The Great Texas Dynamite Chase (1976)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This is a classic 1970's sexploitation flick.Two chicks (sorry ladies, but it IS exploitation) rob banks with dynamite.That premise alone sustained the film. Putting the late great Claudia Jennings (Deathsport, Gator Bait) in the lead was a stroke (hehheh) of genius. She and her cohort basically drive around in shorts and seduce the local men. Basically, they act like male stereotypes.Anyone renting or watching this probably did so because the title was a grabber. And because of said title, you HAD to know you weren't getting a multiple Oscar nominee.Another pizza and beer flick for men's movie night.

Late, great 70's drive-in movie queen Claudia Jennings is at her brassy, sassy and smoking sexy best as Candy Morgan, a kittenishly irreverent prison escapee who teams up with saucy former bank teller Ellie-Jo Turner (winningly played by the very pretty and appealing Jocelyn Jones of "Tourist Trap" fame) and goes on an eventful crime spree, robbing banks and breaking hunky guys' hearts with equally joyful abandon. Directed with considerable verve by Michael Pressman, buoyed by a zippy, banjo-happy score by Craig ("Nightmares," "Warning Sign") Safan, further sparked by a cheerfully lowbrow sensibility and featuring a sidesplitting cameo by the ever-haughty Stefan ("Blue Sunshine," "Blood Beach") Gierasch as a stuffy hotel clerk who tries to refuse Claudia and Jocelyn a room, this extremely brash, funny and spirited hoot rates as a whole lot of top-rate infectiously trashy fun. The copious gratuitous nudity by the tall, slender, breathtakingly beautiful blonde Claudia and the more diminutive, but still comely and enticing Jocelyn constitutes as another substantial plus. Overall, this baby is an absolute must-see for Claudia Jennings fans in particular and aficionados of blithely amoral cheapo 70's redneck crime epics in general, which hopefully doesn't rule out too many folks.

While watching this, I couldn't help but be remind of Thelma & Louise. Granted, this is a B-Movie version of two women on a bank robbing spree with a lot more violence and sex. I think this movie would have been better if they stuck to the somewhat lighter tones the had earlier in the film and away stayed from the heavy violence that came later. It went a little too over the top at the end and it kind of fell apart even on it's own low level. Not even any real good chase scenes that I had hoped for after recently watching other Roger Corman classics, Eat My Dust! & Grand Theft Auto.** (out of 4)

This is an interesting example of a subgenre of seventies sexploitation movies, something one might call feminist jiggle. Claudia Jennings, queen of the B-Movies plays a woman fed up with the system who in a female bonding moment goes on a crime spree with an equally disatisfied bank teller. The movie has plenty of Claudia taking her clothes off and some action too. This is hardly a message movie and has all the flaws of the quickies churned out at the time, but it's entertaining nevertheless in a charming way that the virtual remake, Thelma and Louise, didn't have. The latter was far too self conscious in its gender pieties.