Driving & Parking - Macchinne Mortali (1978)

It is the future. In a world of diminishing resources, nation states have mounted their cities on giant wheels, huge engines belching smoke into polluted air, prowling the former fields and natural landscape. Looking for fuel. Looking for populations to capture, for workers to feed their immense coal engines.

London and Paris are fighting for supremacy over Northern Europe. The engines cranked to highest capacity, smoke obscuring everyone's vision, even at the rapid speeds the metropolitan areas move at. The Eiffel Tower, attached to the front of Paris, lances a glancing hit into the side of London, dragging down her side. London responds by releasing the Thames, rank and sludgy, at the flank of its old adversary. The water gums up the wheel bearings and creates a slippery, foul mud that the city sinks into.

Dickension looking industrialists prowl around control rooms, barking orders. The rooms are full of brass levers and steam, with coal dust on every surface. Pipes snake around everywhere.
"We can't let Paris get that coal!" one widely moustached individual screams over the sound of pressure valves and whistling. Men in grimy flat caps pull gigantic levers and stare incomprehendingly at enormous glass dials. The two cities collide again.

Its things like this that caused smaller towns to up and leave. They leave, all across Europe, in a great convoy, setting off to find the mystical, legendary land called Asia. The land of the rising sun. A land, it was said, that had not descended to the barbarity of putting wheels on its cities. A land where the crops still grew unimpeded by the wheels of former industrial districts trampling over them. Hesker Shaw (Caroline Munro) dreams of a better life.

A week or two after it sets off, she meets a man from a Slovakian fishing village, who are stranded because of a flat tyre. The man speaks no English, she no Slovakian, but she works his name out to be Tom Natsworthy (Lou Ferrigno). A silent, uncomprehending chemistry immediately forms between them and they band together. They are mostly silent, but sometimes pass the time by jabbering to each other, gesturing to a battered copy of a travel guide to Taiwan.

They escape tribes of Mongols who travel in packs with yurts mounted on motorcycles.

In a sledgehammer metaphor for colonialism, the two mega cities have joined forces to try and catch the rebellious convoy before they reach Asia.

London and Paris attack a brutalist looking Soviet satellite city, causing a diplomatic incident that attracts the attention of the government in Moscow. Soon, Moscow itself is seen driving over the mountains, heavy clouds of smoke billowing out of the spires of the Kremlin. Moscow is armed with a giant hammer and sickle. From somewhere, a giant portrait of Lenin is being unfurled.

A cut to a Parisian gazing anxiously through a telescope at the approaching city.
"So much for detente," he mutters.

Thaddeus Valentine (Vincent Price) cares nothing for keeping the balance of power. He is, and has been for many years, attaching magnets to the Arc De Triomph. He does this so that one day it might be used as a sort of magnetic projectile weapon against the enemies of France. His ultimate goal is to conquer Asia. Even among the increasing clamour, he doesn't look up from his work.

Away from the chaos, the fleeing couple find a ruin of an old, premobile town.
"Where are its wheels?" they ask themselves in their respective languages, in tones of increasing anxiety and astonishment. They look, but don't find any. It makes them uneasy.

They find a container, full of relics of the past. Tom pulls out a small cylinder, eyes it over, and passes it to Hesker.
"Oh," she says, holding it, "it's just an old fusion energy cell, whatever."
Tosses it back into the container.

Tom pulls out something else, a rectangular device, metallic, with a chrome lever and two slots in the top.
"Could it.." Hesker whispers, almost reverentially.
She is nervous. What kind of place is this, that would discard such wonders? Tom looks at her awed response quizzically.
"It's" she barely raises her voice, "a toaster."
He looks down at it. Yes, he knows the word. Tom almost drops it with the shock. Never did he expect to see such in his lifetime.

Dusk falls, and the couple are still in the town, with the toaster, as if reluctant to leave its presence. They must leave, at some point, and go find the convoy before it resumes travelling at night. Yet what to do with the toaster? They don't discuss this, but silent communication passes between them.

They are disturbed from this by a rumble in the distance, felt in the ground. Tom looks up.
"Moscow" he says, pensively. All of Eastern Europe knows of it, its distinctive low down rumble, the particular smell of its coal.
"Moscow?" Hesker says in astonishment, "but what is it doing here?"
She doesn't expect a reply, but as soon as she stops, she hears a sort of rattling voice, a voice whose language is like her companion, but different.

