On a whim I thought I'd watch a period "B picture" yesterday. One never
knows when an Imperial will make a presence. Well, this one is in the same
genre as "Lady in a Cage" starring Olivia deHavilland as a woman terrorized
by beatniks in her home. The Imperial movie in question this time was also
made the same year, 1964, and has Blake Carrington, er, John Forsythe being
blackmailed and tormented by a "Kitten with a Whip", a/k/a sex-pot
Ann-Margret and a trio of never-heard-from-again actors portraying the
beats! (Now, can you guess the REAL reason I was watching this trash??!!)
There are several scenes with a '64 Crown 4-door, and the car gets primo
screen time in the last half-hour where it's being wheeled over rutted dirt
roads in San Ysidro, CA and Tijuana. In the climactic final scene,
reform-school runaway Ann-Margret, on her way back to San Diego in the
Imperial with beaten-to-a-pulp John, is trying to out-run her erstwhile
cohorts in their stolen '64 Chrysler 300 convertible on a mountain road.
The 300 keeps trying to force the Crown off the road, and finally does as a
battered John in the passenger seat has a look of abject horror as his
Crown goes airborne off a cliff. Fortunately, when it lands, it has
miraculously become a '64 Dodge Custom 880, en flambe. You can just make
out the roll-up window crank on the passenger door, through which John has
been thrown.
This would be a great one to put on the site as an Imperial is really put
through its paces, slaloming on the twisting roads!
Neal Herman
1959 Imperial Crown 4-door Southampton
1972 Buick Riviera
1983 Chrysler Cordoba
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