyatt Regency depicted in the
film is located at 5 Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, California.
The interior lobby was first seen in The Towering Inferno (1974).
A red and white 1972 El Camino is seen on the movie set parking
lot in a couple of scenes, and it has Snowflake rims from a 1977-81 Firebird.
A 1966 Chevelle hardtop is seen, parked on the street, when
Chevy Chase commandeers a 1969 Chevrolet C20 pickup (the pickup has Colorado
plates). This particular scene takes place after he crashed a 1974
Lincoln Continental into a pizzeria.
This movie has to do with 18-wheelers, and country legend
and "Highwaymen" Kris Kristofferson (Rubber Ducky) was a trucker in this
movie. One scene in this movie is where Ernest Borgnine, as a sheriff,
commandeers a 1970 Chevelle hardtop, and there is a stunt where the Chevelle
is airborne, and levels a barn.
A 1977 Monte Carlo is seen, parked in a garage. Michael
Myers is hiding in the back seat, and the victim is killed.
Jan Michael Vincent drives a couple of El Caminos.
The sequence that takes place in 1968 featured a 1959 El Camino (the original,
based on the full sized Chevrolet), and the scene that takes place in 1974
featured a 1972 El Camino. The El Caminos seen had door shields,
which is a company vehicle.
There is a scene that takes place in front of the steel mill,
and a 1967 and 1972 Chevelle or El Camino are seen.
A 1972 El Camino passes by (seen through the windows of a
1964 Impala 2-dor hardtop), when Cheech and Chong are parked on a roadside.
This particular scene takes place when the cops wanted to see Pedro's (Richard
"Cheech" Marin) drivers license. In a later scene, which takes place
in a suburban neighborhood (where C & C wants to purchase marijuana),
a 1971/72 Grand Prix is seen, pulling out from a street corner. The
highway scene, which takes place before crossing the US-Mexico border,
a 1977 Grand Prix is seen on the highway (C & C are in a green van,
made from marijuana sheets). During the border checkpoint scene,
a 1965 Buick Sportwagon shows up, and in one scene, Chong throws a half-lit
joint of "chronic" into the window of the Sportwagon, and the nuns were
busted. The Sportwagon later ends up with its doors stripped, at
the border checkpoint.
This movie is about a Coney Island street gang that is framed
for murdering a known gang leader (at a congregation in the Bronx), and
in one scene where the eight Warriors walk through a Bronx neighborhood,
they run into another gang. This is where the only gang babe is taken (Deborah
Van Valkenburgh, well known as the waitress in the movie Streets of Fire
(another Walter Hill flick), and the sitcom Too Close For Comfort), and
Snow (Brian Tyler), one of the gang bangers, throws a Molotov cocktail
onto a 1968 Pontiac Tempest 4-door, in which the rival gang (The Orphans)
is killed. Behind the Tempest, an early sixties Chevrolet station wagon
is seen. On the same street, a 1968-72 4-door pillarless GM A-car is seen
when the gang babe shows up in one scene.
*One noted FAQ: This movie was released on February 9,
1979, and this movie was later pulled from the market because of the media
attention of the violence that surrounded street gangs. (From TNT's
Monster Vision, 1997.)
A 1964 El Camino tows a race car in this movie. (post
courtesy of Dan Carr's El Camino Page).
When Peter Falk and Alan Arkin commandeer a 1964 Chevrolet
Impala (the Impala is a taxicab), a couple of early Chevelles are seen
in traffic. A white 1964 Chevelle is seen after fleeing from a fruit
stand, and a 1965 Chevelle is seen on the highway, where Peter Falk fires
at another truck (the villains are in hot pursuit in a 1964 Mercury Monterey
sedan). A shipment of bananas spill onto the pavement, and the Merc
skids out of control.
A 1971 Monte Carlo (with 4 Mexicans) pulls into the service
station, and the Mexicans are in possession of a stolen credit card.
Steve Martin calls the cops, after he hooks a chain to a water main (this
is part of a church wing). This makes it easier to spot the Pachucos,
in which they pull a small church!
*The Monte Carlo has stacked headlights, like a 1976 or
1977 model, and hydraulics, common with lowrider automobiles. A classic
moment with an O.G. Monte Carlo and a wild scene!
During the cruise scene, where Dudley Moore is in a Rolls-Royce
Corniche ragtop, a 1971 Monte Carlo is seen in traffic. A 1972 Chevelle
4-door is used as a taxicab, when Dudley Moore takes a vacation to Las
Hadas, Mexico.
Trivial fact: Bo Derek's film debut.
80's-Era
Movies
1990s
and Beyond
A-Car
Sightings
*Listed in WhoWhere
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