Damnation Alley with Scott Weinberg

It's JAN-uary, so Brian and Weinberg are ready to Michael down those Vincents as they jump in the Landmaster and traverse the wildly uneven landscape of Damnation Alley! 

How did those cockroaches gain armor plating?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
McQuire assistant broadcasting from Albany, New York, on a frequency
of eight oh eight point nine oh McQuire assistant broadcasting
from Almany, New York on a frequency of pawn.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
All right, this is Dick Miller. If you're listening to
junk food Cinema, who are these guys?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's the end of the world as we know it,
and I feel chunky. It's junk food Cinema.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
The weekly cult exploitation film cast so good it just
has to be fattening.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
I'm your host, Brian Salisbury.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
And you know what, Car Gill took the impregnable doomsday
vehicle out into the wasteland for smokes like two months
ago and just.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
Hasn't come back.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
That's why the talking motorcycle to my guy from the
paper Chase once again is the apocalyptically hilarious, mister Scott.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Weinberg, apocalyptically hilarious love it own business card. I wish
I was that, but hello, it's me.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Welcome back, Scott, welcome back. And of course it is
Jan Youary.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
This Janwary.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
It's time to Michael down your vincent.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
So yes, indeed, it's time to Michael down your Vincent's
what does that mean? It means we're talking about a
post apocalyptic film today starring among A, there's Jan Michael
Vincent and this mister Weinberg was another patron request.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Thanks thanks Bobby Johansen, whoever else who requested this thing?

Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yes, it was fran Michael Vincent that requested this.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
No is patron Allen Meyer requested nineteen seventy seven's Damnation Alley.

Speaker 5 (02:24):
Damn Nation Alley. Everything man remembers is gone, Everything he
has achieved is forgotten. Every place he has lived has
become a wasteland and desolate barren, And these five survivors
may be the only humans left alive. Together they will
attempt a journey into the unknown. Only their courage and

(02:50):
the instinctive lived could carry them safely through the hell
that lies ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
The devastation of the man.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
And the mutations of nature gone wild. And somehow they
must endure this journey through the nightmare of what we
once knew as Earth. Somehow they must survive this journey

(03:21):
through the Damnation Alley starring Jan Michael Vincent, George Bavard,
Dominic Sander, Paul Winfield.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
And Jackie Arrohally.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
Produced in the magic of sound three point sixty more
than a motion picture, an adventure you'll never forget.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Man Scott. Here's the thing.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
We are a podcast built on the ruins of post
apocalyptic cinema. We love movies about the end of the world.
We love especially weird eighties and and you know, sometimes
late seventies versions of what the end of the world
looks like. And for that reason, I remember when I
first saw this movie a few years ago, I was
super stoked about it because I was like, oh my god,
it's an end of the world movie. It's got a

(04:23):
great cast, it's got this incredible central.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Vehicle, it's the studio movie.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
It's a big studio movie, right, And I remember kind
of being disappointed by it the first time I watched it,
and I gotta tell you that has not changed.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
You know. The most interesting thing you'll find out about
this movie is that Fox was high on it while
they were in production on Star Wars. And the irony
is that this came out, This came out to be
a massive mess. And obviously Star Wars turned out to
be Star Wars.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
Not so bad as it turns out that Star Wars.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, and so, but I'm watching it now for the
second time, you know, I'm watching it, and I'm like,
who had Fox thought this was going to be a hit?

Speaker 3 (05:07):
I think it's an interesting one to talk about for
its place in history and for how it was handled,
and for the names behind it. Like so many really
interesting and talented people worked on this movie that I'm
really excited to to dig into that. But yeah, I
think that's the elephant in the room that we need,
or the fox in the room maybe that we need
to discuss right up top is that Fox thought Damnation

(05:28):
Alley would be the sci fi film of nineteen seventy seven,
so much so that they spent a boat load to
market this movie.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
They were really going all in on it.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Too bad that they thereby neglected their other nineteen seventy
seven sci fi release, some little movie called Star Wars,
and Damnation Alley was therefore damned to rot in the
mushroom shaped cloud.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
Of Star Wars nuclear success.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yes, that's what happened. I never know what you having
your notes and you want to cover, So I'm waiting, like,
you know, like the release and all. You know, I'm
sure you have that in your notes, so I don't
want to steal your thunder.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
I mean, yeah, this is a movie that they released
in theaters. It did not do.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
It did like so poorly out of the gate that
then they started bundling it, you know how like when
You're when You're out.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
It is the second half of a double feature. Absolutely, yeah,
kind of.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
Like the way if you're out of a garage seller
or a flea market and you're interested in an item,
but the seller is not willing to come down on
the price, so your only recourse is to start bundling
in other things.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
You want to kind of get the price down to
where you want it. They did that.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
They bundled this movie with the similarly unsuccessful Wizards, which
I believe is a Ralph Bakshi movie.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
It is a Ralph Bakshi.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
So yeah, you would go to a double feature in
the late seventies and see Damnation Alley and Wizards.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
That is an interesting double feature. I will admit I
like Wizards a bit more than this, and I have
a soft spot for apocalyptic movies and all. So just
the premise alone kept my interest, you know, and the
cast and the fact that I didn't remember anything and
I was like, what else are they gonna come up with,
you know, carnifferous cockroaches, giant scorpions, long haired mountain men,

(07:11):
or I don't know what they were, and I just
kept waiting for the next big threat. That's how I
enjoyed this movie.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
It is kind of funny that they have these like
mutated prospectors in the movie, because Damnation Alley does sound
like a prospector term, do you know what I mean?
Like we're gonna go on down to Damn Nation Alley
and steak carclaim.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, should we cover the plot?

