Today’s movie is a
comedy with a scene that happens on May 31. I hope you will enjoy this film 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 a 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”.
Screenplay – Norman Lear and William Price Fox
Producer - Norman
Lear
Director - Norman
Lear
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
Tom Poston as Mr.
Stopworth
M. Emmet Walsh
as Art
Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment