BAD MOVIE REVIEW: ZERO TO SIXTY (1978) WITH DARREN MCGAVIN AND JOAN COLLINS

ZERO TO SIXTY (1978) – Want to see Darren McGavin of all people bare his butt for the camera in two separate scenes? Want to see Darren McGavin getting his bare butt spanked by the Hudson Brothers in one of those scenes? Want to see Darren McGavin in sex scenes with Joan Collins at her smoking hot best?

Usually, you’d have me at the words “Want to see Darren McGavin” because I’m a huge fan of the guy. And not just as Carl Kolchak in The Night Stalker but most of his big-screen work and small-screen work from the 1950s onward. Well, I finally met a Darren McGavin movie I wasn’t ready for.

Zero to Sixty was produced by McGavin’s wife Kathie Browne and directed by Psychotronic Hall of Famer Don Weis. As I watched Darren in screwball car chases and in scenes full of “comedy” that wouldn’t have made the cut in one of Burt Reynolds’ Cannonball Run movies I was having trouble getting my head around what I was seeing.

During a scene in which McGavin pretends to be wetting himself I think I began babbling “But … but … that’s Darren McGavin.” Believe it or not, Denise Nickerson – Violet Beauregard from Willy Wonka – playing an underaged Car Repossession Agent helped bring things into focus for me.     

That’s not a joke, by the way. I mean it. The chemistry between the venerable Darren McGavin and a sassy, foul-mouthed, much younger female character (at right) made me realize what McGavin and his wife must have been thinking with this project. (Which Darren co-wrote, by the way.)

If you’re following me, Darren and Kathie may have wanted to cash in on a Bad News Bears type of vulgar chemistry between Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neal. Instead of making a sports film, however, they decided to combine the Walter/ Tatum interplay between McGavin and Nickerson with fast-car redneck comedies of the 1970s.

Taking things from the top, Darren stars as Michael Nolan, who has just been unfairly wiped out in a divorce from a wife who was not only cheating on him with the pool boy but deposited all the money he gave her for bills right into her own separate checking account.

The latter move left the car Michael bought for her unpaid for so many months that it became liable for repossession. Enter Nickerson as 16-year-old (and did I mention foul-mouthed) “Larry” Wilde, a prodigy at repossessing vehicles.

Wilde repo’s Nolan’s car while he’s still fresh out of court and arguing with his failure of a divorce lawyer played by Dick Martin. Michael steals his lawyer’s car to give chase to his own repo’ed vehicle.

After a good-looking and reasonably choreographed chase scene, Nolan has pursued Wilde all the way to the Repo Office she works for. Her fellow employees side with her over McGavin, and those fellow Repo Men are played by the Hudson Brothers comedy trio from back then, meaning one of them is Kate Hudson’s father.

(It might be the one who looks like Ron Jeremy. I’m not sure.)

Respected actress Sylvia Miles of all people plays the boss, the horny Grand Dame of the repo business, Flo Ames, whose lines are often sophomoric sex jokes in keeping with the bizarre nature of Zero to Sixty. Regular readers know I’m far from prudish about sexual humor, I just didn’t expect Lewd Lizard type of material from Sylvia Miles and Darren McGavin.

Vito Scotti aka Enzo the Baker from The Godfather plays Benny, Flo’s assistant of some kind. After the aforementioned spanking that bare-assed McGavin gets from the Hudson Brothers, cops show up after him because Dick Martin reported his car stolen.

Typical of this flick’s writing, Flo and the Hudson Brothers believe Darren/ Mike Nolan is some kind of hotshot car thief so she hires him as her newest Repo Man and orders Wilde to show him the ropes. So, we’re in more of a Ritz Brothers or Dead-End Kids movie universe rather than anything approaching reality.   

Working with whiz-kid Wilde, Mike Nolan does some pale Matthau-ing to her Tatum-ing as they encounter wacky, zany, but never quite funny targets for having their cars repossessed. The standout is Joan Collins as meltingly sexy Gloria Martine, a mid-level grifter who manages to keep her silver Trans-Am out of the clutches of Nolan and Wilde.

KATHIE: Either my husband gets to show his bare butt twice or I WALK!

Unnaturally, sparks fly between Collins and McGavin after some strained, tired hottie vamping the oldie we see her amazing body and McGavin’s reasonable for his age body, right down to another showing of his bare butt. I guess all this inspired Steven Bochco to do those Dennis Franz butt-scenes years later. (I’m kidding!) 

The chases, stupidity and the pointlessness continue, as a dead Jimmy Hoffa-type labor leader is found in the trunk of one of the repo’ed vehicles and Nolan becomes as much of a con-man as his teenaged mentor. Your jaw may drop as a few scenes go into “Will they or won’t they?” territory with McGavin and underaged Nickerson. But at least we’re spared any more McGavin butt.

Lyle Waggoner, credited as Gay-Bar Bartender, plays one who tries hitting on Nolan, much to the latter’s discomfort.

I could go on and on, but I think a reader can already tell if this is the type of cosmically bad movie that they might want to watch. I don’t plan on ever checking it out again, but it made for a terrific WTF? viewing experience.