Speaker 4 (07:36):
We should cover the plot.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
So this is basically a movie that takes place just
before the start of World War Three. You've got Jake
Tanner played by Jan Michael Vincent, who was so very
important to the seventies, like kind of was supposed to
be the biggest star in the world. In fact, for
this movie, he got paid a million dollars. It's the

(07:57):
first time he ever got into the seven digits out.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
Yeah, he was. He was a sought after commodity for sure.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
That's interesting. And he is I mean, you know, he
was in an accident and and messed up his face
and that hurt his career to a degree. But I
think he might be the best thing in this movie.
He is quiet, and I'm used to, like, you know,
not to be unkind, but I'm not used to being
like taken or impressed by a Jan Michael Vincent performance,
and I quite I rather was in this one. I

(08:25):
liked him. I wanted more of that that characters.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
It's the accident.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
It's also he had a kind of rough personal life,
you know, struggles with addiction and just being generally hard
to work with. Is you know, a lot of the
studios just got tired of. In fact, in seventy seven,
he was arrested for possession of cocaine. He was also
arrested in seventy eight, seventy nine, eighty four, and eighty five.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Oh see never here's my advice to people, people who
want to work in well, in any industry, but in
the film Indoor Ort, any kind of artistic industry. Do
not be difficult to work with. Just don't be gracious,
just be kind, be helpful, be charitable, or just shut
the hell up and don't make trouble because when you

(09:07):
have those troubles, I mean, because a it's just normal
to be a good person. But also when you start
to have career troubles and whatnot. If you're a kind person,
often people will come to your aid, people will care.
But if you're like, you know, a jerk to everybody
on set, you're not going to find a lot of
support down the road.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
I mean, it is that, it's it's a lot of
personal things.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
But then it's just kind of his luck was not great,
Like he was literally from ninety two to ninety six
or from uh yeah, from nineteen to ninety six was
involved in three severe automobile collisions from which he barely survived.
So yeah, it's just it's kind of a the kind
of life that you definitely would want to read a
biography about.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
Let's just kind of put it that way.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
But someone who I always, especially in this period, thought
was really really fascinating to watch on screen.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Absolutely, you know, earlier in his career he stood out,
and you know, I'm glad that he was able to
build a career beyond that, but it, unfortunately for him,
did not turn out to be a massively successful career.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
So he's a first lieutenant in the Air Force and
he's partnered up with a.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Hope he kept that million bucks.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
That's all I'm saying, oh, yeah, for sure, he's partnered
up with a major played by George Ppard, who of
course is royalty around these hallways because of his role
as Cowboy in Battle Beyond the Stars.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Right, and most people would know him as Hannibal from
the A Team. And I love the guy, but I
was a little bit struck by how kind of blah
he plays it in this one. He's not very fun.
He's kind of just buy the book military guy.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
I would go a step further. I don't think his
character is likable.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, Like, there's a lot in this movie about and
we'll get into it, but I feel like there's a
lot of this movie that feels very passive. Yeah yeah,
And for that reason, just kind of feels like it's
just rolling along, not Mutton not unlike the central vehicle
of the film.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, I mean the plot is literally after the Apocalypse,
four friends, four men decide they're going to take the
super high tech for the time land what is it
called Landmaster s UV kind of just these super truck
battle truck, call it what.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
You want, battle truck, battle truck.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, And you never see two of the both of
them on the screen at the same time, so I
think they only had one. But the Master is the
name of the vehicle land Master. And then yeah, one
of them is played. You know. It's Jan Michael, Vincent,
George Papard, Paul Winfield, and some guy I don't know,
and he dies real early, and it's.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Just like a guy you don't know, just to step
in here for a second. The guy that you don't
know that you're referring to, Yeah, that is an actor
by the name of Kip Niven, who junkions will remember
as the killer from a little film called No.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yes, Oh my gosh. Yeah, okay, okay, I've seen that
in Forever but yeah, okay, And.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
I only recognized him because he also had a mustache
in this movie.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, And it's like some like side characters die and
there's never any kind of remorse or like, oh man,
that's a shame. They're all like, oh, he's dead, moving on.

Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yeah, he kind of. He definitely dies off.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
If you guys survived the apocalypse together, you've been like
out in the wild for years. Why wouldn't you would
care if one of your friends got eaten by giant cockroaches?
Do you would care? I would?

Speaker 3 (12:29):
I would hope, so Scott, I would hope that you
would care if one of your friends got eaten by
giant cockroaches.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
That's a horrible scene when Paul Winfield, that's the most
horror scene in the movie. It's not a horror movie,
but it's kind of scary in a way.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
But that's it's extremely horrific, and it's one of those
things that and movies like this. If you've listened to
enough junk food cinema and you've watched enough of these movies,
you know that normally these movies open with text like
after the apocalypse or after the Third World War when
the world was an irradiated.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
This one starts the way like a TV movie would start.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
He's just kind of basic, like Damnation Alley and a
car is pulling up to a station. You don't know
what's going on or who these people are. Really does
feel like the opening to like an episode of Colombo
or something, and we're introduced to these characters who are
having a squabble, like George pepar.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
And you don't really need the opening because no, you
don't show the war starting. We like, we're shown.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
What happened all we're introduced to at the beginning of
this movie is that George pepar doesn't like John Michael Vincent.
He doesn't think he's mature enough to be an Air
Force officer. And then we're introduced to Paul Winfield, who,
of course is just a tremendously talented actor who's been
in almost everything ever. Like the guy really has appeared
in more movies than I can count that would that
have been or will be junk food cinema films. But

(13:47):
we just were introduced to him as a painter. Like
that's literally all the information we get before the missiles
start flying.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
And it's like, you're right, and we really don't need
that information because then the missiles fly, get this whole
like you know, barrage of I radiated Earth, and then
we get the text. And the text in this movie
is I mean, it sounds very grandiose, like most of
them do, but it also says things that just straight
up cannot be true. And my favorite okay.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
So I know, can I guess yes, please, that the
nuclear war caused Earth to tilt on its axis?

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Okay, yeah, that's one of the things You're like, Okay,
that's a little bit far fetched. But it goes on
and on and on about how there's this this reign
of terror with storms and floods and everything, and then
it says when this epoch began to wind down, And
epoch is.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
A very very very long period of time.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
So the fact that they say that and then we
immediately cut back and it's still John Michael, Vincent, George Pard,
Paul Winfield.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
I was like, I don't think an epoch.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Is act right, fair enough? Yeah, if they say epic,
you think, oh, a thousand years, got it.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
Yeah, Now it's like, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
I'll have to look up the actual mathematical length of
an epoch, but I believe it's like ten thousand years.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, I'm think an epoch has a technical number. But yeah,
it's like an era. You wouldn't say era and then
come back four years later.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
Oh, you're right.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
It's a period of time in history or a person's life,
typically one mark by notable events. Okay, so it is
a little bit more nebulous than it is quantifiable.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
So that's on me.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
So you know what, I take back what I said
opening text of Damnation Alley, you were right, this could
still be an epoch.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
My our apologies to Alan Sharp and Lucas Heller, the screenwriters.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
Talk about that.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Let's talk about that, Scott, because one of the things
I find interesting about us doing this episode, you know
I put forward to you, is like, here's some requests.
You know, which one do you want to cover? And
you chose Damnation Alley. What I find so fascinating about
that is I did not know how many people behind
the camera on this movie not only made things that
I love, but made things that are very relevant to

