Hit the Road Running (1987) Poster

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9/10
A hidden gem.
petekrug1726 June 2007
This is one of six films that was released in the early 1980s by Earl Owensby in 3-D. The others were:

HOT HEIR (a.k.a. THE GREAT BALLOON CHASE) CHAIN GANG (1984) TALES OF THE THIRD DIMENSION DOGS OF HELL HYPERSPACE.

Other than HYPERSPACE, none of these films were ever released on DVD, so unless you still have a VCR, that's the only one you'll be able to see. These are extremely hard to find movies. Your best bet if you want to see them are to go to the website (www.earlowensby.com) and buy them online. (HOT HEIR wasn't available, at least when I visited the site, and it's the one film out of that group that I still haven't seen.

As for this movie, it was clearly inspired by the popular T.V. show DUKES OF HAZZARD. It has many country western-style songs that play throughout, and the singer acts as a narrator. It tells the story of Beau Jim Donner (Beau is pronounced "Bo", F.Y.I.) who after years of traveling the world returns to his rural home town in Indean Head County. The town is now under the thumb of wealthy tyrant Sam Grady, who holds morgages on everyone's lands and keeps people in debt to him. He uses intimidation and thuggish tactics to take over independent businesses. When Jim's uncle Rusty refused to sell out, Sam had him crippled and confined to a wheelchair. The law isn't much of a problem since Sam's had the town's own sheriff, Little Leon, personally appointed. After coming home and seeing what's happened, Jim becomes a deputy and then secretly works behind the scenes to sabotage Sam's plans, such as intercepting a truck that Sam's had hijacked, and then calling the State Police. The mysterious, unidentified Robin Hood has become a local folk hero, and the radio D.J. Freighttrain Fremont has high praise for him. Jim lives at home with Rusty and Jim's friend Fred T., and Jim often quotes words of wisdom he's heard from various people while traveling the world. After six months of covertly messing up Sam's plans, Jim catches Sam speeding. A high-speed chase begins, and soon Jim has Sam pulled over for refusing to pull over for the police. When Leon comes by later and sees his boss in a jail cell, he lets Sam out, and Sam is now ready to go after Jim. Jim, at the urging of Rusty, leaves town with his friend Fred T. tagging along, and Sam sends Leon and his deputy Hector Jones after them. Sam's main thug Monty also goes out on his own to try to get Jim. From this point on the film becomes a series of car chases and near misses as Jim manages to stay one step ahead of his pursuers. Eventually after a few narrow escapes Fred T. decides a life of danger isn't for him and he gets on a bus and goes back to town while Jim goes on alone.

This film has a great deal of humor and exciting car chases. If you're a DUKES OF HAZZARD fan, you'll love this. If you haven't thrown out your VCR, I recommend visiting the earlowensby site and buying this film, unless there's a video store that specialized in hard-to-find films that's close to you that has it.
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