May 31 - Cold Turkey

Here is today's movie with a scene that happens today - May 31. I hope you enjoy it and watch it tonight. 

COLD TURKEY

Merwin Wren proposes that the tobacco industry offer a town $25 million dollars to quit smoking for 30 days, to create goodwill a la the way the Nobel Peace Prize improved Alfred Nobel’s image, in the certainty that no town can do it. The town of Eagle Rock, Iowa is in the financial dumps because the local air base was closed. Colonel Galloway tells Mayor Wappler  and local minister Rev. Brooks that the town needs to improve its industrial, social and educational facilities to get the base re-opened. They of course don’t have the money. Rev. Brooks wants to be re-assigned to Dearborn, Michigan, but his bishop won’t until things improve in Eagle Rock. When they hear about the offer there is a lot of opposition, but some people see the potential to get money for the town. Rev. Brooks becomes the cheerleader for the plan, even though his wife is a secret smoker. Rev Brooks starts smoking again to force a few holdouts to agree to sign the non-smoking pledge. On the last day, May 31, 1971 [31:29 to 44:52] Dr. Proctor is blackmailed into signing the pledge by the threat of foreclosure. The town’s “man-about-town”, Mr. Stopworth is sent out of town for the month. The members of John Birch society clone agree to sign the pledge if they can enforce compliance. Eagle Rock gets everybody to sign up at the last minute. The tobacco executives are upset at this. Mayor Wappler and his wife start fighting the day the ban begins. All kinds of nuts start descending on the town. Wren goes to Eagle Rock and the smokers start going nuts without smokes. Rev. Brooks becomes a sex fiend with his wife to try and get over not smoking. Tempers flare in the town. Dr. Proctor almost cracks. Newscasters Walter Chronic, David Chetly and Hugh Upson arrive in Eagle Rock. The town starts to profit from billboards and selling souvenirs to the tourists who visit the town. The town council starts fighting over how to spend the money before they even have  the money. On the last night, a citizen proposes dividing the money equally among the town’s citizens. Wren pays to set the town clock ahead and drops cigarettes on the crowd. Dr. Proctor and Wren get accidentally shot. They get the money and the president shows up. The polluting Mercury missile factory moves to the town . 

This is a very dry social humor kind of movie but I do like it. It is full of biting satire that pokes fun at just about everything and everybody. Consumerism, hypocrisy, greed and even TV commercials and news anchors are deftly satirized.

At 22:29 the non-smoking pledge says the non-smoking period will start “beginning at midnight, June 1”.

Producer - Norman Lear

Director - Norman Lear

Screenplay - Norman Lear and William Price Fox Jr.

Runtime – 1 hour 39 minutes

Released - February 19, 1971

Starring -  

Dick Van Dyke as Rev. Clayton Brooks

Pippa Scott as Natalie Brooks

Bob Newhart as Merwin Wren

Vincent Gardenia as Mayor Wappler

Jean Stapleton as Mrs. Wappler

Barnard Hughes as Dr. Proctor

Paul Benedict as Zen Buddhist

Helen Page Camp as Mrs. Watson

Bob Elliott as Hugh Upson

Ray Goulding as Walters Chronic

Edward Everett Horton as Hiram C. Grayson “Mr. Tobacco”

Graham Jarvis as Amos Bush

Harvey Jason as the hypnotist

Judith Lowry as Odie Truman

Tom Poston as Mr. Stopworth

M. Emmet Walsh as    Art

watch Cold Turkey, part 1