Roadracers

Infobox Film
name = Roadracers


image_size =
caption = Promotional poster
director = Robert Rodriguez
producer = Robert Rodriguez
Lou Arkoff
David Giler
Debra Hill
Willie Kutner
writer = Robert Rodriguez
Tommy Nix
narrator =
starring = David Arquette
Salma Hayek
John Hawkes
Jason Wiles
William Sadler
music = Paul Boll
Johnny Reno
cinematography = Roberto Schaefer
editing = Robert Rodriguez
distributor = Showtime Network
released = July 22, 1994 (U.S.)
runtime = 95 minutes
country = USA
language = English
budget = $1,000,000
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:154254
imdb_id = 0111002

"Roadracers" is a 1994 made-for-television film directed by Robert Rodriguez, his second feature film following the success of his 1992 debut, "El Mariachi". The film originally aired on Showtime Network as part of their "Rebel Highway" series that took the titles of 1950s-era B-movies and applied them to original films starring up-and-coming actors of the 1990s (including the likes of Alicia Silverstone and Shannen Doherty) and directed by established directors such as William Friedkin, Joe Dante, and Ralph Bakshi. Rodriguez was the only young director to participate in the series.cite web |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981251,00.html |title=I Was a Teenage Teenager |accessdate=2007-03-29 |last=Corliss |first=Richard |authorlink= |coauthors= |date=August 15, 1994 |year= |month= |format= |work= |publisher=Time |pages= |language= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ] The series was produced by the son and daughter of Samuel Z. Arkoff, the co-founder and producer of American International Pictures (AIP), the distributor of the films this series takes its titles from.

Robert Rodriguez's take concerned a rebel named Dude (David Arquette) who dreams of leaving his dead end small town and becoming a rockabilly star but gets caught up in a nasty feud with the town's local sheriff (William Sadler) and his son (Jason Wiles). Salma Hayek plays the Dude's girlfriend.

oundtrack Album

Although a soundtrack album is listed in the ending credits of the film as being available on A&M Records, the album was never released.

Trivia

*Salma Hayek made her United States film debut with "Roadracers".
*The film was shot in 13 days.
*Rodriguez was used to shooting films very fast and ran into resistance with his Hollywood crew (most notably the director of photography). He discusses these conflicts in the now out-of-print book, "Roadracers: the Making of a Degenerate Hot Rod Flick".

DVD

A Special Edition DVD release was scheduled for December 13th, 2005 but for some unknown reason never happened. Rodriguez said in an online [http://www.cinecon.com/forums/showthread.php?s=ddc600ddd017c583066adaf4d30c0c5e&t=17697&page=2 chat] what the specs were for it: "It has a ten minute film school on it, commentary and a new digital color correction i worked on for a quite a long while... it looks really good, and i remixed the sound in 5.1 and beefed up the sound on it. One of my favorite movies. I shot it in 13 days, and the making of shows how to make a feature in 13 days..."

On the director's commentary for Planet Terror, Rodriguez mentions that the DVD will be released very soon.

It has been released on dvd in Australia and France.

References