Heart Like A Wheel (Jonathan Kaplan, 1983): USA

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy. Viewed on DVD.

In 1965 Shirley Muldowney became a professional racer of dragsters and funny cars, which reached top speeds over 150 mph.  She was the first female to be licensed by the NHRA (National Hot Rod Assoc.), which was a masculine sport in an era of male chauvinism.

Heart Like A Wheel is a biopic which chronicles the life of Shirley Muldowney, who fought (and won) an uphill battle of “good ‘ol boy” mentality in order to compete professionally in the sport of drag racing.

Muldowney (played by Bonnie Bedelia) marries her high school sweetheart, who is also a talented mechanic.  After convincing her husband to support her desire to compete, he builds her a dragster.  She wins a few local competitions, but in order to gain her NHRA license for the big league, she must first garner the signatures of three professionals.

Enter Conrad “Connie” Kalitta (played by Beau Bridges), a pro-racer who made unsuccessful passes at Shirley, but now helps her to gain her second and third signatures.  Muldowney, fed up with the verbal abuse from her husband, leaves him for Kalitta who ends up being her pit manager.

In 1977 Shirley Muldowney became the first woman to win the Winston World points Championship, which is the most prestigious title in drag racing, and went on to win it again in 1980 and 1982.  In 1990 she was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, and in 2004 the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame.

Muldowney’s career spanned over 40 years, and she retired in 2003.  During the production of this film in 1983, Muldowney was at the pinnacle of her career.

Director Jonathan Kaplan effectively begins his film in black & white, during a flashback sequence of Shirley driving with her dad as a kid, and then switches to color as the film moves to its present day.  The dialogue, action and pacing of the film are spot-on entertainment.  In 1984 Bonnie Bedelia deservedly earned a Golden Globe nomination for her acting.