My Favorite Closing Shots: Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop

Images From My All Time Favorite Films: Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

Take it as a major tribute to my love affair with Two-Lane Blacktop that it is just the second film in this series that I have broken my own rule of just capturing ten stills.

Also, I have recently started using a new program grabbing my stills that allows me to capture them without having to do any editing. However this program does, on certain DVDs, retain the black bars in the frames. Please let me know if this in anyone takes away from the quality of the presentation, as I want to keep Moon in the Gutter as visually pleasing as possible (especially right now in this period where I can't write as much as I like). Thanks!

The Return Of Two-Lane Blacktop

One of my favorite American films is getting the deluxe treatment this Christmas courtesy of Criterion. Here are the specs from the Criterion Collection website for their upcoming two disc set of Monte Hellman's amazing TWO LANE BLACKTOP.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED DOUBLE-DISC SET
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer supervised and approved by director Monte Hellman
- Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
- Two audio commentaries; one by Hellman and filmmaker Allison Anders, and one by screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer and author David Meyer
- New interviews with Hellman, star James Taylor, musician Kris Kristofferson, producer Michael Laughlin, and production manager Walter Coblenz


- Rare, never-before-seen screen-test outtakes
- Performance and Image: a look at the restoration of a '55 Chevy from the movie and the film's locations today
- Color Me Gone: photos and publicity from Two-Lane Blacktop
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: Rudy Wurlitzer's screenplay, reprinted specially for this release; new essays by Kent Jones, appreciations by Richard Linklater and Tom Waits; and a reprint of the 1970 Rolling Stone article "On Route 66, Filming Two-Lane Blacktop."

It looks like the documentary and the original Hellman commentary from the out of print Anchor Bay disc are missing but otherwise this looks to be one of the most extraordinary releases of the year. I am especially excited to hear Taylor talk on the film and Wurlitzer's commentary.
The photos here are some of my favorite shots of the cast. They are taken from the Anchor Bay booklet that came with the limited edition tin of the film...looking at these incredible shots, it strikes me that only James Taylor survives from the original iconic cast...Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird and the mighty Warren Oates are all greatly missed.