(1988) "It's the idea that counts and the dream." The irrepressible, exuberant entrepreneur and automotive inventor of the 1948 "Tucker Torpedo," a revolutionary American sedan, Preston Thomas Tucker (1903-1956) is portrayed by Jeff Bridges in director Francis Ford Coppola's fact-based biopic (with encouragement from the Tucker family) from a screenplay by Arnold Schulman and David Seidler.

With Harry Miller, Tucker - who learned auto mechanics, design, and salesmanship from working for Chrysler, Ford, Studebaker, and other motor companies - collaborated on creating eleven of the racecars to win on the Indianapolis Speedway. His 1936 invention of a combat car, capable of traveling at 100mph, with a gun turret that could swivel 360º, was turned down by the military for being "too fast," though the gun turret was adopted for use in World War II.

As the war came to a close, a Gallup poll found that 87% of Americans wanted a new car. Tucker intended to give them "The car of tomorrow" with unheard of performance and safety features: "The first completely new car in 50 years." His sedan had a rear engine getting over 20 mpg, capable of 130 mph; disc brakes and fuel injection; precision balance with individual wheel suspension; a safety windshield and seatbelts; cyclops headlights.

Initially upon hearing of the concept for the car, Abe Karatz (Martin Landau), a New Yorker with connections, tells Tucker: "You got no chance." Nevertheless, with an article published in Pic magazine, letters flood in clamoring for such a vehicle. Abe then goes to work as business manager, signing up an experienced Detroit hand, Robert Bennington (John X. Heart, who also voices Drew Pearson's voice), as chairman of the board to run the motor company and attract investors to the company's stock.

Using a slide show of photographs taken from gruesome accidents (Abe arguing against such an approach: "You're talking logic; this is Washington") during a meal of rare roast beef to emphasize the need for a safer automobile ("The Big Three should be indicted for manslaughter"), Tucker wins approval from the War Assets Administration to take over an enormous former Dodge plant in Chicago, used to construct B-29s, to assemble his cars. The terms of the contract call for $15 million and 50 cars produced within the year.

Advertising "the most revolutionary car of the century," Uncle Abe, having caught the dream by getting too close to the inventor and his family, signs up dealerships and arranges for a promotional filming of the car's development and testing (which the DVD includes as a bonus feature). With seed money Tucker's team - Jimmy Sakiyama (Mako), Alex Tremulis Jr (Elias Koteas), Eddie (Frederic Forrest), and his son Junior (Christian Slater), turning down admission to Notre Dame to work with his dad - builds a prototype (Ford takes nine months for such a feat) from junked cars to meet a deadline in 60 days.

As Tucker begins a publicity tour following the inaugural presentation of the Tucker Sedan, powerful forces work behind the scenes to defeat the entrance of a competitor. "You made the car too good," says Abe, who has a skeleton in his closet. In collusion with the Big Three, Michigan Senator Homer Ferguson (Lloyd Bridges) has Tucker's offices bugged; the price of steel costs Tucker twice what the other car manufacturers pay (doubling the anticipated $1000 price of the car); the Securities and Exchange Commission, against its own policies, provides slanderous reports to a Detroit newspaper.

But when Bennington attempts to change the original design of the car, Tucker ("That son of a bitch is not going to take over my company") retreats to a barn at his home in Capac, Michigan, taking a tip from Howard Hughes (Dean Stockwell) to re-engineer an aluminum helicopter engine. Over the radio Drew Pearson attacks Tucker and his car's credibility, accusing the entrepreneur of swindling the public of $26 million. At the same time he's going after Howard Hughes, Senator Ferguson opens an investigation into Tucker's operation; the War Assets Administration, reneging on its contract, closes the plant with a month left and 47 cars built; the SEC confiscates company files.

Charged with defrauding the public and arrested after a 100mph chase with the cops (to prove that his car is everything he says it is), facing a possible 20 years in prison, Tucker goes to trial with the defense of having inadequate financing because of significant outside interference. His wife and savvy businesswoman in her own right Vera (Joan Allen) proposes they respond to headlines of lies with bigger headlines of the truth.

Today, Tucker tells the jury, even Ben Franklin would get arrested for flying a kite without a license, warning: "But if big business closes the door on the little guy with a new idea, we're not only closing the door on progress, but we're sabotaging everything that we fought for! Everything that the country stands for! And one day we're going to find ourselves at the bottom of the heap instead of king of the hill, having no idea of how we got there, buying our radios and our cars from our former enemies."

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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