(15:50):
me right this second. And one of those is actually
the director of this movie, the director Jack Smite, who
also made Midway Airport seven and the third episode of
Colombo called dead Weight with the dad from Green Acres
as the killer. And I only know that because I

(16:11):
just started watching Colombo from the beginning, like this week.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
That's funny you and I I cause I told you
before I wanted to do a podcast about Colombo, and
you said, that's a great idea.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Oh yeah, No, I always knew that it was something
that interested me. I just hadn't sat down and really
watched it straight through. So that's I'm working on that
right now.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, I would love to do a limited podcast, just
each one covering each episode because I've only seen a few.
I adore Peter Falk, God, let's miss him. What a
great fun actor he was. And everybody raves about how
well written and how direct, how well directed all these
episodes are. And I'm thinking I've probably seen ten percent

(16:50):
of the Colombo that actually exists.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
And you know, I didn't realize two things sidebar. I
didn't realize two things about the Columbo series. One that
the episodes are like mini movies and were really yes,
as such.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
I didn't know that either. I thought that was a
traditional hour long procedural. No, they're all feature length.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
No, they were like an ABC mystery movie and they
would just be Columbo's stories.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah and yeah, me, I always thought, oh, this was
an hour long show back in the seventies, and then
when he came back they gave him movie length. Nope,
they were always that.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
And the first episode, of course, is directed by a
very young Steven Spielberg. Yep, the impossibly doing that is
what got him duel. Or it could have been his
episode of Night Gallery with Joan Crawford that got him duel.
I'm not entirely sure, but yeah, like that's kind of
I listened to the episode of blank Check about Duel

(17:52):
and it got me excited, like, oh my god, the
first episode of Columbo was directed by Spielberg. Well that's
enough of an excuse to finally sit down and watch these.
And I've made my way out through about the first
five and like the guest stars and the differences in
style are really fascinating because again, this was not an
episodic series. These were weekly like Saturday night movies on ABC.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, And I guess the reason that I wasn't used
to that is because growing up in the eighties, late seventies, eighties, nineties,
there was hour long shows and there was TV movies
that was it or mini series, and I never really
put two and two together and thought, yeah, it's a
two hour block, got it? You know, if The Love
Boat was two hours, that was a special episode that wasn't.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
Normal exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
But I'm super excited to dig further into Colombo Stargroves.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
After these messages. We'll be right back rat alight, right, alight,
right a light, you've crossed my line of dag. You
haven't dismantled your MX stock pile. Pakistan is threatening my border.
That shitbuster No more Military Aid Luca get them before

(19:02):
they get you.

Speaker 5 (19:03):
Another quality home game from Butler Brothers.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
And then you also mentioned the writer on this, Alan Sharp.
Alan Sharp, immediately before this film wrote the movie Night
Moves with Gene Hackman, which is one of my favorite movies.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
I fucking like.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Maybe the best Gene Hackman performance ever, which is really
saying something.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Man, I am like among his biggest fans in the world,
and I don't even know if I'd be I'd be
willing to like venture what his best performance is. I
fucking love Gene Hackman. And yeah, I mean he's phenomenal
in that.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
Yeah, he is on the razor's edge in that movie.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Like, really, that's Phil Murray. NERD Humor is what I do.
NERD Humor made a joke for you.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
No, wait a minute, it was Scott Hall. Scott Hall
was the razor's edge anyway.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
And then the other writer on this is Lucas Heller,
who wrote Flight to the fiel Nicks Whatever Happened to
Baby Jane and co wrote The Dirty Doesn't Wow.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
Okay, that's simplying Firepower. And they're writers, Yep, they're adapting
a story.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
I mean, it was originally a short story that appeared
in a like sci fi magazine in the late sixties,
and then a few years later was adapted into a
full novel.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
And the writer of that novel.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Definitely hates this movie because my guess would be because
there's a lot of the writer, George Zalasni, I would
imagine a lot of what's in that book did not
make it into this very scant movie, which if I
have a central complaint with the film is that it
is so it is so like there's this very thin
on the ground.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
There's not much to it. It's we're going from California
in our special vehicles and we heard a message from
somebody in where we believe is Albany, New York. So
the eighty percent of the movie is a road trip
from southern California to Albany, New York. And you know
a handful of stops along the way, most of which

(21:00):
are horrific, and that makes it sound like kind of fun,
and it is to a point and then it just
gets kind of dry and it's just very uneventful, and
I'm wondering, like, what was the inspiration for this? Was
it just mad Max. Was that the only thing they thought, Hey,
we'll do mad Max but with some Hollywood money.

Speaker 4 (21:18):
Did am I wrong? Or did this precede Mad Max?

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (21:22):
Is was it mad Max? Like seventy nine? And then
I will double check that.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, it's a good call, because I mean you and
I know real well, Yeah, the first Mad Max came
out in Australia in nineteen seventy nine. So yeah, I
was wrong.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
But so it even begs the question even further, like
what why was this the one that fox? But it's
eggs into that basket? Like why was this the basket
the fox put all its eggs into?

Speaker 2 (21:46):
It feels to me like a lot. You know how
the seventies has a lot of cerebral high concepts, soil
and green, silent running, you know that kind of stuff.
It feels like it wanted to be half of that
and half fun.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
Yeah, I could see that for sure.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, this was the era of these sort of bleak,
dour but very thoughtful science fiction. I mean, this is
the era of your Logan's run and you're.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Right right before Star Wars. If you dig through the
Hollywood science fiction of the seventies, you'll find some fascinating movies.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Really, you know, no, this is this conversation is helping
me start to understand.

Speaker 4 (22:22):
Now.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
I still think the thinking is wrongheaded and obviously hindsight,
being twenty twenty, but it's starting to make me understand
why Fox would think that this would be the big hit.
I mean, this is the era of your Logan's Runs
and your Soilent Greens and your Silent Runnings, and you know,
just very sort.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Of stop pluralizing movie titles. I don't like it. Silent
Runnings makes me think of cool Runnings.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
Did I say Silent Runnings?

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah, well you were saying your Silent Runnings.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Like scorely Dan on letter Kenny. I just pluralized it
for no reason.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
That's what I appreciates about you.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
You got your Silence Runnings, you got your Logan's Runs.
Is yeah, just very bleak, dour science fiction. So something
like this kind of fits more of that mold.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
And we got to say he's some semi forgotten now,
but Rogers Alasni was a wildly award winning and very
celebrated sci fi author. He was not just like a
one timer kind of thing. I want to read some
of his stuff because I looked up his name last
night and he was very celebrated.

