Red Line 7000 (1965)

Interesting facts

• Box office: $2.5M

Red Line 7000 is a 1965 American action sports film released by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Howard Hawks, who also wrote the story. It stars James Caan, Laura Devon and Marianna Hill in a story about young stock-car racers trying to establish themselves and about the complicated romantic relationships in their lives. The title refers to the red line on the car's tachometer, set at 7000 RPM, indicating the maximum safe engine speed, beyond which catastrophic failure would occur. The film features multiple sections of real life racing and crashes interspersed with the plot.

Production

The film was based on an original idea by Howard Hawks though the script was written by George Kirgo. Hawks said the film would feature "three old fashioned hot love stories about these racers and their girls. They have their own code. They kid about danger. They aren't tough guys but they talk awful rough. The picture will have something of a wartime feeling: on Friday night a girl doesn't know if a boy will still be alive on Saturday night."

Hawks said he originally wanted to tell just the one story but then "suddenly it hit me. 'This is a lot of padding'. Today audiences are way ahead of us. So I added two more stories and now we tell so much more in a few scenes without having to lead up to them step by step. In other words, stripped of all the non essentials." Hawks said that in his film "you don't care who wins the race; it's the people who count."

Howard Hawks had enjoyed success discovering stars in the past (Lauren Bacall, Carole Lombard, George Raft) and decided to cast the film with six newcomers plus Charlene Holt and Norman Alden. He said it took five months to cast them. The six newcomers were Gail Hire, Mariana Hill, Laura Devon, James Ward, John Crawford and James Caan (though Caan had been in Lady in a Cage).

Carol Connors was a singer who had sold over 8 million records. She wrote two songs for the movie: "Wildcat Jones" and "Prudence Pim of the PTA".

George Takei appears in a supporting role as Kato, a race mechanic partly inspired by Jack Kuramoto, the Japanese American service station owner of Jack's Auto Service in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo, who was a friend of Hawks's and often worked on his personal cars. Takei's casting came one year before his performance on Star Trek. Teri Garr appears uncredited as a go-go dancer in a nightclub.

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