Corvette Summer (1978)

Fantastic!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Corvette Summer" is a coming-of-age story, but it runs pretty rough (I know, I know, I'll watch it with the car puns). It hits the right notes for such a movie, and the right characters get what they're meant to have in the end, but it's a surprisingly somber affair. Mark Hamill (looking particularly squalid) spends a great deal of time sulking through the streets of Sin City in search of his stolen hot rod, and that character just seems to sap the life outta this thing. Stick with it and there's that appropriate ending and even an eleventh-hour car chase.But here's why this movie is worth a watch: Annie Potts. Charming, warm and unbelievably attractive, she's the reason "Corvette Summer" has any life at all. It's the kind of performance that makes you look forward to her next scene.She's something else.6/10

Being a corvette owner at the time this movie came out in 1978;I had to see what it was going to be about.The movie is OK but a little far fetched plot wise.The Mark Hamill character was a little too infatuated with a car that in essence was a project for a whole class of Auto shop students.The film was entertaining though and I have watched it a number of times over the years...One fact that has been disputed over the years is the Car itself.More than one source has credited Custom car Godfather "George Barris" as the builder of the custom 73 stingray;when in fact it was a custom car business called "KORKY's.They specialized in corvettes and custom fiberglass parts.The vette is pretty dated by today's standards but looked pretty sweet back in 1978.The one part that I personally loathed on the car was that Hood...It made me think it was something that belonged in the old David Carradine film "Death Race"....s.m.

The summer of 1979, when this flick was a staple on that new movie medium called HBO, was Gas Line Summer & Iranian Hostage Crisis Summer. A change of mood was about to end low-budget, loner-on-a-mission car films, although "Smokey & the Bandit" kept need-for-speed flicks going as live-action Roadrunner cartoons for a few more years. "Corvette Summer" is as quirky as any earlier movie like "Vanishing Point" or "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry," if lighter & sexier than most. Just-graduated, high-school automotive genius Kenneth (Hamill) hitchhikes to Vegas in pursuit of the car theft ring that ripped off his Shop Class masterpiece, a super-custom, right-hand-drive Vette. In the spiritual limbo of the I-15 desert (see "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas") he gets into a custom van (yes, this was the tail end of the van craze, too) tricked out as a mobile bordello & driven by sassy, aspiring hooker Vanessa (Potts), on her way to Sin City to make her, well, whatever it is ambitious hookers make. VANessa, get it? Shy, innocent Kenneth is in way over his head in Vegas, with only his all-American resolve & his new friend to help him, although the hard-edged young call girl is predictably less world-wise than she first seems. Why, in the "I am Woman" age, Vanessa invested her talents, money & future in the world's oldest but least dignified profession over, say, college or even hairdressing, can be explained by young men who'd like to think that all women at least consider the joys of that career path. Remember the target audience, right? Hamill is a good choice for the whitebread Kenneth (the car doesn't even belong to him personally, but to his school), who won't be deterred from his goal by violence, money or even love--until he finds out why the car was really stolen. Potts acts with style & energy but Vanessa is too incredible for any but the most credulous testosterone machine to buy into. The bad guys are made surprisingly human, especially by the always-fine Brion James. But there's not much action & this isn't the kind of movie that can be carried by dialog, plot twists or Heavy Themes. You could always reach up, turn the TV dial & plug in your "Pong" console. The similar but meaner Chris Mitchum vehicle "Stingray," which appeared at about the same time, featured lamer acting but more skin, speed & mayhem. The best features of each film might have produced a Vette movie worth remembering. Thus the Trans Am was left to rule the box-office muscle car showroom. Another forgotten car movie brought back from the dead by "Speed Channel's" fine weekend series, Lost Drive-in.

When you're tired of all those boring, dime-a-dozen mainstream comedies out these days, I'd recommend looking for this movie to pop in the VCR (or DVD player if it made it that far) one weekend afternoon. 'Corvette Summer' is a semi-teen adventure in the style of something like 'Rock N'Roll High School' (the Ramones movie, not that Corey Feldman comedy), minus the rock music theme. And, even though I rarely enjoy Mark Hammil's performances, and even despite his not looking much like a high school teen (he was 27), he and Annie Potts had great chemistry in this light-hearted road adventure comedy.Hammil plays a recent high school grad who's obsessed with a Corvette he helped fix up as the final auto shop project. But, one night, while he and his classmates take the cherry auto for a joyride on the strip, it is stolen. Everyone is ready to give up, because hell, what are the chances of finding a car like that again? Especially in one piece. But, Kenny (Mark Hammil) is persistent, and tracks down any leads he can find, which take him all the way to gambling country--Las Vegas--where he latches on to a clever scheme (that shatters the kid's idealism) and where he also befriends an eccentric drifter-turned-prostitute named Vannessa (played by Annie Potts who can always make me laugh), who also gets involved in Kenny's relentless search for his famed Corvette. For laid back good times, and a bit of reminiscing, I'd recommend catching Corvette Summer--even if you're not into cars (like myself). It's an appreciable little comedy that does well thanks to its quirky stars--Hammill and Potts.