Speaker 4 (23:20):
So really I wasn't aware of this.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, yeah, is it important that we know who Jan
Michael Vincent was in order to get this snow. Here's
the thing though, like, after all the bombs fall and
you know, we've just got these people who are now
just living at the Air Force base. They were in
a silo to begin with, so they were protected. We
have an accident that occurs when John Michael Vincent coming
back from the wasteland. He has now decided to leave

(23:45):
the Air Force entirely. He and Paul Winfield both are like,
what's the point of being in the armed forces when
there isn't a country or a planet? Really, So they've
been ostracized to this like secondary barracks out outside and
they're just living there like Paul Winfield's painting, and John
Michael Vincent is uh is doing battle with giant scorpions?

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, and and and and and what explain what happens?
What is the fate of this facility? Brian?

Speaker 3 (24:09):
So that no, that was gonna be The next thing
is like, so we see these we're introduced to these
giant scorpions, right, which are just rotoscoped uh composites, and
he's racing past them, and then he pretends to throw
a woman to uh to distract them. It turns out
to be a mannequin. And then like he comes back
with a stack of Playboys that he has found somewhere.
He gives it to an airman and then the the

(24:31):
airman is reading them with a cigarette, drops the cigarette
and the entire facility explodes. So the moral of the
story is that that pornography will destroy the world that's
already destroyed.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Is the don't Replayboy, It's dangerous.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
I only Readplayboy for the destruction is kind of what
you could.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
I had to rewind that that second there, I'm like, wait,
that's what caused the fire.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
Yeah, that was it.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
That's literally what causes the fire that destroys everything. And
then it's at this point that you know, George Prepard,
who is one of the only survivors, is George Peppard,
is John Michael Vincent, Paul Paul Winfield, and then of
course the killer from New Year's Evil, And they decide
that they're gonna follow this transmission that they've been hearing
for a while that is supposedly coming from Albany. Now

(25:18):
here's my question immediately, why why do they need to
make this dangerous, arduous trip when they clearly have another
It's not about like the thing is, it's not about supplies.
They're not trying to find, you know, a cure for
a disease. They're not they're not running out of water,
They're not like trying to save the earth. It's literally
just feels like George Peppard's like, well, no one else

(25:40):
is here now, so I'm bored, So I'm.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Just gonna pick up this place sucks.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
Let's move exactly which is which?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Like it's step one in the whole problem of all
of these characters feel very passive in their own story
because it's just George Pepard going, I kind of like
to see what what's out in Albany, and everyone else
is being like, okay, I guess sure, And they make
this trip across but again, like along the way, they're
not like one of them doesn't get radiation sickness and
there's only one place that has a cure.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
They're not warring with.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
The right, and one of their buddies dies very quick
and I'm thinking, did you ever think, oh I should
have stayed back at the base.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
All Yeah, Kip Niven dies off screen in pursuit of
again just following the source of this transmission. There may
not even be anybody there, and they didn't have to
make this trip.

Speaker 4 (26:26):
There was nothing.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
There was nothing pushing them out the door, which I
think is the problem I have with the story and Albany.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's like, I have an idea, Why don't you search
for radio signals somewhat closer?

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yes, why do we have to drive from California to Albany,
New York across Damnation Alley, which is supposed to be
the path of least resistance through the wasteland.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
And if so, why is it called Damnation Alley?

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (26:48):
I thought that because one of their stops along the
way is Vegas, where they meet a woman and I
thought she was that was her Damnation Alley.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
That's her name is Damnason. Well, it's Damnation Allison. But
she goes by Damnation Alley.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Right, I wrote, I actually wrote that joke down. That's
that's the podcasting that we do for you. I had
to make sure that I wrote down that awful joke.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
No, and I appreciate your your commitment to that joke,
I really really do. But yeah, they're going along the way.
We lose Kip Niven, so no New Year's Evil for
these folks, right, But we.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
In exchange for Kip Niven, we get a a woman
named I wrote it down, what's your name?

Speaker 4 (27:29):
Damnation Alley? We already we already talked about it.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, Damnation jenis played by Dominique Sanda. And then we
unfortunately lose Paul Winfield. And who do we gain then?

Speaker 4 (27:40):
Mister jack Earl Haley, Jackie Earl Haley in this movie.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Really fully in his Bad News Bears days.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
And yeah, he's Michael Vincent is the one riding the
dirt bike in this.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, he was red hot in the mid seventies. And
I'll be honest, he adds a spark of energy to
this movie that it needs.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
I do think that John Michael Vinson's character has a
lot of charm. Yeah, And and what's what's crazy is
I feel like he has almost the exact same energy
as George Pepard would then bring to Battle Beyond the Stars.
Like he's kind of playing just a lovable hick, right,
and your heart just kind of goes to him.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, he's he's he's h he's tough, and he fights
back against the mutants, and he's a good ally and
his aim with a rock is unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
Like three or four times in the movie he throws
a rock exactly on target. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
It's really a shame that instead of giant scorpions, they
didn't just meet biblical giants, because if you put a
rock on a sling, he would knock those goliaths right
the hell down.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Movie would make the same amenda sense.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
It's true.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
But George part in this movie is so like you're
gonna do things my way or the highway.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
We're gonna do this blah blah blah blah. Like it
makes you hate him.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
Because there's no reason to do it, Like there's no
greater good that he's insisting upon.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
It's just I want to go to Albany.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Well, Brian, he's clearly, you know, so clinging desperately to
the format and the familiarity of the structure system that
he's used to.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Well, I I was just gonna say that, I was
gonna say all those words exactly, but it just it
keeps the audience kind of an arm's length with him.
Because there's never really any reason for him to be
this way, like there's no motivation for this trip at all.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Nope, nope. And I'm sure you found this in your
research that Fox, you know, kinda cut a lot out
of this movie. It's only about ninety minutes now, and
it was longer. And did you already mention that that
that the that Zalasni was furious and hated the movie
after that?

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yes, yeah, yeah you did. He did not like this adaptation,
and it may be the amount that was cut out.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
And I think I read that he said he liked
the original screenplay and then when he saw the film
in theaters, you went, what the fuck did you do?

