Don Prudhomme and Tom McEwen set many records while racing on the dragstrip. They probably never contemplated walking down the red carpet.
Yet walk they did on Monday night at the Egyptian Theater during the Los Angeles premiere of “Snake & Mongoose,” the biopic that portrays their rivalry and friendship. The movie, which will be released Sept. 6, shows how the two Southern Californians began their careers with a love for racing. Prudhomme worked in his family’s auto body shop in Burbank and McEwen toiled on the assembly line at Douglas Aircraft Company.
“My wife’s folks didn’t want her marrying me because I was a drag racer, and lo and behold, we go to a movie on Hollywood Boulevard about me and Tom McEwen,” Prudhomme, 72, said after the screening.
In attendance were other racing people, including Tommy Ivo, a fellow member of the Road Kings, the Burbank car club, who helped Prudhomme as a young driver. Another friend of Prudhomme’s, Ray Evernham, the former Nascar team owner, also showed up.
“Snake & Mongoose” documents, sometimes languidly, how the men capitalized on key wins in major National Hot Rod Association events and took their rivalry to match races at what McEwen remembers as badly lighted, bumpy tracks around the country. Jesse Williams, from “Grey’s Anatomy,” deftly portrays Prudhomme. Richard Blake, another television actor, gained 20 pounds to play McEwen.
Prudhomme was called the “Snake” because of his slenderness and height. Ed Donovan, McEwen’s engine builder, coined the nickname “Mongoose.”
The story of the drivers’ families gives an unexpected but welcome look at the middle-class lives and values the two racers shared.
“They’re in relationships where it’s all about the man,” Ashley Hinshaw, the young actress who steals hearts as Lynn Prudhomme, said on the red carpet. “I think Lynn put herself in the situation so that she involved herself in the business side of things.”
A flair for marketing, as well as driving, was required throughout their careers, and McEwen, now 76, had the idea to approach Mattel with Prudhomme in 1969. The toy company underwrote a contract — $100,000 for the partners, according to the movie — that started a motorsports sponsorship phenomenon.
“We were the first ones to have sponsors on board; big trucks, uniforms,” he said at the premiere. “I wanted to get corporate money. I thought, ‘Let’s go away from the automotive sponsors. Let’s go to Nabisco or Coca-Cola or Goodyear or Mattel.’”
Noah Wyle, who portrays the Mattel executive Art Spear, said he had played with Hot Wheels as a child.
“I had both of those guys’ cars,” Mr. Wyle, known for his role on “ER,” said. The funny cars — Prudhomme’s 1970 Plymouth Barracuda and McEwen’s 1970 Plymouth Duster — were reproduced as Hot Wheels models.
“Eighty percent of the allure of doing the movie was the possibility of meeting them,” Mr. Wyle said, adding, “I’m no gearhead.” His challenge, he said, was to show how Mr. Spears took Mattel “from being a very Barbie-centric company and how he launched this line of toys that became the hottest sellers.”
