Deadline Auto Theft

💡 Did You Know?

When viewed after director H.B. Halicki's second movie, The Junkman (1982), this film becomes an interesting piece of meta-fiction. Most of the movie is a shortened version of Halicki's first film, Gone in 60 Seconds (1974), with a new, lengthy opening sequence and various other new scenes which create a new subplot surrounding Hoyt Axton and the LAPD Auto-Theft Division. In The Junkman (1982), Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) is presented as a fictional film in post-production - this movie's new opening sequence is partially seen being shot in The Junkman (1982), during which Christopher Stone's character comments that Halicki (himself playing a fictional director) was "not excited" by the first three minutes of the original film (train crash investigation), and is therefore filming an entirely new sequence. As such, this film is the result of what is seen being shot in The Junkman (1982), and thus takes place in a different universe. In reality, Halicki sought to improve upon the original Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) by re-releasing it with these new scenes, which are far more extravagant and costly than what was originally shot. Without the different title, it could almost be seen as a "director's cut" of the original movie.