Speaker 3 (29:51):
This is one of those movies that got taken away
from the director by the studio in post and it
sat in post for a long time because they started
to see the work that was being done on Star
Wars and going, oh shit, well, we need to we
need to add some bells and whistles to this, more
sequences of the truck, We need to paint the entire sky.
In post production, I guess they thought that that was

(30:13):
gonna be the big selling point of the movie, is
that everything was sort of Aurora Borealists.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah. Yeah, we didn't even mention that, and that's in
my research I learned that was one of the reasons
the movie was delayed almost an entire year because they
had to finish editing the skyscapes, which are basically the
normal sky but with a filter added on to make
it bright orange or yellow or purple. And yeah, I

(30:38):
guess it's interesting, but it gets pretty familiar pretty quick.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
By the way, I love IMDb because the two things
that go in absurd detail, like Michael Mann level of
detail about is when they're talking about guns using the
movies and cars used in movies, like literally the trivia
about the Landmaster, which is this massive vehicle like the
real star.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
Of the movie.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
If we're being honest with ourselves, Yep, the trivia about
this sounds like they're trying to sell me one.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
I mean that automotive stuff that doesn't interest me. But
I you know, whenever I see these people do that
stuff about weapons or vehicles or anything, I'm just like, man,
there is a fandom for everything, and that makes me happy,
Like I love that there are car fans who could
watch this movie and go oh, I like the hardware.

(31:28):
They found something, you know, like that is always fascinating
to me.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Let me just read to you the trivia and tell
me when it starts to sound like an ad like
they're trying to sell you the Landmaster.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Right, Okay, I'll tell you.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
The twelve wheeled Landmaster vehicle used in the movie was
created by Jeffrey's Automotive in Universal City, California. The Landmaster
is powered by a three hundred and ninety one cubic
inch Ford industrial engine and features a fully functional custom
built tri star wheel arrangement, which could actually help it
crawl over boulders. It also used an innovative steering mechanism
the guide of the vehicle not by the front wheels,
but by bending the middle section with hydraulic rams to

(32:02):
effect a turn.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
All right, all right, I get it. Uh And it
has that it like, you know how like those long
big buses sometimes have that flexible part in the middle
that doesn't look real.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
Safe on the really doesn't look secure at all.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Nope, it looks like a bad bump could tear your
machine and half. After these messages, we'll be right back.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
For freedom wherever there's trouble.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
G I.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Joe is there.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Joe remembers g I Joe the g I Joe Personnel Carrier, Oh,
twenty eight members of the g I Joe Team. Let's
go go get the new members of the g I
Joh team and slip wild get the John team before
ing g.

Speaker 5 (32:45):
I job the g I Joe Personnel Carrier host twenty
eight Joe team.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Members each so separately from Hesbro.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Here's the other thing. So we've we've now got our
troop of people. Paul Winfield is devoured by armor play
armor plated cockroaches.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Man eating cockroaches, and he doesn't move. He just kind
of sits there while they eat him.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, not that they're bigger, Like the scorpions are like massive.
The scorpions are like Ray Harry Eus and size, But
the the cockroaches are just Madagascar hissing cockroaches that they
say are armor plated, which I don't know how or
why that's the case.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
That yeah, that that eat Paul Winfield.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
But what's really bizarre about this, Scott, the scorpions and
the cockroaches are the only two creatures that we deal
with in the irradiated wasteland. Right again, it just feels
like kind of Chintzy that it's like, there's all of
these creatures have been affected, well really just these two.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
It's like, really just those two.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
I mean plus you know, I'm not going to be
Joe science, but it would it would take millennia for
animals to adapt to the to have those new features.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
It would take a couple of epochs, for sure, not just.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
And again I want to tell who the who is
the person who requested this one, Alan Meyer, Alan, I
could totally one see why if you saw this movie
at like twelve years old and then saw it again
when you were twenty five, it would stick in your
nostalgia bank and you would love it. So please don't
take our dismissal or our mockery personally, because I love

(34:14):
when people love cheesy old movies from their childhood.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Well, I also I think it's a fascinating mess. Like
I really do think that the sifting through the rubble
of this movie is a worthwhile process. Because you know,
we haven't even mentioned this yet. The score of this
movie is done by one of our favorites, Scott.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
They're great, Jerry Goldsmith.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
Jerry go go doing the score here and providing so
many of those warbly tones that typified seventy science fictions, just.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Like Jerry Goldsmith. Often later in his career. You could
kind of spot Jerry Goldsmith because a lot of his
scores and this criticism sounds similar. This one doesn't. This

(35:03):
is completely you know, if you listen to this score,
I doubt you would know, just by being a movie
nerd that it was Jerdy Goldsmith. It's odd.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Yeah, it's a very different one.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
And then you also have the cinematographer on this movie,
whose name is Harry Straddling Junior, who, by the way,
is sort of a junk food savant because he shot
movies like Prophecy, Convoy, Blind Date, Mitchell, Oh and Midway.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
He shot Midway as.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Well, Up the Academy, the Big Bus, look at this.

Speaker 4 (35:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
Yeah, a lot of great movies under his belt, and
a lot of movies that fall in nicely to our wheelhouse.
So I appreciate that very much. Also, just a weird
piece of trivia that I discovered. Apparently Steve McQueen was
gonna star in this instead of John Michael Vincent, but
he wanted two million dollars and the studio couldn't afford it,
so he just walked away. But this was almost a

(35:56):
Steve McQueen vehicle. And I'm not talking about the Landmaster.
I'm talking about Damnation.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
Now.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
I can't even imagine that that would that would have
made it a lot more it would be it would
probably be more well known today if it had Steve
McQueen in it.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
So we're going across the country.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
As Scott mentioned, we end up in after Paul Winfield
is eaten by cockroaches. Again, that happens in this movie.
We end up Oh no, actually it's we end up
in Vegas before that. Yeah, because he's with them in Vegas.
And this is one of the weird things. I can't
even fault this movie for. It's just it's a weird
trope of movies. Like this is the sort of.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
The slot machines.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
No no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
The disproportionate destruction of seventies apocalypses is fascinating to me,
Like somehow Circus Circus is the one Vegas casino that
survived intact. Why the rest of the city is buried
under sand, but you can still go into Circus Circus
and use the slot machines.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
They have this weird sequence where they find a bunch
of slot machines and are so happy to play with them.
And I kept waiting for that moment in this scene
where they would like kind of look at each other
and be like, well this is pointless, money has no value.
But it never happens.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
No, it doesn't. They're just they're just interrupted.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
By our leading lady, who is, you know, a welcome
site but not all that fascinating, and then they lead
the casino.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
I think.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
I also, it's just her story of like I survived
because I was having sex in the casino's bomb shelter
when the bombs fell, and I'm like, I'm gonna I'm
gonna go back real quick.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
Do all casinos have bomb shelters? Was that a thing?

