Damnation Alley (1977)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Post-WWIII 'B' road movie set against a post-apocalypse American landscape. It has a slow moving, dreary storyline, complete with indictable visual effects for 1977. Other unexplained natural phenomena jarred from start to finish, but the performances are good, the Landmaster is wonderful, and the lava lamp background effects strangely do enough to sustain our interest. I'm just glad that the seeding of an idea mid-way through that the earth needed to be put back on its axis was just a rumour and not honoured in the ensuing plot. Major-General George Peppard was easily the best thing about this film, keeping it from falling into the groove of 'C' movie folklore.

The movie starts with global thermonuclear war and features a desperate quest, by a handful of survivors, to reach a place of (relative) peace and wellbeing. Now this is a very tone-deaf movie : parts of it are so emotionally poor and arid that they seem to have been made not by human beings but by computers or by octopoids from the planet Zorgbll. Watch out for the scenes, at the very beginning, where enemy missiles come in and rain atomic hellfire on American cities. In a specialised command centre, USA military personnel tries to keep track of the losses : city X is gone, city Y is gone, city Z is threatened, etc. No one falls on his knees, sobbing, or shouts things like : "Washington DC ! That's where my sisters live !" or "My wife and children ! They're burning to death !" Instead, the various characters mainly look somewhat pained and annoyed, as if learning that the Christmas office party has been postponed. So it's clear that the movie has little to offer, when it comes to psychological depth or emotional riches. Sadly, it doesn't have all that much to offer, either, in terms of surprise or tension or excitement. It's pretty much a stew of (post-)apocalyptic stereotypes and tropes : giant mutant animals, hellish landscapes, hard-bitten survivors returning to savagery, etc. Moreover, the quality of the visual and special effects is uneven, meaning that it's difficult to maintain a suitable suspension of disbelief. Even now and then the viewer sees a scene of weird beauty - watch out for those damaged skies - and then suddenly it's giant scorpions that... Giant scorpions that... Don't get me started on the giant scorpions - please.If you're unfamiliar with Roger Zelazny's work : don't let this movie keep you from exploring and enjoying his fine books and novellas. "Damnation Alley" was one of his minor creations and, what's more, the makers of the movie went medieval on their source material, gutting and disemboweling it with slavering savagery. This is pretty much the Adaptation From Hell.An interesting question : why do people acquire the rights to a novel, only in order to gut it like a fish ? I suppose it's a case of conspicious consumption, similar, say, to a French haute couture designer buying the superb furs of rare creatures, and then proceeding to dye the furs bright yellow or tartan-striped scarlet, grey and navy.

The end of the world is here and some guys travel around in a fancy bus-type vehicle.Jerry Goldsmith did the music and the above plot sounds great...so this should be a classic...but it is not! What went wrong? The following year Goldsmith did great scores for The Swarm and Capricorn One, this is the sort of music that was needed for this movie, so where is it Goldsmith??The plot is interesting but the cast don't hold the movie together. A short-lived 1976 TV series, Ark 11, did this whole plot-line a lot better with more pleasing actors/music/costumes.But anyway, Damnation Alley is still worth watching as I love road movies, but you will be shaking your head saying "this could have been so much better".

George Peppard and Jan-Michael Vincent star in Damnation Alley a story about some guys in the Air Force deep in underground bunkers who launch a retaliatory missile strike at the Soviet Union. Of course they and their Soviet counterparts are safe inside while the rest of the world incinerates. But this story isn't concerned with the Soviet experience.Topping that all off the general in charge Murray Hamilton goes bonkers in the bunker and blows it all up, killing nearly everyone inside. All that's left is Peppard, Vincent, Paul Winfield, and Kip Niven. Vincent and Winfield have kind of lost any Air Force discipline, but Niven is still a good Airman and Peppard is in command. They decide to take some all terrain vehicle the Air Force has developed for just such emergency from the Nevada site of their missile base to Albany where they've gotten a signal from what might be other survivors. Of course it could be the signal that the Australians got from San Francisco in On The Beach that amounted to nothing. Still off our fearless four go, leaving behind the desert to some rather large scorpions that have been nuclear enhanced.The rest of the story is the trip east across a nuclear devastated USA. Best stop is in Salt Lake City, where as Winfield describes large armor plated cockroaches have taken over. Along the way Winfield and Niven are lost and Peppard and Vincent pick up Dominque Sanda and Jackie Earle Haley best known for the Bad News Bears.Other than some special effects that were OK, nothing more, there's not much else to recommend Damnation Alley. For fans of Peppard and Vincent and some science fiction buffs.