Movie review: ‘Vanishing Point’ (1971)

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A promotional still photograph from the movie “Vanishing Point.”

As I look back at films from back-in-the-day to review or just to enjoy again, I recently bought a DVD of the car chase film “Vanishing Point.” No, not the awful so-called “reboot” from 1997 with Viggo Mortensen, but the original from 1971 with Barry Newman behind the wheel of a totally cool Dodge Challenger. I’m continually amazed, as I’ve noted in other reviews, how even car chase flicks from days-gone-by are so much better than so much of the crap shoveled out today. “Vanishing Point” is a car chase flick at its heart, but it is so much more than that and it makes you think about what you’re seeing on screen. You might find it easier than I did and I can’t recommend it any more highly.

‘Vanishing Point’
(1971; 99 minutes; rated R; directed by Richard C. Sarafian and starring Barry Newman, Cleavon Little and Dean Jagger)

A CAR CHASE FILM THAT MAKES YOU THINK

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on April 8, 2026.)

Car chase flicks have become CGI-throttled visual treats. The action is fast and furious (pun intended) and clinically delivered in the most straightforward way. However, turn back the clock about 41 years and you’ll find “Vanishing Point.” It is a car-chase flick that has great chase scenes, but, even better, it has a great storyline and makes you ponder your world, even today when we’re two generations past the movie.

“Vanishing Point” doesn’t offer an A-list cast, but everyone in the film does a solid job and you won’t find much to complain about from the direction to the production to the storytelling. “Vanishing Point” is the story of a guy who delivers individual cars to specific locations and in this one he’s going from Denver to San Francisco by doing a high-speed run.

A promotional still photograph from the movie “Vanishing Point.”

However, the story of “Vanishing Point” becomes more than just a car-chase vehicle (this time, no pun intended) through both the metaphysical link between the driver “Kowalski,” played by Barry Newman, and a blind black radio disc jockey called “Super Soul,” played by Cleavon Little and flashbacks about Newman’s life before he became a fugitive.

At the end, it is left up to your imagination as to why Newman chose the path that he chose and a variety of evaluations have been aired by critics and even Newman himself. It is this kind of wonderful filmmaking that makes this film so entertaining and engaging. I’ll do a **SPOILER ALERT** later in the review about the ending.

A promotional still photograph from the movie “Vanishing Point.”

In “Vanishing Point,” Newman plays what is essentially the era’s “anti-hero” type character in that he is the hero, but has both baggage and isn’t being completely lawful in his current circumstance. Newman’s “Kowalski” is former Medal of Honor-winning soldier in Vietnam and a decorated police officer, but both of those lives for him are in his rear-view mirror (pun intended).

Newman’s character became disillusioned as a cop with what he saw what depths other officers plunged and, apparently, didn’t find that things worked out as a race-car driver. When you meet Newman, he’s driving cars in a high-speed run between cities and is fueled by stimulants – ah, let’s say amphetamines or, as he calls them, “ups,” since meth wasn’t as big back in those days.

Once on the road between Denver and San Francisco in a souped-up Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Magnum. He scores some “speed” for his run and hits the road. It doesn’t take long before police want to nail his hide to the wall of a county jail and he quickly becomes the iconic fugitive that the movie makes him out to be – and the movie has become a cult fav in the years since its release.

In “Vanishing Point,” you’ll have to get used to the wail of police sirens while Newman’s Challenger is being chased (frankly, I just mute the sound at those points), but they become less intrusive as the film moves along to its conclusion.

Once the chase begins, the DJ gets news updates and begins to connect with Newman without ever meeting him. “Super Soul” then becomes an on-air supporter of “Kowalski” and ultimately pays the price in a basically all-white town where he and his radio station engineer are the only black people to be found. The importance of the DJ cannot be overestimated in the film’s story and is certainly a commentary of the time about race in this country.

Now, let’s take a look at the key actors in the film …

  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Vanishing Point.”

    A Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominee, Newman is totally cool and totally in control in this one. He has far fewer lines than most headliners, but his voice picks up as the movie moves along. If quiet competence is a virtue on the big screen, Newman would have won an Oscar for this role. Newman was on many, many TV series in the ’80s and ’90s and I like that he was the headliner in the long-forgotten film version of Alistair MacLean’s “Fear is the Key” as well as “The Salzburg Connection.” He was nominated for both the Emmy and Globe for his work on TV’s “Petrocelli.” Newman has a very slim resume of just 55 acting credits since the first in 1960 and the last in 2015 (there’s still one for a “completed” film, but it hasn’t been released). Newman died at 92 of complications from a heart and spine infection in 2023.

  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Vanishing Point.”

    A Primetime Emmy winner, Little as “Super Soul” is pitch-perfect. He is the obvious outcast in the town as he walks to work and becomes even more of pariah as he befriends “Kowalski” via radio waves. Cleavon does the best acting of the entire cast and should have been nominated for this one. Little isn’t as good in this one as he would be in the comedy classic “Blazing Saddles” (click here to read my review) with Gene Wilder and he was also in “Greased Lightning” with Richard Pryor and “Scavenger Hunt” as well as a bunch of TV shows, including one of my favorites: “The Love Boat” (click here for my look at the kitschy series). Little won his Emmy for the TV comedy “Dear John.” Sadly, Cleavon left us early as he died at 53 in 1992 of colon cancer.