Speaker 2 (37:30):
All the ones I've been in have.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
I'm not talking about the count room, I'm not talking
about the vault that Danny Ocean and his crew trying
to break into. No, apparently this casino had a straight
up bomb shelter. And this is like, this movie takes
place in nineteen seventy nine, so I mean, I guess
it's still the Cold War, so I guess we're still
worried about Russia attacking hinst The fact that Russia attacks
at the beginning of this movie.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
In the original version of this movie, there is a
great CAAC director who is almost entirely excized from the
theatrical release. Do you know who that was? No, Murray Hamilton.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
That's right, Yes, he plays the general.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
You see him in the beginning as one of like
a general, and Murray Hamilton, to anybody who isn't known
by name, is the mayor from Jaws. And he has
a couple of moments where you see him. They even
have like a still frame of him before the bombs hit.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
A very weird still frame. I might add, like it
looks like he's sitting on the toilet.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, I did my digging, and yeah, he was apparently
had more to do in the movie before his park
got cut.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
There's apparently TV versions of the movie that add back
in scenes that were cut.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh yeah, they used to do that a lot. Yeah,
Oh okay, that makes sense. Yeah, because in order to
fill like a two hour block sometimes, you know, and
after you cut the questionable material, you're like, oh, dude,
really have eighty six minutes or you know, eighty minutes,
what do you have? And they'll go, mister John carpenter,
Do you have any deleted scenes from the thing that
we could use for the network version? You know that

(38:59):
kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Yeah, I was like, Halloween is my go to for that?

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Actually, like yeah, the oh yeah, it used to happen
a lot back in.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
The scene where they go to the hadd and Feel
school and Michael is like carved the word sam Hayne
into the yep. But why, who knows? Why why did
he go to that classroom and do that? Seems like
kind of a detour from his main mission in that movie.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
But sure, why not?

Speaker 2 (39:21):
I think? And then that I could be wrong, but
I think because he was in production on Halloween too,
I think he might have shot some stuff for them
to put in Halloween.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
I could be wrong. I may be misremembering that. But
we're not here to talk about Halloween. We're going to
talk about the four million dollar blockbuster.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Damnation Alley that costs like something like it says eight
million here, but in the documentary that I watched, the
little Mini documentary, they said the budget was closer to
seventeen million dollars. Seventeen seventeen million dollars.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
That doesn't seem right that I mean I'm just going
by what's on the screen.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
Dude, eight million dollars doesn't sound right. This thing is
so fucking cheap. Like I'm not I'm not just saying
that like aesthetically, I'm gonna like. They reuse footage from
Operation Crossbow, the entire facility exploding.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
That's from a different movie they just dropped in here.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Oh yeah, I didn't know that, but yeah, I believe it.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Then they use footage from Earthquake, the entire tsunami at
the end of this movie.

Speaker 4 (40:23):
That's from Earthquake, okay.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
And then they've got these cheap ass models of the Landmaster.
For some of the shots. They bailed on using giant
scorpion animatronics in favor of the composites. I mean, there's
plenty of visible strings and rubber bugs. And when we
get to these weird hillbillies, right, these weird mutated hillbillies.
The facial hair on these hillbillies is so laughably fake

(40:49):
that I'm just sitting there going, how in God's name
did let's just say it is eight million dollars, How
did they spend eight million dollars on this in nineteen
seventy seven? Where where did it even if a million
dollars goes to John Michael Vincent, even if three hundred
thousand dollars, which was the cost of building one functioning
Landmaster that not only could actually drive up to fifty

(41:10):
five miles an hour but is still in working order
to this day.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
But even with that, where did the rest of the
money go?

Speaker 2 (41:19):
I know, maybe maybe they rented all those rocks. A
lot of some of the budget went to My favorite
effect in the movie is when the cockroaches approach it
like in mass you know, and apparently they were just
fake cockroaches glued to a net and you could see
the string pulling. Yes, yes, exactly, I love I mean,

(41:40):
but like before I saw the string, I'm like, oh,
that's a neat effect.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
Yeah, But it's like and then like literally when they
do you remember when they discover the car that he
ultimately gets killed in. Yeah, it's like, Wow, these skeletons
look clean. I'm like, they don't just look clean, they
look like they were bought at a Halloween store like
an hour ago.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, they look like they just got them at Halloween
advance there. You know.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
It's like and I appreciate that, Like I am not
against low budget at all. Like one of my favorite
post apocalyptic movies is After the Fall of New York,
Like I will talk to you all day about the
merits of low budget filmmaking.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
With Michael Sopq.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
Yes, with Michael Sopq. The guy whose name looks like
it was written sideways.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, I did. I never knew how to pronounce that.
And then you know what, that's why I remember it.
I don't remember anything else about that movie except his name.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
His last name looking like it was spelled sideways was
a great mystery science theater joke that I always use,
like SPQ the man whose name looks like it was
written sideways. But like, this movie spent eight million dollars,
and this is the movie that Fox was like, it's
going to be a huge hit. We don't even need
to market that other one. What's it called Star Fights? Yeah,
we don't need that one. Well, well, I mean we'll

(42:48):
release it, but whatever. And then when that movie came
out and made all of the goddamn money imaginable, the pivoting,
the absolute pivot that Fox had to do to be like, okay,
how do we at least Damnation Alley now? And What's
really funny, though, Scott, is when it started to get
into that post production problem, they pushed it back to

(43:09):
Christmas of nineteen seventy seven, and then they heard that Spielberg,
who by this point had made Jaws, which had also
made all of the money imaginable, was releasing his next
movie called Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and they
didn't want to compete with that, so they moved it
back up to October. So this movie got batted around
like a ping pong ball, despite the fact that they
thought it was going to be the most successful movie

(43:29):
of the year.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
In nineteen seventy seven, Star Wars made two hundred and
twenty one million dollars, Damnation Alley made fo Yeah, yeah,
Now I'm just scanning down to October seventy seven to
see what it played opposite. Let's do it, all right,
you want it's played better or worse.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
Let's play better at worse, Scott, a.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Little borrow from my podcast overheted, All right, let's just go.
Would you rather watch Damnation Alley or John Denver, Terry
gar Donald Pleasant, Ralph Bellamy, William Daniels, puls or you know,
and George Burns in Oh God.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Wait a minute, all those people are in Oh God.
Oh yeah, I might actually have to watch this.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
It's funny. The first Oh God is fun.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
It's weird that John Denver is first build though he's
the lead. What yes, John Denver? Sunshine?

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yes that John Denver? Yes?

