King of the Mountain (1981) on Netflix
PG19811h 30mActionAdventureDrama
By night Steve races a 356 Speedster on Mulholland Drive as King of the Mountain. His friends Buddy and Roger chase music careers, and singer Tina dislikes the risks he takes.
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- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb5.6/10691 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
Steve earns his living at a garage that services Porsches, but the nights belong to the races. He drives a modified 356 Speedster along Mulholland Drive, the winding road above the San Fernando Valley where a crowd gathers to bet on who is fastest, and he holds the title of King of the Mountain. Buddy and Roger, his friends, used to line up beside him; now they put their time into breaking into music. Cal, a co-worker who once held the crown, pushes Steve to keep racing. Then Steve meets Tina, a singer who works with Buddy and Roger, and tries to show her his world, though she has no wish to watch him risk his life.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about King of the Mountain (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dennis Hopper drove his character's Corvette himself to shoot footage for the film's climactic race, the car fitted with three compact Arri cameras wired to an in-cabin switch. On the day of the shoot he was reportedly very drunk, having spent the day drinking beer in his trailer, and director Noel Nosseck let him drive despite crew protests.
- The film's two main characters were based on real Mulholland racers profiled in a New West Magazine article titled "Thunder Road": Chris Banning, who raced a heavily modified Porsche 911, and Charles "Crazy Charlie" Woit, who raced a vintage 427-cubic-inch Chevrolet Corvette.
- Harry Hamlin's Speedster was a Volkswagen Beetle-based kit car with a replica body and flared fenders, because real Speedsters are so rare that renting one would have been difficult and expensive and the risk of damaging it too great.
- King of the Mountain was among the first films about street racing and street-racing communities, and it marked a return to the screen for Dennis Hopper, who had spent several months secluded away from Los Angeles before appearing in it.
