FORGOTTEN FILM: THE GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW (1959)

Forgotten Films: The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959)

This is the 41st in my series of Forgotten Obscure or Neglected Films

A few weeks ago I explored the wonder that is THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI, the last of the Beach Party movies and the flip side of my DVD with this week’s film. While I had seen TGITIB before, I had never seen THE GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW before. I am sorry that I had missed it before.

This is the story about a group of good kids who are hot rod enthusiasts. They work on their cars and don’t race or rumble or all those juvie delinquent things. For the most part. The first scene in the film involves Lois Cavendish (Jody Fair who played this same character in HOT ROD GANG the year before) being goaded into a race with Nita (Nancy Anderson). Nita cracks up and Lois gets ticketed for speeding and leaving the scene of an accident.

All this happens while a magazine writer Tom Hendry (Russ Bender) is trying to understand the psyche of the hot rod youth as seen through the Zenith Car Club. Unfortunately the car club is about to be evicted from their club building. Enter Anastasia Abernathy (Dorothy Neumann who also played this same character with Jody Fair in HOT ROD GANG) who has an abandoned house in Dragstrip Hollow which is supposedly haunted by her dead brother. She offers it to the teens so they have a spot to meet in. After spending a night in the haunted mansion, they decide to have a party fund-raider there and, of course, it is to be a masked ball. Hijinks ensue.

Being a film for the youth market, about a quarter of the film features music and dancing including six or seven musical numbers, a dance in Lois’s home, a band at the masked ball, and records at a slumber party. There is also a wonderfully wise-ass parrot belonging to Anastasia who does police sirens and makes snide commentary throughout the film.

The kids are all pretty clean cut, even the bad ones who want to rumble and drag. For me, the star of the show was a tall Amazon named Sanita Pelkey who only appeared in a few films before abandoning show business. Age 24 in this film she is a stunner even with the brainy glasses and ponytail look. Unfortunately she died from cancer at age 58.

I had a lot of fun with this film, even if the dialogue is fake Beatnik speak. The cars are fun, the kids are cool and the music is pre-British invasion Pat Boone squeaky clean. It is pleasantly short at 65 minutes and will not strain your brain in any way.

Series organizer Todd Mason hosts more Tuesday Forgotten Film reviews at his own blog and posts a complete list of participating blogs.