Drag racing east from L.A. in a souped-up ’55 Chevy are the wayward Driver and Mechanic (singer/songwriter James Taylor and the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson, in their only acting roles), accompanied by a tagalong Girl (Laurie Bird). Along the way, they meet Warren Oates’s Pontiac GTO–driving wanderer and challenge him to a cross-country race—the prize: their cars’ pink slips. But no summary can do justice to the existential punch of Two-Lane Blacktop. With its gorgeous widescreen compositions and sophisticated look at American male obsession, this stripped-down narrative from maverick director Monte Hellman is one of the artistic high points of 1970s cinema, and possibly the greatest road movie ever made.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:
- Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Monte Hellman, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, supervised by Hellman, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
- Two audio commentaries: one by Hellman and filmmaker Allison Anders and one by screenwriter Rudolph Wurlitzer and author David N. Meyer
- Interviews with Hellman, actor James Taylor, musician Kris Kristofferson, producer Michael Laughlin, and production manager Walter Coblenz
- Screen test outtakes
- Performance and Image, a look at the restoration of a ’55 Chevy used in the movie and the film’s locations today
- Color Me Gone, photos and publicity from Two-Lane Blacktop
- Trailer
-PLUS: New essay by Kent Jones, appreciations by Richard Linklater and Tom Waits; and a reprint of the 1970 Rolling Stone article “On Route 66, Filming Two-Lane Blacktop”; the DVD edition also features Wurlitzer’s screenplay
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