The Fastest Guitar Alive: On-This-Day Thursday
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Every Thursday, an older film released on this opening weekend years ago will be reviewed. They can be classics, or simply popular films that happened to be released to the world on the same date.
For September 1st, we are going to have a look at The Fastest Guitar Alive.
Some films just don’t seem like they should exist, even if you’ve discovered them, actually watched them, and have even discussed their oddities for years. This is one of those cases. The Fastest Guitar Alive is a corny, hokey production that just sounds like it should have never been considered outside of the think tank. First off, if you have not heard of this film, here’s what you need to know. It’s about a spy during the tail end of the Civil War that is trying to make one more push for the South by taking part in the robbing of gold from a US bureau. This spy does this by carrying a guitar that hides a gun (yes, a gun) inside of it, which can be whipped out at any time. This person is Johnny Banner, who is played by none other than Roy Orbison in his feature film, starring role debut. When you think of rock stars of the ‘60s that could walk around with a guitar gun, then the “Pretty Woman” and “Cryin’” guy comes to mind, right? Nothing wrong with these songs, but given the sloppiness of the film, the frankly insane premise, and the edginess of a guitar gun, Roy Orbison just seems like such a strange choice.
There’s nothing here that will make you feel like you were judging it on paper a little too harshly. Exactly how you think this will go will be confirmed correct. For crying out loud, this film is called The Fastest Guitar Alive and it has nothing to do with the speed or technicality of musicianship. The entire premise feels like director Mickey Moore and company just wanted to have a motion picture where a guitar could come out blasting, and any semblance of sense didn’t matter. How we get there is a complete non-issue. No. Just having that guitar gun is all that we need to focus on. Well, the end result is a picture that is looney, but also not quite looney enough; why not go full out with this bizarre premise? Why not have complete self awareness? No. The Fastest Guitar Alive is not well made (obviously), but its bigger qualm is that it doesn’t connect in any way (not even as so-bad-it’s-good). The only legacy this flick has to me is that it stars Roy Orbison, and not for any good reason.
There are few films whose barest of premises make less sense than The Fastest Guitar Alive.
I bring up Orbison again because one of the extremely few benefits of this picture was his soundtrack of rock and roll licks that accompanied the picture. If anything, these songs solidify that the only reason to watch the film is for the head-scratcher of a casting choice right at the crux of this thing. As off as Orbison is, he’s the only kind of pulse or legitimacy here because of his musicality. Otherwise, I can’t really give you many pros for The Fastest Guitar Alive. It’s too silly to warrant any form of serious response from you, but it’s also not silly enough to amuse you ironically. There’s not much more I can say about this film.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.