Two-Lane Blacktop has long been unavailable, commanding exhorbitant prices on Amazon.com. It was reissued in February 2008. The package includes two DVDs, plus a full copy of the screen-play in book form. The first disc contains the movie plus audio commentaries that can be played while you watch the movie. The second disc has some cut scenes, as well as interviews with people connected with the film, thirty-seven years later.

It is 1971. Dennis Wilson and James Taylor own a customized 1955 Chevrolet, known as the Car. Taylor is the Driver; Wilson is the Mechanic. (No one ever says anyone's name in the film.) Whenever they need money, they race the Car for a few hundred dollars and they usually win.

They begin a journey along Route 66. The Girl (Laurie Bird) crawls into the Car while the Driver and the Mechanic are having lunch at a diner in Flagstaff, Arizona. The guys come out of the restaurant and don't even notice her, although she's sitting in back with the tools. Finally, exasperated, the Girl asks, "Don't you ever talk about anything but cars?" but the Driver and the Mechanic ignore her as they discuss the carburetor. In Texas, a man in a 1970 Pontiac GTO (Warren Oates) challenges them to a cross-country race, with Washington, D.C., as the destination. First one there will collect the pink slip (title) to the other car. They agree to stick to the two-lane blacktop highways, in order to avoid the police.

"GTO," the name that the Driver gives to Warren Oates' character, is a middle-aged man. It isn't clear whether GTO is trying to recapture something that is no more, or running from something, picking up hitchhikers along the way. He builds a wall around himself with lies about his past, making up a new story for each hitchhiker, offering the fables despite the fact that no one asked him. Most of the hitchhikers listen to his lies without comment. However, when he picks up a nihilist who deflects all the B.S. with, "Sure I believe you. It's easier than not believing you," GTO freaks out, and the hitchhiker demands to be let out of the car immediately.

The Driver and the Mechanic expend more emotion and love on the Car than they do on people. They are so alienated from real life that they stammer self-consciously whenever the conversation strays from cars. All three men like the Girl, but they are so inept in expressing their feelings that she becomes bored with them, despite the fact that a rivalry for her affection seems to be building among them.

Meaningful communication with any of these men is fruitless, as the Girl finally learns. At an Arkansas diner, she leaves with a young man on a motorcycle, abandoning the Driver, the Mechanic, and GTO. By this time, they all seem to have lost interest in the race to Washington, D.C. GTO picks up two hitchhikers who want to go to New York, and he tells them that they're in luck because that's where he's heading, "straight through." The Car is last seen running a race in Memphis for cash. The owners of the Chevy definitely do not want the Pontiac. The Mechanic refers to it as "the Howard Johnson's of the freeway." The Driver responds, "When we get that pink, we'll unload it."

It is helpful to read the screenplay in conjunction with viewing the movie. Much original footage has wound up on the cutting room floor, including a clumsy romance between the Driver and the Girl. If you don't read the screenplay, the end of the film doesn't make much sense.

There is no background music in this film. The only music occurs naturally, from jukeboxes or car radios. Nevertheless, audial surprises are in store with Terry Allen singing "Truckload of Art," and Kris Kristofferson singing "Me and Bobbie McGee," on tape cassettes.

And a bit of trivia, the 1955 Chevy is the same one that was used in American Graffiti.

An existential treat. (****½)