The Great Texas Dynamite Chase (1976)

This brainless Roger Corman production delivers the exploitation-flick goods, because leading ladies Claudia Jennings and Jocelyn Jones spend a great deal of their screen time naked; furthermore, the promise of the film’s title is fulfilled, because the movie has Texan locations, dynamite explosions, and chase scenes. (As to whether any of these things are “great,” as the title suggests, that’s another matter.) Unfortunately, the movie is dull as hell, which is quite an accomplishment given the amount of action and skin that appears onscreen. Everything that happens in The Great Texas Dynamite Chase is predictable and trite, with cardboard characters pursuing silly motivations as one lifeless scene blurs into another. Even the usual rebellious irreverence that permeates Corman’s innumerable redecks-on-the-run movies isn’t enough to give this one much energy. It’s all been done before, and better. Jennings, the sensual strawberry blonde who gained fame as a Playboy model, plays Candy, an escaped convict who returns to her small town with a bag full of dynamite she stole from a prison demolition crew. Lighting the TNT as a threat, she struts into a bank and robs the place, aided by recently fired teller Ellie-Jo (Jones). Then, after Candy gives her family the stolen loot so they can pay the mortgage on the family farm, Candy teams up with Ellie-Jo for a string of robberies, plus occasional sexcapades with men they meet along the way. It’s all very lighthearted, with the crime spree treated like a giddy adventure, but the film somehow manages to drag—though it’s only 90 minutes, it feels much longer. Aren’t exploitation flicks supposed to be entertaining?

The Great Texas Dynamite Chase: LAME