Speaker 4 (44:22):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Okay, you'd like Oh God, at least the first one,
I think. Okay. Would you rather watch Damnation Alley or
Sidney Poitier directing Bill Cosby and himself and James Earl
Jones in a piece of the action.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
I feel like that's gonna be a difficult watch. I
guess I'll stick with Damnation Allien.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Here's a here's a fun double feature. Would you rather
watch Damnation Alley or Rolling Thunder?

Speaker 3 (44:49):
Oh that's Rolling Thunder. That's Rolling Thunder. Oh god, damn day.
I love that movie.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
Yeah, in my ear?

Speaker 2 (44:58):
What else did we get in seventy seven that you
might remember? Looking for? Mister Goodbar?

Speaker 3 (45:03):
That is a title that I hear all the time.
That is a title that I know, and I have
no idea who's in it? What the movies have I
know nothing about the movie.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Diane Keaton, William Atherton and Tuesday Weld was there.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
A candy bar shortage in the seventies that I didn't
know about.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
No, it is. It is super bleak. It's about a
single woman enjoying her newfound single hood and a divorced woman.
And it's like a cautionary tale of you know, some
would even say panic, you know, but it was. It's
super bleak. But it was well received and it's been
impossible to find for years. And now I just read

(45:40):
that Vinegar Syndrome is putting it out, So that might
be why you read it. That might be why you've
read about it.

Speaker 4 (45:45):
Could be.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Do you remember a horror film called Ruby, Ruby, Ruby,
Ruby Ruby, No, Typer Laurie.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Yeah, I don't know this one either. That's interesting, But it's.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
Interesting that you don't know a horror film that shocks me.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, so that's what was in the marketplace in late
October of nineteen seventy seven.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Yeah, Rolling Thunder would went out easily among that group
for me. But yeah, damnation Alley does not finding a place,
not finding a place at all.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Yeah, and critics didn't like it much either.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Well, and I mean, and part of the problem again,
just how passive these characters are in the story, like
they're literally driving along and they.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
There's no urgency to it. What if, like, instead of
them chasing like a mystery signal, what if this woman said,
we have we have shelter and food. Can you come
help us and help us, like prevent these mutants from
coming in and attacking our base. Yeah, and now they
have to get there in a hurry to save them,

(46:45):
you know, to find a place to live.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
And what you've just done, Scott is you've created conflict.
You've created turmoil for this carrier. Like imagine the broadcast
was we are in desperate need of help, and literally
this entire base blows up. George part is now like
one of the only officers left, like he is the
highest ranking officer because he's one of the old.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Right, and now he has reason to break out his
gung ho commando ad.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
But it also creates the perfect conflict between him and
John Michael Vincent, who is withdrawn from the military. Is
that George Popart still feels like he has a sense
of duty and John Michael Vincent's like, what are you
talking about duty? Everything is gone? This is stupid. That
would actually be something, Yeah, but no, the broadcast is
just hey, we're here. Hi, everybody, hope you're doing well,
Like we gotta go there? Why do you have to

(47:29):
go there? Me?

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, I mean maybe that's some of that stuff, is
what was cut? I'd be interested, even though I don't
love the movie, I'd be interested to know specifically what
was cut.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
But like, okay, So at one point, there's like a
part of their vehicle that's damaged and they have to
replace it using like semi like a semi truck part.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
So they go to a junk yard and while they're there,
this storm hits and literally they just get into the
vehicle and the storm just passes over them. They don't
do anything, they don't steer into it and have to
fire a retro rocket. They literally just hold on and
let the thing roll over until the storm stops.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Right as if as if you and I were out
one day and it started raining and you said, oh shit,
get in the car for twenty minutes till the rain stops,
and they're like, oh, rain is.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
The climax of this movie would be you and I
sitting in a car waiting out the rain.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Oh, the ending of this movie, like I could see
like enjoying the journey, because man, there is nothing as
there is something really special about an aid to you know,
a point A to point B two point c adventure story.
I love that hook. But the last twenty minutes of
this movie, it just feels like they just gave up

(48:35):
the filmmakers. They just ran out of film and just
walked away.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
So not only does this tsunami come and all they
have to do to whether it is just stay in
the vehicle until it stops rolling, that's it. But the
tsunami somehow sets the earth back on its axis.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
And fixes everything. They didn't have to do anything. The
urt just did it itself.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
It's like Indiana Jones, man.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
Deuse ex tara, like what is going on here?

Speaker 2 (49:03):
And then it' feeling man, I don't know what to
tell you.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
And then it's like they get out of the vehicles
like everything's fine now, and now the broadcast is stronger
and they have an exact location. They start communicating and
they get there and essentially it's just like Denton, Texas
or something. It's just like a little town where again
again Scott, the inconsistency of destruction right, the disproportionate destruction
of seventies apocalypse. Is this town is somehow completely untouched.

(49:31):
Nobody looks like they've had a hard day in their life.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Yeah, and I should mention because I was dismissive earlier.
Dominique Sanda born in nineteen fifty one, French actress who's
got a massive body of work. Oh yeah, So I
don't want anybody think we're just looking at it from
like the American perspective. She is, you know, she was
too good for this movie. Let's put it that way.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
She definitely has an ouvra, which is the most appropriate
usage of that word I've ever had.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
I'm trying to just scanning through to see Wings of
the of eighty one she was in She Yeah, she
mostly worked internationally.

