The Cannonball Run (1981) on Netflix
An illegal cross-country road race runs from Connecticut to California. Racers use disguises to evade police, among them former racer J.J. McClure and mechanic Victor Prinzim in an ambulance.
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- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.3/1044,238 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes29%
Trailer
Plot summary
Drivers gather in Connecticut for the Cannonball Run, an illegal cross-country race to California in which each entrant punches a time card before setting off. J.J. McClure, a former professional racer, and his mechanic Victor Prinzim enter a Dodge van disguised as an ambulance; Victor sometimes becomes his superhero alter ego, Captain Chaos. They hire Dr. Nikolas Van Helsing, a doctor of dubious credentials, to sell the illusion of a medical emergency. Arthur J. Foyt heads a safety enforcement unit and intends to shut the race down, and the photographer Pamela Glover accompanies him. Jamie Blake and Morris Fenderbaum pose as Catholic priests in a Ferrari, Jill Rivers and Marcie Thatcher drive a black Lamborghini, a Japanese team races a computer-equipped Subaru, Sheik Abdul Ben Falafel drives a Rolls-Royce, and Seymour Goldfarb Jr. drives a silver Aston Martin.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Cannonball Run (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On June 25, 1980, 24-year-old stuntwoman Heidi von Beltz, a former championship skier, was critically injured in a car crash during production. The original stunt person had left to attend an emergency family illness, and stunt coordinator Bobby Bass called his then-fiancée von Beltz to the set for a stunt he said was to be "a piece of cake."
- The Aston Martin used in the stunt had defective steering, clutch and speedometer, bald tires and no seat belts; repairs were requested but the lack of seatbelts was left unfixed, and in the stunt the car collided head-on with a van, breaking von Beltz's neck and leaving her quadriplegic.
- The injured stuntwoman's lawsuit against the movie's producers led to required seat-belt use in all stunt cars and caused the Directors Guild of America to prohibit directors from altering stunts on location. She was eventually awarded $7 million, though a judge reduced the amount and she ended up with $3.2 million.
- Reynolds later said he made Cannonball Run "for all the wrong reasons" and never liked it, doing it to help out his friend Hal Needham and because he felt it was immoral to turn down that kind of money; he reckoned he had sold out.
- Burt Reynolds was reluctant to make another car-themed comedy, but director Hal Needham won him over by promising to limit his shoot to just 14 days and paying him $5 million plus a percentage of the profits.
- Roger Moore's character drives an Aston Martin DB5 bearing the same UK registration plate used on a DB5 in two James Bond films, even though Moore's own Bond never actually drove an Aston Martin across his seven 007 films; his tenure is instead associated with the Lotus Esprit.
- Sega game designer Yu Suzuki has cited The Cannonball Run as an influence on his hit 1986 arcade racing game Out Run.
