"Fireball 500" is one of the darkest movies of Frankie Avalon. He's teamed up with Annette Funicello again, but they're not at a beach, and Annette isn't playing his girlfriend. Instead Frankie's a drifting loner, and he's asked to join a gang of crooked bootleggers. And somewhere on the dark midnight highway waits murder and death.

American-International tried a new direction - but they still used the same actors! Harvey Lembeck appears, but he's not playing Erich von Zipper, the Marlon Brando knock-off who led the motorcycle gang in Frankie's beach movies.

Instead he plays "Charlie Bigg," a moonshine-running schemer who achieves a surprisingly poignant moment of self-awareness. Teen idol Fabian appears as a racer named Leander, but he doesn't sing at all. And while both Frankie and Annette sing one song, the movie isn't really a musical. In fact, the two already made their last 60s beach comedy, and after this film they wouldn't appear together in another film for more than 20 year!

Frankie's character needs to earn some money so he can enter a big race. He's challenged to a cross-country road race, though it's really a plan to frame him for illegally smuggling liquor. The loner finds himself pressured by both government investigators and the smuggling ring. But there's also a phantom car that arrives on one dark bend of the road, forcing speeding drivers into a deadly swerve.

American-International was famous for making low-budget movies that appealed to teenaged audiences. "Fireball 500" uses footage of real stockcar races, then splices in footage of its actors (who act like they're driving while seated in front of a "rear projection" shot). This movie feels like the standard fare for a drive-in theatre - but that's part of its charm. You can almost sense the scriptwriter positioning his characters for maximum impact.

After 42 years, "Fireball 500" was finally released on a DVD in 2005 - as part of a series called "Midnight Movies Double Feature." The DVD's other movie is "Thunder Alley," another late-60s racing movie which also starred Annette Funicello and Fabian. Both movies hint that the hard-driving loner had become the new hero. But it was only "Fireball 500" that tried to convince audiences that that outlaw was clean-cut Frankie Avalon!

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