She looks across to him, and he is staring, dumbfounded, at the toaster. He points at it in alarm and says something.
"The vocalised, to," chrips the same mechanical, but slightly girlish voice, in English this time. It is the toaster. It's Hesker's turn to stare.

"You..." she stammers to it, "can speak?"
There is a reply, in Slovakian, and now its his turn to look surprised, but also faintly bemused. He says something.
"Speak the, not I in his sound to seek," the toaster says.

Hesker laughs, spontaniously, "you have a very strange way of speaking, my two slotted friend."
A translation. Tom splutters with laughter.
"Ha... ha..." says the toaster.
"Look," she leans closer to it, "tell him that we have to get back to the convoy. We have to get to Asia before that... thing gets here."
It translates and Tom looks amused for a second, then stops and thinks about what the toaster has said. He replies, carefully.
"The ratio is prosperous," the toaster says chirpily.

They keep talking to it on their way back, laughing, trying to work out what it means. When they laugh, the toaster does too, and its lever wiggles with a slightly flirtacious air. They keep trying to speak to it directly, it keeps translating. When they reach the convoy again, they hide it inside a canvas rucksack. Who knows what sort of alarm a speaking relic might cause among their companions?

Back in Paris, Valentine looks up from his work at the approaching Moscow. He grins. Of course! He immediately sets off at a brisk walk to the Paris control tower.

All this time, he mutters as he walks. All that time building the magnet arc, and no idea what to use in it. Simply knowing that he must, against some time that he might need it. Never until now, did he know what to use as ammunition!

He crashes straight into a general staff meeting with all his lab coat authority whisking around him. The table in the middle is surrounded by various ancient generals, dressed in mothball smelling dress uniforms. Chests adorned with medals, some of them even earned in battle. Otherwise there is a faint smell of cognac and dust in the air.
"Wait!" Valentine shouts, "do not destroy Moscow!"

He has a hard time putting his case across, but eventually he does. Cease hostilities, and bring the Soviets into the hunt for the fleeing convoy heading to Asia.

The generals accept this proposal, having no ideas of their own. Honestly, the presence of the scientist unnerves them. His lab coat that is a little too much like a cape, his tendency to cackle at what seems to be inappropriate times. Besides, they know that Paris cannot withstand the attack. They quietly prepare semaphore messages to Moscow.

Valentine cackles most of the way home. His plan is simple. He is going to fire Moscow at the Asian border wall.

"Now, Moscow," he says, looking back at the peaks of the Kremlin, "we shall test out of my... Asian Domino Theory"

At the convoy, now with the return of the newly linguistic trio, others have heard Moscow too. Those who know it, Eastern Europeans, shudder to themselves. In Hesker's backpack, the toaster is muttering perplexing translations of everything it can hear.

Later, they're given a room to sleep in and enough privacy that they might get the toaster out. Their hands brush together as they remove it, and a soft smile passes between them. They eat. There's bread, but they don't think its ethical to try the toasters functionality, without being able to ask it permission.

The convoy restarts its slow rumble towards the wall. Hesker watches out of the window, thinking she can see the faint glow of the other, bigger settlements back in the distance.
"We must stop the scientist.," she says, partly to herself. By now they have left spaces between statements, to allow for translation.
Tom speaks.
"Bad augury doctor, thought of place?"
"I know him," Hesker replies after a thoughtful pause, "he taught science at the school I went to. He always seemed... so preoccupied. Now I know why. He was scheming."
Tom moves to stand next to her, a protective arm around her waist. He says something soft and gentle.
"Bad augury doctor, in deterrent."
She leans her head on his shoulder, "yes, but how?"
A pause. A reply.
"Telephone of the existent place, the place to prepares. Beverage."
She looks at him. The toaster is sitting companionably on his shoulder.
"You have some good ideas, my two slotted friend," she says gently.
She sees its lever wiggle, perhaps with delight, as it translates.

The cities near the wall. On the Parisian control deck, Valentine glowers at it as it appears on the horizon. As vast as the legends said, he thinks. So many riches.

