1955 Roger Corman Presents The Fast and The Furious

The Fast and the Furious is a 1954 American crime drama B movie starring John Ireland and Dorothy Malone, co-directed by Ireland and Edward Sampson. It was the first film produced for the American Releasing Corporation, and the second feature produced by Roger Corman.
Charged with a murder he did not commit, truck driver Frank Webster has broken out of jail. While on the run toward the Mexico–United States border, and the subject of radio news reports, he is cornered in a small Southern California coffee shop by a zealous citizen who is suspicious of the stranger. Frank manages to escape and, as he gets away, kidnaps a young woman named Connie.
Frank drives off with Connie in her Jaguar sports car; she is a "lady racer". She soon proves a difficult hostage, trying to escape a few times, which leads him to treat her more roughly than they both would prefer. This mutual struggle soon leads the two to fall in love.
Frank enters into a cross-border sports car race under a pseudonym, with plans to escape into Mexico. Faber, one of Connie's friends, is wary of the new stranger driving her car and tries to learn more about Frank.
The film was based on a story by Roger Corman, who had recently moved into producing with Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954) for his company Palo Alto Productions. Corman financed The Fast and the Furious himself with $60,000 he received from Robert Lippert for Monster from the Ocean Floor.
According to Corman, John Ireland only appeared in the film on the condition he could direct it: "John did a fine job directing on a nine-day shoot with a budget of $50,000," said Corman later. Corman also stated that Dorothy Malone "had left her agent and, having no work, accepted a part for next to nothing."
The film was shot in 10 days in April 1954 under the title Crashout, but a different 1955 film would take that title.
Corman says he "set up a little of the racing car business because I was interested in that, and I did some of the second unit stuff. But I didn't direct as such."
After weighing offers from Columbia, Allied and Republic, Corman made a deal for The Fast and the Furious to be picked up for distribution by a new company, American Releasing Corporation (ARC), formed by Sam Arkoff and James H. Nicholson. Corman said "I realized that the trap for an independent producer was that you made a picture but waited a long time to get your money back. So you couldn't make many films. And what I wanted to do was to get an advance back immediately to make a series of films." Corman says he told ARC "I would give them the film if they would give me all of my money back immediately as an advance against distribution and I would do the same thing on three more films, so I could set myself up as a producer. They were happy to do that because The Fast and the Furious enabled them to start their company. It then meant that I would be able to be a steady supplier of films for them, and they could get their company rolling."
The formation of ARC, which later became American International Pictures (AIP), was announced in October 1954, with The Fast and the Furious as their first release. Corman's Palo Alto company planned to make three more features over the next twelve months, starting with Five Guns West in November.