In 1980, this SLO County action flick set a record for most vehicles destroyed in a movie
Newspapers have long been great at documenting moments but poor at long-term indexing.
Google, Amazon and eBay all built their business on indexing over content creation, though they are branching out into that realm as well now.
The most frustrating aspect of writing a history column is searching for unindexed information.
The most recent example was the story of H.B. Halicki, who filmed the movie “The Junkman” in northern San Luis Obispo county.
I first heard about the movie when talking to San Luis Obispo County officials about their restoration of the Estrella River Bridge in Whitley Gardens.
The movie plot was pretty basic: A team of assassins try to kill a filmmaker on the open road.
The independent filmmaker set a record for number of vehicles and aircraft destroyed during the two years of production, about 250 from Halicki’s personal collection.
He did his own stunts and at one point was almost killed when his 1980 Cadillac Eldorado was hit by an airplane. Both pilot and driver survived, but Halicki needed 80 stitches.
I was certain the Tribune had photos of the filmmaker but could not find them.
We have microfilm and negatives from that era and a talented photo staff, but the two-year movie production window multiplied by four photographers’ files was too big a field to randomly search.
Last week, while refiling other negatives, I came across “Movie Shot on Union Road 8/16/80” by Ken Chen.
Bingo.
Except when I looked up the microfilm, the story that was published included photos from another day and location, the James Dean memorial in Cholame.
Something new to find for another day.
Here’s the unbylined story that ran Aug. 18, 1980.
1950s nostalgia cooked up for film venture in Cholame
Dozens of street rods and custom cars of the James Dean era lined both sides of Highway 46 east and west of Cholame Sunday for a movie called “The Junkman” about a Hollywood producer and an assassination plot.
In one of the movie’s scenes filmed over the weekend, the producer travels to Cholame to film a memorial tribute to Dean, a legendary rebel symbol of the 1950s, who died in an auto crash near Cholame.
While the cameras whirred outside, Stella and Ed Randall, owners of Stella’s Country Kitchen restaurant in Cholame, served fried eggs, buffalo burgers and their speciality, chicken pot pies, to about 1,500 customers.
The middle-aged couple worked a 22-hour shift in their little cafe along Highway 46, about 25 miles east of Paso Robles. It all started around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, and business kept booming until 12:33 a.m. today.
“There were James Dean look-a-likes, ranchers, city folks and tourists everywhere,” Randall said.
“Things went real smooth considering the number of people. I never knew so many nice people could gather in one spot.”
“It was fun,” said the restaurant’s chief cook. “But when you own your own place, you don’t make any overtime pay.”
