$50 Won't Kill Anyone!

Someone made a comment about a local politician or something or other and it made me think of Used Cars. An early adult role for Kurt Russell where he is working at a used car dealership (why the good brother -- of the two played by Jack Warden -- agreed to hire him is unclear) but dreams of getting into local politics.

I first saw it a ways back but it was fun to watch again (and any broadcast television version will cut out the topless bit).  The ending is a familiar bit of excitement familiar to the director of Back to the Future.  

This begins with Kurt Russell mouthing to the good brother's daughter to "lie" and ends with a superstitious salesman (who is scared of red) needing to drive a car that is really red over a moving train to make sure there really is a MILE of cars in the lot.  The whole thing is silly fun and Jack Warden is great as the good and bad brothers.  

I don't know where they got the horrible DVD cover with a bad photograph of Kurt Russell with some woman kissing him while showing a bit of cleavage.  It really looks cheesy. They did get Kurt Russell, the director, and the co-writer (Bob Gale).  One of the last two sounded like he had a lot of beer or something before the whole thing started.  I mostly watched the film while catching a bit of the commentary.  

The film has more than the usual subtitles (Korean? Thai?) and audio (French and Portuguese ... wait, not Spanish?) with various advertising, including a bit with Russell promoting the actual used car lot that is partially used to film the movie!  It also has outtakes.  Not bad. 

A lot of good character actors in this movie. Dick Miller has a cameo, which is probably an in-joke for the director.  He was in a bunch of Roger Corman films and such.  The love interest is Deborah Harmon, who comes off as pleasantly next door.  Her big role over the years, in the midst of a lot of bits, was the television show Just the Ten of Us.  

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Bonus Film: I also found A Godwink Christmas, a Hallmark Channel movie with a pair of actors in various of those films (multiple times together).  This is a more recent film but I also saw it before.  

It's a pleasant watch.  A charm is that it has a bit more of an edge in a few ways.  Paul Campbell particularly can be just plain flippant in his films. He has some more serious moments here.  And, heck, not only does she have an engagement that went wrong, he actually had a divorce. Divorce comes in a few Hallmark Channel films, but that alone is notable.