After a nuclear war, the survivors at a missile base, Major Denton (George Peppard), Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent), Keegan (Paul Winfield), and Airman Perry (Kip Niven), set off in an armored RV to reach the paradise known as Albany. Along the way, they encounter tornadoes, floods, killer cockroaches, gun-toting rednecks, and pick up a woman (Dominique Sanda) and a teenager (Jackie Earle Haley).
Acclaimed science fiction writer Roger Zelazny produced some of the most insightful and thought-provoking novels of the ’60s and ’70s. Damnation Alley was not one of them. It was a fun read for a simple adventure story. I suppose it could have been made into a passable, popcorn movie. This isn’t that movie.
Poor George Peppard. While making this, did he ever sneak away and find an abandoned spot, take a few quick shots of Jack Daniels, and dwell on the past, when he was in The Blue Max and Breakfast at Tiffany’s? In the trade, those are known as “good movies,” where Damnation Alley is known as a “soul sucking, career-destroying joke.” It is useful for actors to have these official designations. I’m guessing money must have been getting pretty tight over at the Peppard household for him to sign on to one of the soul suckers. It does explain his mono-expression throughout the film, with his jaw muscles tense and his eyes wide. He looks angry. That isn’t Major Denton looking angry, but Peppard, angry over what he had been forced to do to make a buck. Is it any wonder that he ended up on The A-Team? It was the only thing even lower. Still, it feels strange watching a production where the man who created Paul ‘Fred’ Varjak appears to be the talentless one compared to Jan-Michael “Airwolf” Vincent.
The film starts in a missile complex before a nuclear war, for no reason I can fathom. Major Denton points out that he doesn’t like Tanner, though this isn’t explained now, or later. Then enemy nukes are reported and Denton and Tanner turn their keys and launch a retaliatory strike, after which, they go upstairs and hang out in the situation room. I guess this is one of those laid back military bases where people can go where they like. Once there, they join everyone else in showing no concern, no emotion whatsoever, about blowing up the world. Then it jumps ahead two years to the new post-apocalyptic world. Why did we have to sit through that fifteen minute opening? I’d like to say it would have been better to start the film in the future wasteland, but that would mean getting to the obviously superimposed, giant blue scorpions sooner, and no one wants that. However, for a laugh, there’s nothing like Jan-Michael Vincent on a motorcycle, kicking at scorpions who obviously aren’t there.
What follows is some pretty unexciting action, as Denton and Tanner drive their special RV through a windstorm (ooooooh!), over some rocks (oooooh), on some sand (ummmmm), and down a road (OK, enough with the driving already!). Of course they have to find a girl, because this is a Hollywood movie. She’s living in a Vegas casino that still has electricity. Every other building has been leveled, but this one has power. Yup, that makes sense. They also stop to get attacked by normal-looking, and completely non-threatening bugs, which gives rise to Denton’s now infamous line, “This entire city is infested with killer cockroaches. I repeat: killer cockroaches!”
Director Jack Smight manages to saturate the film with that cheap made-for-TV look, which he was well acquainted with. But I shouldn’t label him an ineffectual TV director; he was also responsible for the feeble big screen The Illustrated Man, based on Ray Bradbury’s superb book. So, he had experience mutilating the work of science fiction writers. He put that experience to good work here.
But I am being too hard on such an informative film. I learned important scientific principles. I learned that should we set off a nuclear holocaust, radiation won’t be a problem afterwards. The only thing to fear is that the Earth might tip over on its axis. Yup, the Earth might flop on its side. I’m not sure why it would do this, particularly as the blast would leave the continents pretty much in one piece. But anyway, this will cause the sky to change from red to green each day and have little white balls fly around. Yes, white balls in the sky. But what is really interesting is that the Earth might just tip back up again someday, returning everything to normal. What would cause this? Nothing. It just might do it. And afterwards, the world will once again be green and beautiful. Oh, and all this tipping won’t upset the tectonic plates. All will be well, especially in Albany, always known as a garden.
They just don’t make movies like this any more.