Roadracers: The Making of a Degenerate Hot Rod Flick

by Robert Rodríguez

The film "Roadracers" is a homage to the juvenile delinquent films of the 1950s. Robert Rodriguez took the title from the original film and fashioned his own in a way that is much darker and much more ironic than the original. In this book he provides an account of the making of his film.

Genres: Film

182 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 1998

About the author

Robert Anthony Rodriguez is an American director, writer, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician perhaps best known for making profitable, crowd-pleasing independent and studio films with fairly low budgets and fast schedules by Hollywood standards. He shoots and produces many of his films in Texas and Mexico.

Reviews

[Justin Decloux · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've wanted to read follow up to REBEL WITHOUT A CREW since high school, but it was only ever published in England, so it was a hard one to find.

Turns out it was hard to find because Robert Rodriguez REALLY hated working with a crew on his for the first time. His fourteen-day production diary is a nightmare journey in which he realizes that everyone is in it for the money and he should do everything himself. I'm not surprised people weren't pleased that he named names, so the book was probably quietly buried. The diary section is only 100 pages, but it's nice and juicy.

[Grant Conlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fine. No Rebel but still interesting to see the process. Roadracers is an interesting footnote of Robert Rodriguez’s career that doesn’t get much attention, and this book does a lot to remedy that. It’ll also affect how you watch the film, knowing what could have been.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this is truly JUST a production diary. Rebel Without a Crew caught a phenomenon as it happened and at a very specific moment in time (the post-VHS boom that enabled 90s independent cinema to exist, see: 'I Lost It at the Video Store' for more detail). This is the day-to-day of making a Rebel Highway entry and how Rodriguez wishes they’d let him do it the same way he did El Mariachi. Roadracers as a film was merely okay, not a cultural touchstone the way Mariachi was, and as others have pointed out, Rodriguez gets VERY specific with who pisses him off. I can see how this fell out of print. It’s not Rebel 2 by any means. Surely not worth the $200 aftermarket price people are charging. Still interesting if you’re a Rodriguez fan but keep your expectations low. Storyboards were cute!

[Jonathan Forisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Rodriguez is one of my favorite filmmakers, not least because of his incredibly in-depth breakdowns of how he accomplished what he accomplished. Rebel Without a Crew is one of the best books on filmmaking that I've read, and this one is very much along the same lines.

It's more or less a straight journal of what happened while he was making Roadracers, the follow-up to his "little movie that could", and he spends most of it saying how much he wishes his full crew wasn't around so he could do their jobs better than them.

His DIY attitude is infectious and his account of how he got things done is always fascinating.