Aloha, Bobby and Rose

Plot

In 1970s Hollywood, Bobby (Paul Le Mat) works as an auto mechanic by day, and shoots pool and races his red 1968 Chevrolet Camaro by night. His friend Moxey (Robert Carradine) is excited to be accepted to transmission school and build his skills for a better paying job. The less responsible Bobby seems to have no such direction in life and is still relying on his Uncle Charlie (Noble Willingham), a used-car salesman, to help him out of jams, such as by loaning him money to pay off his pool game bets to some menacing Chicanos.

Rose (Dianne Hull) is the young single mother of a 5-year-old son. Rose and her son live with Rose's romantic mother (Martine Bartlett), who minds the little boy while Rose works at a car wash. Bobby meets Rose when he personally delivers her VW Beetle Cabriolet, on which his garage had worked, back to her at the car wash. Bobby tries to charm Rose into giving him a quick ride back to his work, but she refuses and tells him to take the bus. Later, when she gets off work, she sees him unsuccessfully trying to hitchhike in the rain (presumably lacking even 40 cents bus fare) and picks him up. When Rose stops at her house to change, Bobby discovers she has a young son, but isn't bothered by it and even spends time talking to the boy. Rose's mother is planning to take her grandson to the movies and then on to Disneyland for the weekend, and, seeing Rose and Bobby are attracted to each other, encourages Rose to go have fun with Bobby.

Bobby and Rose go on a date, including ice skating (though Bobby can't skate), window shopping, a stop at Pink's Hot Dogs, parking under the Hollywood Sign, and cruising the Sunset Strip. They daydream about moving to Hawaii. During a stop at a convenience store for wine, Bobby pulls a prank on the teenage store clerk by pretending he is a robber with a fake gun (actually a stick of beef jerky). But the joke backfires when the shop owner emerges from the back room with a shotgun pointed at Bobby. To save Bobby, Rose hits the owner over the head with a bottle, and as he falls, the gun goes off, accidentally killing the young clerk.

Bobby and Rose flee, first in Rose's VW (which they crash) and then in Bobby's red Camaro, heading for Mexico. Rose misses her son and at one point boards a bus to return home, but finds she cannot leave Bobby and gets back off the bus. In San Diego, the pair meet flamboyant Texans Buford (Tim McIntire) and his girlfriend Donna Sue (Leigh French) driving a Lincoln Continental Mark III, who invite Bobby and Rose to go to Mexico with them. The two couples travel to Tijuana where Buford and Bobby bond in the party atmosphere, but Rose still misses her son, so Bobby and Rose leave Mexico and return to Los Angeles to get him.

After having Bobby's Camaro painted black and picking up Rose's son, Bobby and Rose stop at an ice cream parlor on the way out of town, where Rose leaves her son alone in the car for a few minutes while going inside. A police officer sees the little boy alone in the car. Upon seeing police surrounding their car, Bobby and Rose abandon the car, leaving her son to be taken by the police, and hurry to a nearby cheap motel to hide out. Bobby calls his Uncle Charlie to bring him a getaway car, but Rose separately contacts the police, who have her son, and tells them she wants to talk to them about the recent "accident", giving them the name of the motel where she and Bobby are staying. The police arrive that night in a rainstorm just as Bobby's Uncle Charlie drives up with the getaway car. As Bobby runs towards the car, the police mistakenly think he has a gun and, despite Rose's screams, shoot Bobby down. Rose cries over Bobby's body.

Cast

Release

The film was distributed by Columbia Pictures. Although production began on October 22, 1973, the release date was April 29, 1975.

It was filmed on a low budget of $60,000, but became a huge box office success, grossing $35 million domestically, making it one of the most successful films of 1975.

(According to Variety the film earned $6 million in theatrical rentals at the North American box office.)

The New York Times gave the film a negative review, stating "The only tragic thing in a film like this is the quality of stupidity the characters are forced to exhibit in order to keep the plot going."

The Time Out review made some comparisons between Aloha and the critically acclaimed 1973 film American Graffiti, which also starred Le Mat, though the review goes on to say "…with little characterisation or depth, the plot doesn't finally add up to much more than a coda to Graffiti."