A c & nbsp; kind of ordinary sedan Racing is life. Everything that happens before or after is just waiting.
Steve McQueen
Four-wheeled asphalt conqueror, endowed with not mechanical ambitions, willfulness, anger and punching power - a guest on the screen is not rare. The first comes to mind the sinister scarlet “Plymouth” from the chic “Christina” of John Carpenter, and the second no less bloodthirsty black “Lincoln” from the average “Car” Elliot Silverstein. These all-metal friends of a man as clearly as possible explained to their drivers, who in their tandem is the main one. Along the way, it fell and innocent passers-by - there is nothing to climb under the light of angry headlights. Meanwhile, the intelligent car didn't always create death, chaos and destruction on screen. Years before filmmakers became accustomed to turning machines into central antagonists, an unusual franchise sprang up. The main character in it was a baby "Volkswagen-Beetle" - an epochal creation of the world automotive industry and the main, along with the "Ford-T", model of the XX century.
The national German car, sold abroad as a car for women, VW Beetle (Kafer) has always been a kind of modest, not worthy of pompous presentations and enthusiastic flashes. The workhorse is neither given nor taken. Small body, a small forty-power engine, two doors and, most importantly, branded West German reliability at a moderate price. For all this, the Beetle fell in love with seven decades of production. It is logical that in the movie, the unassuming crumb was given a purely auxiliary role. In particular, the future psycho Jack Torrance from Kubrikov’s “The Shining” dissected this. But once in the family is not without a freak, then in the legion of ordinary hardworking men found his star of racing - under the proud nickname Herbie. Quick, loyal, touchy, purposeful - well, just a restless boy, with whom his own parents are unable to cope, where there is a failed pilot who received a kick in the ass from the last employer.
The picture with a more accurate name "Love Beetle" became a farewell gift from Walt Disney. This great animator insisted that a film about racing involving a reasonable machine does not go beyond the cute comedy for the whole family. The parting of the cartridge by the film crew was realized: I cannot immediately remember another film, where the thirst for victories and sports excitement would be played out just as innocently and amusingly. Dashing short Herbie bypasses competitors at the Grand Prix like children, but the rider sitting behind the wheel is the last one who believes in the exceptionality of the car. The spirit of competition is squeezed into a strictly defined framework, since the film is more about friendship, trust and loyalty. There is someone to encroach on these things - an obstinate rival in the mustached face of the ex-beetle owner spoils the blood regularly - but real problems come with the sharing of fame, as happens not only in sports, but also in show business.
The nature of Herbie’s technological miracles in front of surprised rivals is not explained in the film. What do you get from a children's story? Only an adult morality: know how to appreciate what you have today, because it may not be tomorrow. The relationship between cars and their owners is an important theme of the film. With drivers treating their “swallows” with tenderness and care, cars are calculated a hundredfold. And arrogant consumers, accustomed to perceive cars as a piece of motorized iron, can get something steeper than oil-drenched trousers. In the picture, it is popularly explained where the line beyond which the personal and professional ends, and most importantly, the first does not exclude the second, and the real triumph behind the finish line is not waiting for the owner of the most powerful engine, the best suspension or responsive handling. Whoever becomes one with the machine, learns to hear its voice, understand and respond correctly, and is a true champion.
Energizing, heartfelt and touching comedy at maximum speed rushes from the climax with the escape of Herbie to the race on the Eldorado track. The public of the late sixties liked this applied guide to motorists from the old Disney that the original tape got no more than six sequels of varying degrees of success. The latter became animated, in memory of the creator and with respect to the origins: the trademark "53" on the hood and striped coloring in the colors of the American flag. Both, by the way, the insistence of producer Bill Walsh - a patriot and baseball fan, who transferred the number of the idol Don Drysdale to the cinema. The Volkswagen concern itself, in turn, for some reason did not allow the mention of the brand - and to its own detriment, as showed by a rapid drop in interest in the model. The German bosses had to admit the mistake in the subsequent sequels.
And the original film falling with a cubicle from the climbed height was not threatened initially. That's it! Modest, stupid, completely frivolous seemingly cinema became another monument to the outstanding success of the automotive industry after the Beetle came off the assembly line. Herbie’s nickname deserves a definition of childish naivety, multiplied by God’s gift and athletic character. In appearance, the usual pearl-colored sedan, which according to legend forced testers to stroke it on the front trunk and take it after that for shooting, was a weighty confirmation of the eternity of men's toys. They only change the dimensions, turn from souvenir models and inertial wheelbarrows into roaring animals with the accelerator pedal recessed into the floor. The headlights light up the road, the hands hold firmly behind the wheel, and in my head only one thought: “Today I will definitely come first!”