Basicly, the story is about the failure of an organized system of justice, leading to a downward spiral of individual, outlaw revenge and retribution. Unlike the relatively new post-apocalyptic genres exemplified by the latter two movies, the issues of revenge are as old as the classic Greek playwrights, all the way up through Eugene O’Neill’s take on the old Greek story of revenge in `Mourning Becomes Electra’.

There is but one little clue that this is a post nuclear war scenario. This is when we see a rusty and delapidated sign warning of a `Forbidden Area’. The only corroboration is the relatively poor condition of the sign over the entrance to the police station. Balanced against these minor visual clues is the spanking new sign over the door to the service station indicating that this is a licensed auto mechanic and the very clean and efficient looking hospital room and building.

So, if there is any failure of civilization, it is largely metaphorical and seen in the failure of the constraints of lawful behavior to prevent a series of events based on unbridled libido and revenge.

Of the `Mad Max’ trilogy, the second, `The Road Warrior’ is probably the best for many reasons, and it’s connection to our current subject is loose at best and it’s production values are far superior, but our original has an odd rawness about it which should not be confused with poor quality. TV stations would not be running this flick regularly if it did not have something special to offer.

By far the most valuable currency offered up by `Mad Max’ is the anxiety created for Max’s wife and child in the last third of the movie. The fear is about as raw as it comes, with an odd similarity, based on the crude cinematic technique all the way around, with the terror of the original `Texas Chain Saw Massacre’. The horror movie is much less artfully done and draws a lot of it’s impact from pure quantity of gore, but there is a strong sense that both movies gain from a lack of polish.

Oddly, I think most of the juice in this movie comes less from Gibson’s performance as that of the heavies. Unlike Harrison Ford’s early appearances in `Star Wars’, for example, I see little of the promise which Gibson shows in the second and third films in this series.

I will go out of my way to watch the second and third movies, but the first, this `Mad Max’ is really something of a guilty pleasure which survives rewatching and grows in stature as time goes by.

The chemistry between the two stars was apparently real during the filming. Presley and Ann-Margret allegedly began an affair which received considerable attention from gossip columnists and led to a showdown with a worried Priscilla Beaulieu. In her 1985 book, Elvis and Me, Priscilla described the difficulties she experienced when the press announced that Ann-Marget and Elvis were engaged to be married. However, there may have been other reasons for the great publicity campaign about the romance between Elvis and Ann-Margret during the filming of Viva Las Vegas and the following weeks. It primarily helped to increase the popularity of the young Hollywood beauty. In her memoir, Ann-Margret only refers to Presley as her “soulmate”, but very little is revealed about their long-rumored romance. In his critical study on the “dream machine” that publicists, tabloid newspapers, journalists, and TV interviewers use to create semi-fictional icons, often playing with inauthenticity, Joshua Gamson cites a press agent “saying that his client, Ann-Margret, could initially have been “sold … as anything”; “She was a new product. We felt there was a need in The Industry for a female Elvis Presley.”

In addition, the filming produced unusually-heated exchanges between Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker (who is not shown as “Technical Advisor” in the opening credits for this film) and the movie’s director, the highly experienced George Sidney, concerning the time and effort allotted by the cinematographer, ostensibly on Sidney’s orders, to the musical scenes involving Ann Margret, which included views from many different angles, re-takes and the use of several cameras for each shot.

Presley’s screen charisma was nevertheless there for anyone to see. The scene in which he delivers the title song remains the only one in his career to depict him performing an entire song, in one uncut take, and as shot by the lens of a single camera.

Plot summary

Lucky Jackson (Elvis Presley) goes to Las Vegas, Nevada to participate in the city’s first annual Grand Prix. However, his race car is in need of a new engine in order to compete. Jackson raises the money but mislays it when distracted by Rusty Martin (Ann-Margret). Soon, Jackson’s main competition, Count Elmo Mancini (Cesare Danova), enters the picture to steal both the race and Rusty.

The movie was loosely based on the novel Fair Game by Paula Gosling, which was also filmed under that title in 1995; it also arose out of Stallone’s original ideas for the film Beverly Hills Cop. He had wanted to make a less comedic, more action-oriented film. When he left that project, Eddie Murphy was brought in to play the lead role.

Plot

Marion Cobretti, a rough Police officer with a reputation for doing “the dirty work” is called in to a hostage situation at a grocery store when negotiations fail. Cobretti kills the gunman himself after infiltrating the building, but before his death the criminal mumbles of a “New Order” in the world: a group of supremacists who believe in killing the weak and leaving only the strongest and themselves to live and rule the world.

The event at the supermarket is connected to a string of recent and seemingly unconnected acts of violence that have broken loose in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to the general public, these murders are the work of the same supremacist group that the supermarket gunman spoke of.

After witnessing several individuals including the “Night Slasher”(the order’s leader) at the scene of one of the murders late at night, Nielsen’s character becomes the target of the group, and the only witness to their crimes. She is placed under the protective custody of Cobretti and his partner. After several attempts are made on their lives, it is decided that it would be safest that they relocate from the city.

Shortly after venturing out into the countryside, and Cobretti becoming romantically involved with the witness, one of the Order’s leaders (who is a police officer traveling alongside the Cobretti) reveals the location of Cobretti, the witness, and Cobretti’s partner. Despite Cobretti’s suspicions he does nothing. The Order moves in at dawn and besieges the small town that the three were staying in. With barely enough time to react the attackers storm the motel room Cobretti is in with the witness. Killing several but with more swarming into the town Cobretti and the witness escape in a Dodge Ram pick-up truck assuming his partner is dead. After the truck becomes severely damaged, the two bail out into a lemon grove and escape into a nearby factory. Most of the Order has been killed or disabled by Cobretti at this point, and only a few follow them. After eliminating every member aside from the night slasher himself, a huge muscle bound type played by Brian Thompson, Cobretti and the leader engage in a deadly hand-to-hand duel inside the steel mill, ending with the Order’s leader being impaled in the back by a large roaming hook and burned alive by Cobretti.

In the aftermath, Cobretti’s department has arrived and begun clean-up of the town, the Order is all but eliminated, and the ending credits begin with Stallone and Nielsen climbing onto one of the many motorcycles left by the Order and riding away.