Harley Russell, 73, lives only on the tips he receives at his wacky store at Erick (Oklahoma) with his Mediocre Music Maker show. Ángel Delgadillo, 91, the last barber of Seligman (Arizona), continues shaving drivers who go out of the interstate highway to visit his town. Lowell Davis, more than 80, is the first inhabitant of Red Oak II (Missouri), a ghost town which he rebuilt through the restoration of its old houses. Three stories of perseverance and overcoming in what was once the road that connected the United States from East to West. Three survivors that managed to save the most well-known route in America.
Direction
Rubio lets eccentrics breathe, never mocking.
Production
Genuine ghost-town textures, no polish needed.
Director
Ana Ramón Rubio
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, making these men literal ghosts of federal infrastructure policy.
The film's 67-minute runtime mirrors the documentary's subjects: unhurried, slightly stubborn, refusing modern demands for compression.
US