Speaker 4 (50:04):
But Crimson Rivers, Oh yeah, with Genre Renaud.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, very cool. But she had a seventies. She was
in The Macintosh Man in seventy three, she was in
nineteen hundred, in seventy six and Beyond Good and Evil.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
But was she in nineteen hundred or in nineteen seventy six?
That's very confusing.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Yeah, she did Beyond Good and Evil the same year
as dam Nation Alley, and then I think went back
to France.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
Damnation Alley, She's like, you know, for fuck this, I'm
going back to France.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah. I mean it's a lot of this movie looks
like it was probably difficult to shoot.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
But I mean these are not fun. These characters aren't
saving the world. They're not saving each other. Really, they're
they're not engaged in a mission that has a lot
of value or.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, and the jam Michael Vincent is kind of likable,
but not entirely. He's got kind of a good attitude,
but not much character.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
Not enough to carry the movie.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
And Papart is you know, when he's asked to play
charming and roguish and funny, he's a movie star, Yeah,
but he's not asked to do that here. He's very
grumpy and unlikable.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
Yeah, it's just it, I don't understand.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
It really feels Winfield is likable, but he dies and
then Jackie Orhley filled some of that space. But you know,
it's like there's very it feels like if a lot
of character beats were cut too.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
Yeah, there was a lot that had to be cut
out of this movie. Like there's so much that feels
like it's missing. I would have, honestly, if we could
have had one more giant animal or mutani animal attacks a.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Little bit more even, Yeah, make it campier, make it
more attacks, make it more comic. Bookie would have helped, Yes.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Turn this into a what's his name? The guy who
did Day of the Animals and uh Girdler. Girdler, Yeah,
turn this into a William Girdler movie that would be
something man like, like apocaly like Day of the Apocalyptic Animals.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
I would watch in a hard bat.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
It feels like it feels in some ways like a
group of indie filmmakers who said, oh, we can make
a cool post we have great idea for a post
apocalyptic movie that we can make, and they just ran
out of ideas. They just wanted to make something with
this premise because it was kind of prevalent in this empties.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
And there's steel like we could have, Like there are
parts of this movie that I enjoyed, Like if this
movie had been like a post apocalyptic we have a mission,
we have to go somewhere across the country, and that
these individual stops, these individual complications along the way had
been a little i don't want to say grittier, but
just fleshed out more like really, given the opportunity to

(52:34):
delve into the type of sci feathers being made at
the time. For example, you know, we run a foul
of these mutated hillbillies, like maybe the kid is the
one that kills one of them, and then he has
to wrestle with like, oh my god. Or maybe you know,
John Michael Vincent kills one of them and then it's
like I killed one of the last potential people on
the earth.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
It's like, yes, but he's horrible. Yeah, but you know,
like like make.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
It a morality play, like dig into all of the
really interesting philosophical shit that these sci fi movies usually did.
Or if you're making this more of a like Disney
movie of the Week and you want families to go
see it, give us a little bit more adventure and
still give us a reason why this thrown together family
has to get to Albany other than George Papark just
wants to go there.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yep, thank you. It really does feel like both said
like two different seventies subgenres of sci fi wedged together,
like the cerebral cautionary stuff combined with escapism, and neither
of them work particularly well.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
I don't think now that being said, Scott, I think
you were bang on with what you said about this
is probably a movie that played on TV all the time.
And if I saw this movie as a kid, I
would have seen it as a ninety minute commercial for
that vehicle that I wanted to buy.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
Like, I would have loved it for that.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
I could totally understand why this movie, why people would
have a soft spot in their heart for this movie.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Absolutely. I mean, you know, lots of movies were popular
just because of a vehicle. It's not uncommon, especially in
this era.

Speaker 4 (54:00):
You know, it's like a really long episode of G I.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Joe, essentially Dukes of Hazzard post apocalyptic.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
You know what if this if this vehicle was like
jumping more stuff and like it freeze framed in the
air and you just heard whiling. Jenny was like, Oh,
it looks like that damn nationality is at it again.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yep, Dan Michael vincent, He's sure up to no good.

Speaker 4 (54:20):
That John Michael is still vincenting. It's Jan is it Jan?

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Yes? Not like Jon Hammer, Nope, it's Jan Michael, like
Jan Brady.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Sure, Jan, I.

Speaker 5 (54:32):
Don't know what we're gonna find, but getting as the
only way we'll ever.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
Know and that brings us to the junk food pairing
it's got.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
For this one, I went with a snack that is
both delicious and has become sort of a punchline for
the additives and preservatives in modern snack foods that would
help it survive in apocalypse.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
I went with Twinkies.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
I was just gonna say, you must be choosing a Twinkie.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Yes, I feel like eating a Twinkie or two is
the perfect way to enjoy Damnation Alley and the Wasteland vibes.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
I was just gonna say, some beautiful Texas barbecue would
go with this movie.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
I mean, I'm always in the mood for Texas barbecue, all.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Right, only because of it. It feels hot and you know,
it feels you know, sweaty, and there are scorpions. Yep,
That's what I was thinking of when I was watching
the movie. I'm like, Okay, this is a this is
a barbecue movie.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
Okay, But level with me.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
How many times are you watching a movie and your
first thought is I want some Texas barbecue.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
Because I ventured it's a lot.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Of movies at least twice a day.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
That is Damnationality an interesting disaster for sure, Alan Meyer,
I hope that you appreciate the deep dive we've done
into the movie, if maybe not our favorite film, one
that is fascinating to unearthed.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
And it was a painless it was quick. Oh yeah,
you know it's short, and you know it's not like
it has a few dryer areas, but it's not like
completely boring. It was like, yeah, it wasn't like a
miserable watch.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
The lack of complications, the lack of like deep character
introspection really made this movie fly.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
I mean, yeah, we were across the country real damn quick.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
The lack of a plot and character development is often
helpful to a film's past.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
Me and hey, we got to see Kip Nevin from
New Year's Evil in something else, So I'll take that
as a win any goddamn day. Speaking of wins, we
have ten years of Junk Food Cinema on your favorite podcast.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
You can follow us on social media and if you
really liked the show.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
I mean you really liked the show.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
I mean you like it as much as Fox really
liked Damnation Alley over Star Wars, you can go to
Patreon dot com slash Junkfood Cinema for as little as a
dollar episode.

Speaker 4 (56:32):
You are financially supporting the show and we greatly appreciated. Scott.
Please tell people where they can find you on the interwebs.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
You can find me on Blue Sky as plain old Weinberg.
And if you want to check out a show that's
similar to junk Food but with a little more pointed asset,
a little more pointed focus, I should say towards underloved movies,
which this would qualify. I think you can go to
patreon dot com slash Scott E. Weinberg and subscribe to
over hated for five dollars month. You get five episodes

(57:01):
a month. And I got some great ones coming up
this month. I just published one with my friend Laurel
for Southland Tales, and she made I don't agree with her.
I don't like the film, but she made some good
arguments for her point for why she likes it.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
See your podcast is sort of like movie mathematics, whereas
Junk Food Cinema is like film analysis by the wise
asses at the back of the shop class.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
I'm fine with either. I'll take either. I like both.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
That's gonna do it for Junk Food Cinema this week.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
And to quote mister Jackie Earl Haley in the movie
Nothing Good ever happens all by itself.

Speaker 4 (57:36):
You gotta make it.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
And that's why I'm petitioning the federal government every day
to force Keebler to bring back magic middles.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Oh, I'm all for that, and would give me the petitions.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
WHOA, that's Jan Michael. Excuse me, nurse? Can you take
my temperature because I think I have Jan.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Quadrant vincent fever over here.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
Alright, Marty, you done it.