  • Paul Koslo, plays nasty cop “Charlie Scott” and he brings quite an edge to his character. Koslo is both nasty and cruel and leads a mob to attack Little and his radio station office. Koslo is the stereotypical cop who becomes the main antagonist for our hero and while everyone else goes to see the twisted wreckage of Newman and his car at the end, he just walks away. Koslo does a good job and is second only to Little in the projection of a character. A native of Germany, Koslo had 110 acting credits in Hollywood over five decades since the first in 1966 and was in episodes of many TV shows in the 1970s and 1980s. I liked his work in “Joe Kidd” (click here to read my review) with Clint Eastwood and he was in the sci-fi thriller “The Omega Man” with Charlton Heston, “The Laughing Policeman” with Walter Mattheu and “ Majestyk” with Charles Bronson. He was also in the cop-comedy “Freebie and the Bean” (click here to read my review) and was on a “Petrocelli” episode with Newman. Koslo died at 74 in 2019 of pancreatic cancer.
  • An Oscar winner (not for this one), Dean Jagger plays the “Prospector.” Here’s an old guy that Newman comes across in the desert. Jagger is catching rattlesnakes to barter with a troupe of Pentecostals who sing in the desert. Jagger winds up being a strange voice of reason to Newman and therefore becomes the most complicated character in the film. Jagger does a nice job of being both philosophical as well as strange. However, he helps our hero and therefore is in the plus column! Jagger won his Oscar for the World War II classic “Twelve O’Clock High” from 1949 with Gregory Peck and was a two-time Primetime Emmy nominee. He was in films as varied as 1954’s “White Christmas” with Big Crosby and Danny Kaye to the martial arts film “Game of Death.” Jagger died at 87 in 1991 of heart disease.

There are several characters in “Vanishing Point” played by women, but, sorry to note, they don’t make much of an impact on the film. One is his lover (and she tries to share some marijuana with him in a flashback) and another rides naked on a motorcycle in the desert (that was “edgy” back in 1971). For the few minutes each is on-screen, they, like their male counterparts, do a good job, but, also like most of the men, do nothing spectacular.

Along the way are some minor characters, such as the driver of a Jaguar who challenges (again, no pun intended) Newman to a race or the boyfriend of the nude motorcycle rider. Again, all do a good job and provide a solid foundation for the movie, but there’s nothing spectacular in their work.

** SPOILER ALERT ** … the end is anything but stereotypical, yet you’ll see it coming from the first reel (as we used to say when films were on … well, film). Newman drives directly into a pair of bulldozers parked in the middle of the highway and kills himself. He gives a self-satisfied grin as he accelerates into death, so the ending is certainly open to interpretation.

My personal take is that the character saw the end and played it out to the end, while others have opined that he thought he was invincible and would make it through. I don’t know, but, as I’ve already noted, it certainly makes each viewer think about the film and story and the end becomes Newman’s “vanishing point.”

**SPOILER ALERT ENDS**

As a personal note, I saw “Vanishing Point” during its initial release with friends at a drive-in theater (remember those?) in the south Fort Lauderdale area. What a treat! “Vanishing Point” at a drive-in with friends. I guess that’s why I’ve been looking to review the film for some time now.

Since it was so many years ago, there are conflicting reports about “Vanishing Point” and where it was ranked in 1971. Wiki and Box Office Mojo notes it made $12.4 million in the domestic market, but, while that should have put it in Wiki’s top 10 for the year, Wiki doesn’t show it. “Fiddler on the Roof” was No. 1 with $40.5 million; “Billy Jack” was second with $32.5 million; and “The French Connection” was third with $26.3 million. Here are the films from 1971 that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Newman’s middle name was Foster; Little’s middle name was Jake; Jagger’s full birth name was Ira Dean Jagger; and Koslo’s birth name was Manfred Koslowski.
  • An Oscar nominee 44 years after “Vanishing Point,” Charlotte Rampling had a scene as a hitchhiker, but it was cut from the final print. She was nominated for “45 Years” from 2015. Rampling’s middle name is Tessa and her nickname is “The Legend.”
  • A nice cameo from IMDb.com: “David Gates: The singer/songwriter (of Bread fame) played the piano during the rousing revival in the desert with the J. Hovah singers.” Yet, I don’t believe it is a true “cameo,” since he didn’t portray himself. Also, Rita Coolidge was one of the singers in the “J. Hovah” group!
  • Newman’s car is a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T, with a 440 cubic-inch V-8. It was not the more iconic 426 Hemi V-8 of the era. It was reported that eight white Challengers loaned from the Chrysler Corporation were used during the filming and that only one remained in decent condition after the film production ended. The car manufacturer was reportedly so angry that its Challengers were used in movie in which the driver used drugs and eluded police, that all eight were scrapped after being returned.
  • The director reportedly wanted acting legend-to-be Gene Hackman to play “Kowalski,” but the studio reportedly insisted on Newman. Whatever. Hackman would have been good, but he was in “The French Connection” from that same year and he won a best actor Oscar and the movie was best film.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “The color white was chosen for the car simply so the car would stand out against the background scenery in the movie. White was not symbolic in any way. The director says this in the DVD commentary.”
  • The speedometer of the Challenger is never shown in the film. The only gauge shown is the gas level gauge.
  • During an episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” superstar rocker Bruce Springsteen said VP is his favorite action film.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “Gilda Texter (the woman riding a motorcycle naked) spends 100% of her screen time completely nude. Contrary to her character, Texter would spend most of her career in movies dressing up characters, as a costume designer/costumer/costume supervisor.”

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