Mostly atrocious AIP pic feels less of a piece with the earlier beach movies starring Funicello and more like a hangover from same.
 
As to its place in the stock car racing movie firmament, I never thought anything could make me miss Elvis Presley and Bill Bixby in Speedway but Fabian and Warren Berlinger pulled it off. 

Pluses: Annette cute. Music groovy.

Rear Projection Theater Presents Thunder Alley. Middling beach movie gone slightly dramatic, moved to the racetrack, where stock footage is cheap and plentiful. Lots of cars getting destroyed, Fabian looking like Scared Seth Meyers in his helmet and goggles, Annette doing her thing. Two DPs and four editors. Rush made better and not long after, but this is an understandable start, if not a commendable one.

RIP Jimmy Joe Johns

This uninspired drama has one-time heart-throb Fabian as a former driver who joins a low-rent stock-car circus after a blackout destroys his racing career. The way to get full enjoyment from Thunder Alley is to embrace its corniness, to laugh where you may just as easily cringe. It’s just too much of a product from its time. Too bubblegum pop if you will. If it would have been made in the mid to late 70’s, it would have been darker and most likely more entertaining.

More films should just stop in the middle and everyone has a wild, groovy party for ten minutes imo

It’s a stock car movie, then—for about 20 minutes in the middle—it’s a teen party movie, then it’s racing again.

This is a typical Bikini Beach Movie except with more racing and stunts. The best parts of the movie are just the stock footage of real crashes in real races. The races themselves were very hard to follow as the only thing we got to understand the positions of the cars was an announcer talking very fast into a microphone. Maybe my brain just couldn't handle it because I am not used to listening to sports radio play by plays. Bonus 1/2 star for some pretty great music throughout.

Rewatched this inadvertently thinking that it was a first time watch. Remembered nothing about it, though the fight scene had me momentarily thinking that I may have seen this before.

It’s a hip film, that works as a precursor to The Stunt Man. The Pete character is totally loathsome, and I do wish that there was some sort satisfying conclusion to his total loathsome-ness.

My first Annette Funicello movie. She’s great! The rest of the movie is only fine. I liked the first half a lot. Fabian plays a stockcar driver who gets kicked out of racing for being too dangerous. He joins a ragtag group of stunt drivers run by a charismatic cheapskate. It’s fun! They smash cars, throw parties, and even have a cowboy hat wearing driver who talks in rhymes. It loses steam when the plot rears its ugly head in the back half.

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Watch List for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood & You Must Remember This: Charles Manson’s Hollywood

Take a breath of air every time someone says “Callahan.” You’ll be a breathing MFer.

Or: Alley of Thunder -

I've sat through more exciting traffic jams!
This NASCAR action movie succeeded in capturing the greatest most tragic crash and burn of them all; that of the beach party film series.