They don't make 'em like they used to.
The "'em" in this case is obviously made-for-TV movies. We have LOTS, but there's something about the way 1970s America gave us these overly ambitious, incredibly dramatic and perfectly timed for commercial breaks features that just has an incredible charm.
Quick Plot: It's a busy July 4th on the titular California Interstate 5. On this particular holiday in 1976, a 39-car pileup will take the lives of 14 motorists.
These are their stories.
Well, about a dozen of those involved IN said pile-up. After an incredibly impressive opening stunt on par with the opening of Final Destination 2, Smash-Up On Interstate 5 turns the clock back 48 hours to tell us just how we got here, zooming in a few of the drivers who will meet some dramatic fate. It's a very '70s disaster movie collection that includes:
- June (Harriet Nelson) and Al (Buddy Ebsen), an adorable elderly couple trying to make the most out of June's impending cancer
- a gang of bikers who try to assault -
- Erica (Vera Miles), a later-in-life divorcee trying to find her way and stumbling upon a ridiculously romantic doctor-turned-trucker
- Penny and Pete, a runaway couple who hitch a ride with Lee before turning a gun on him but killing -
- a baby-faced Tommy Lee Jones as Officer Hutton, who widows his young wife just as she gives birth the to child he'll never meet
- his brother-in-law and sergeant Sam (Robert Conrad), who wants to marry nurse Laureen (Donna Mills), who refuses to do so because Sam could die on the road and leave her a widow like her sister
Got all that?
Based on the novel Expressway, Smash-Up On Interstate 5 feels unusual today, but probably fit quite well in the epic disaster era of its time. It's a star-studded ensemble piece that culminates in a giant action sequence and a surprising body count. To call director John Llewellyn Moxey a television veteran is like saying Cal Ripken Jr. had good attendance. This is a man whose career spanned four decades, including The Night Stalker and EIGHTEEN episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Not all heroes make it to the big screen.
 |
| But they can still wear capes |
In truth, I'm not really sure what Smash-Up is trying to do as a movie. There's a certain kind of human discovery in getting to know a variety of strangers whose lives will be fundamentally changed (and maybe even ended) in just a matter of hours by a sheer mechanical accident. The day-to-day, how-we-got-here works better for some stories than others. I would have happily watched a full movie centered on June and Al navigating their relationship in the face of disease, while the troubled-runaway-meets-even-
So why even write about it here, you might ask? Well, the odds are somewhat higher that I'll meet my fate at the hands of a bad driver than masked machete-wielding supernaturally gifted maniac, so on that front, Smash-Up IS scary. And you know what? So is being a middle-aged divorcee fighting off the advances of Herb Edelman.
High Points
Seriously, Ebsen and Nelson are so touching as a couple with decades of love and the knowledge that things are about to end. It makes you understand why this kind of storytelling was so popular. When it works, it really, really works
Low Points
Maybe it's just the current state of the country, but the cop stuff (which takes up a significant amount of screentime) is far less interesting than the rest. Even the sheer manipulation of a woman giving birth while her dutiful policeman husband is gunned down summoned more of an eyeroll than frown
Lessons Learned
They don't teach screaming in lamaz
Nothing brings a couple back together like a smash-up!
Never accept a ride from Bad Ronald, even if you're fully armed
The Winning Line
[upon hearing hubby Al tapping out some Chopin on the piano] "You played that the first time we made love!"
I knew Buddy Ebsen was talented, but the ability to play a nocturne while having sex? That's coordination!
Rent/Bury/Buy
Smash-Up On Interstate 5 is far from a classic, but I found it quite entertaining. It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
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