What's the Big Hurry? (1974) User Reviews

Very strange Scare Film

[Paul-308 · 4/10 · 13 January 2008]

This is one of,if not the most unusual of the 1950s/60s/70s drivers ed "scare films".Here we don't have reenactments of the crashes themselves,we are shown cars in the junkyard,about to be recycled into scrap iron,the camera focuses on one,and then a voice over begins.This is supposedly what happened,or might have happened to the car in question before its ultimate demise.However,this approach is very flawed.The filmmakers obviously knew nothing of the cars themselves,or what reason they were actually in the junkyard for.For instance,we are shown a full size early 60s Mercury and an early 60s Mercury Comet close to one another.The voice over starts as two kids in the Comet (of all things) talking about catching up to the big Merc and challenging him to a race.One starts,with the passenger telling the driver "Dig Out!"(peel off in other words),which the driver does...(in a Comet?),the big Merc supposedly pulls away but the Comet driver is happily announcing that he's catching up and passing him,right before the "fatal" collision occurs.Well,neither car is showing the damage they are claiming,and there is no way a 170 or 200 cid 6-cylinder Comet is going to pass a roaring 390 cid v8 Mercury.Similar mistakes are made with the Cutlass they are tearing down,the VW that supposedly rolled over,and so on.All the while this is going on,we hear strange out of this world electronica music.Like this junkyard was on another planet and this was all science fiction.Well,it is fiction,because I don't think one car suffered the way they claim it did.Yes they were all scrapped and recycled,but I don't think any attempt was made to research the real cause of the cars final fate.At least the final message was true:These cars were recycled to become new cars,lets hope their drivers follow the rules and drive safely.(this film was made later than 1970.I believe it was around 1976 or so).

Bizarre and Surreal

[Michael_Elliott · 30 June 2015]

What's the Big Hurry? (1974)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Sid Davis was the king of the educational picture but this one here might be the most bizarre one he ever made. What we've basically got is no re-enactments like in previous driver's ed movies and instead everything takes place inside a junkyard. We see various work being done to several crashed cars and while we see the work being done on them, we "hear" how they got into that condition. I must admit that this thing has a very bizarre and surreal feel to it that makes it somewhat entertaining in its own right. I've seen some extremely well-made movies that aren't quite capable of capturing the surrealness level of this one. Is this the work of a genius? Of course not but it's certainly a lot better and more creative than the majority of these education shorts that preach against speeding or drunk driving. If you're a fan of the genre then you'll certainly want to check this one out just due to how strange and different it is.