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And that thought drives me what I find most remarkable about the film: it consistently refuses to push buttons that most other narrative feature films do simply as a matter of course. Below are a few points of consideration to argue this point.

Two-Lane Blacktop sidesteps most every cliché for its genre, for many genres in fact, but it doesn’t do it by subverting conventions, by satirizing or mocking them. Wurlitzer’s screenplay and Hellman’s direction doesn’t paint The Girl, The Mechanic, and The Driver as anti-heroes, any more than it sets out to construct them as superior to the other hitchhikers, diner patrons or small town denizens they encounter. Reading Wurlitzer’s prose, it becomes obvious that he faithfully embedded himself in the street racing and gearhead lifestyles in order to create a vivid and realistic portrait, but the film throws a lot of that out and what’s left is simply the milieu. There are not a lot of racing scenes or car chases. There are a fair number of shots from a backseat perspective, that take in the measure of a driver and a passenger and the road unfolding beyond their windshield, but nothing held for a significantly long time or that suggests the film is aiming for the hypnotic rhythms suggestive of ceaseless driving. Although the narrative eventually peters out, it becomes apparent that it is the characters themselves driving this and not the film making a statement by becoming "plotless."

Two-Lane Blacktop may seem to be making concessions to the “youth market” (the film was produced by the division of Universal that sprung up briefly in the wake of the financial and cultural success of Easy Rider) with the casting of Taylor, who scored his first top 40 hit “Fire and Rain” while the film was shooting, and Wilson, drummer for The Beach Boys, but it doesn’t use them as “teen idols” in any sense.

Limited as their acting talent may be, they deliver what is required from the roles: Wilson captures the Mechanic’s easygoing California vibes tempered by the character’s sometimes paralyzing introspection. Taylor’s imposing height and poker face defuse the future “Sweet Baby James” persona and suggests the seething and self-doubt just beneath the surface (but which the film never unleashes, unless you count his provocation/taunt “you’re on, motherfucker” early on to a potential opponent as sufficiently angry. Hearing Taylor cuss is an odd experience).

Two-Lane Blacktop would seem to have been the ideal candidate for a tie-in soundtrack that would have pushed along the film’s commercial appeal. There is no score, but there are a fair number of tunes including Kris Kristofferson singing his composition “Me and Bobby McGee” (made famous in a rendition by Janis Joplin). And yet, a soundtrack was never released. There is a reason for this, I think.

I would be hard-pressed to name another film where songs are so prevalent and yet the music leaves little to no impression. It provides the soundtrack to the inhabitants of the cars, but the radio is turned off as much as on, and even after debates over which tape to pop in, no one seems to much notice what’s playing, even if they happen to be singing along. The sounds that stay with me are the swell of the cicadas, the electronic buzz of the GTO when the door is opened while the key is still in the ignition, the revving of engines as cars are worked on a racetrack, and finally the absence of any sound, save for a rush of air, during the film’s final minute.

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