In this low-budget cult classic we have Mitchum as auteur: he wrote the original story (which again takes him out of the city and into the backwoods), produced the film through his own independent company, wrote and sings the title song, and of course, stars. (For good measure, his son Jim Mitchum plays his younger brother.) This is a rural road movie, with Mitchum at the wheel as Lucas Doolin, whisky runner and scion of generations of moonshiners, who takes on his two natural enemies, the Feds and the Mob, with equal determination. His instincts are those of an animal with four-wheel drive. The spectacular auto chases are still exciting, and as Richard Thompson writes in Kings of the Bs, "(Thunder Road) is a work whose charm is open only to those who have firsthand knowledge of the world it depicts. Not moonshine smuggling, which is only the plot pretext, but the ambiance of night driving. Mitchum's vision (is) a truly maudit vision, because by its very form and structure it is damned. A work like this frustrates critics straining to infuse popular art with culture. (Thunder Road) shrinks from art straight toward its own truth."