Around him, generals mill around, feeling like spare parts. Even the staff don't address them directly now. Most go directly to the scientist. He has his best lab coat on, and prowls the deck impatiently, stroking his beard in a manner he thinks is intelligent and thoughtful. Yet there is a madness in his eyes, and others try to avoid meeting his gaze.

"Keep her in front of us," he says pointing to Moscow, "at the right time, we will lance her with the tower and then..." he stops to cackle, at length.
"And then?" one of the generals nearby asks meekly.
"We will fire both of them at the wall!"

A hush descends around them and worried glances are exchanged. Can he be serious?

His mad glare stops them from persuing the thought, and everyone quickly resume their tasks.
"Sirs, sirs!" a runner enters the room at pace, panting for breath. He stops and gives a ragged salute to the officers present, "sirs, there are aircraft approaching, dozens of them."
"What?" a general exclaims.
"It is the anti traction league," snarls Valentine.

The anti traction league, so named not just because of their opposition to wheeled cities, but actually because of their distaste for being on the ground at all. They believe in a quite literal interpretation of elevation, that the muddy ground of Europe is unfit for their presence. They have spent the post disaster years in floating cities. Ground dwellers believe this has made them quite strange.

Upon meeting the toaster and hearing it speak, they welcome it as like a long lost friend. Its strange idioms are ones they can relate to, and they understand it more intuitively than Hesker and Tom.

The fleet of ships is varied. Giant balloons with old sea galleons dangled underneath, giant bombers from wars long past. Everything has a colourful, slightly manic edge to it. Everyone on board seems to be wearing some sort of eye makeup. Hesker feels at home in this.

They stand on the prow of the lead airship.
"We must warn Moscow," Hesker says urgently, "toaster, can you speak Russian my friend?"
The toaster says something. It sounds like Russian, maybe? Tom shrugs.
"Okay," Hesker leans right to the toasters panel, "this is what you need to say."

As they pass over Moscow, three individuals looking like colourful interpretations of 18th century sailors hold the toaster gently in front of a microphone.
"Peninsula!" the seriousness of its task cannot mask the chirpy tone, "Bad Augury Doctor, instruct to medicine. Wait he must come, before taste of the."
Soldiers and citizens on the great city look up and at each other. What?
"Decieve!" the toaster says, "elephant in tandem, elephant of peace."

They don't know what this means, but they get the gist of what they're being told. People look behind them and see Paris, quickly gaining ground on them. It looks like its preparing to ram them.

Moscow lurches to the left and executes a perfect multi wheeled drift. Its citizens were partly ready for this, they had heard stories from the old times, of deceptions by the European powers. The toaster had spoken to their hearts, and they had responded.

In the control room, someone shouts "deploy all weapons! We shall beat them into ploughshares!"
This is greeted by a great ragged cheer.

In Paris, Valentine yells in anger as he watches Moscow drift across their viewing area, slowly turning towards them. The weapons are already extending rapidly.
"How... how could they know..." he murmurs more than shouts.
"Quick" he quickly regains composure, "deploy the weapons."
Too late. The tower lance is deflected by a swing from the hammer. The sickle swings across the taller buildings, sending rubble falling below.

This rouses the generals. Valentine goes to give another order, but a large hand grabs his shoulder.
"No."
A general with a wide bristly moustache is speaking to him firmly, "I will not allow our treasures to be used this way. No more."
Valentine looks into the steely, ancient eyes. People are surrounding him, with grim expressions.
"These cities, we were not meant to use them this way."
The general turns to speak to an orderly.
"Signal Moscow. Tell them we will no longer threaten them."
"Asia..." Valentine murmurs, "all the riches of it..."
"It was never ours to take. I did not see it then, but you have made a mockery of us. We should never have let you put wheels on Paris in the first place."

The scientist is led away. His penance for his actions is to remove all the magnets from the Arc.

There's raucous cheering on all of the airships, as the cities slowly turn and slink away.
"You did it, my friend!" Hesker hugs the toaster and gives it a kiss on the side panel. Its heating elements blush and glow briefly.
"They won't be coming back here soon," someone says, "how about we go over the wall and celebrate?"
Loud cheers from everyone.
"A toast to the toaster!" Hesker cries cheerfully. Another cheer.

"Let us bring the peace," the toaster says joyfully.