Joe Don Baker stars at “Walkaway” Madden, a race car driver who got that name because he has always managed to walk away from every crash.  When Madden agrees to compete in an off-road race through the Philippines, he is not happy to discover that his sponsor has arranged for a female journalist named C.C. Wainwright (Susan Sarandon) to accompany him and record his adventures.  Walkaway’s a good ol’ boy and C.C.’s an independent woman but wouldn’t you know it, they’re in love by the end of the race.

This has one of the most simple plots that I’ve ever seen.  Madden and C.C. race through the jungle and there’s never really any doubt about how the race is going to end because all of the other drivers are terrible, except for Madden’s former partner, Doc Pyle (Alan Vint).  A manic Larry Hagman plays Bo Cochran, the promoter who put the race together, and gets the majority of the film’s laughs.  When I watched this movie, I thought it had been made to capitalize on the success of Smokey and the Bandit but then I saw that Checkered Flag actually came out a few months before Burt Reynolds and Jackie Gleason hit the drive-in circuit.  The young Susan Sarandon is a lively presence and she has a surprising amount of chemistry with Joe Don Baker, ideally cast here as a good ol’ boy who likes to drive fast.  The movie doesn’t hold many surprises but the game cast keeps it watchable.

Director Alan Gibson was a Canadian filmmaker who had previously worked for Hammer films, directing the last of their Dracula films before he eventually found himself in the Philippines, working with Larry Hagman, Susan Sarandon, and Joe Don Baker.