Damnation Alley (1977)

Lt. Jake Tanner (Jan Michael Vincent) and Major Eugene Denton (George Peppard) arrived at Fort Tipton AFB in the Mojave Desert.  Denton warned Tanner that he requested a change of assignment, as he doesn't think their styles mesh.  They had hardly taken their post at the launch controls of a nuclear missile silo when a missile strike from the USSR was detected.  Responding to orders, the pair launch all the Fort Tipton missiles.  World War III is over in an hour.

It had been two years and the survivors of Fort Tipton were isolated.  Jake left the Airforce but still lived on base with Keegan (Paul Winfield), another airman who quit the military.  Jake had scouted around on his motorcycle but found no other survivors.  Meanwhile, Major Denton was busy working on an experimental military vehicle, the Landmaster.  He had only just received approval from General Landers to take it into the field when the base exploded in a tragic accident.  When the dust settled, only Tanner, Denton, Keegan, and Lt. Tom Perry were still alive.

Over the last two years, there has only been one repeated signal from Albany, NY.  Denton decided that would be their destination.  Of course, much of the area was an irradiated wasteland but there was a path through the destruction, a corridor named Damnation Alley.  With stops in Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Detroit, the survivors of Fort Tipton must overcome hostile new lifeforms, extreme weather events, and bandits, while also collecting other survivors: Janice (Dominique Sanda) and Billy (Jackie Earle Haley).

Intended as a sci-fi epic, this was released the same year as Star Wars.  Amazingly, 20th Century Fox expected Star Wars to be the flop and Damnation Alley to be the hit.  The movie fits nicely into the disaster theme that was popular in the 1970s, even borrowing footage from Earthquake (1974), an earlier disaster flick.

Roger Zelazny, who authored the story upon which this was based, hated the film.  Looks like I'm going to have to read the book and find out why.

Anyway, the movie is just okay.  It feels more like a low budget SyFy channel movie than a big studio production.  In fact, I always thought it was made for TV until this latest viewing.

How the West Was Won (1962)

The epic 1962 film is told in five parts, all following the Prescott family.

The Rivers (1839): Zebulon Prescott (Karl Malden) has decided to move west.  He sold his farm in the east, packed up his family, and boarded a boat on the Erie Canal in Albany, NY.  Soon, the family is rafting down the Ohio River in search of land to farm.  On the way, they meet mountain man Linus Rawlings (Jimmy Stewart) and have a run in with river pirates.  Zebulon and his wife drown in the river and their elder daughter, Eve (Carroll Baker) decides that this is where she will settle with Linus.  Her younger sister, Lilith (Debbie Reynolds), has no desire to farm and plans to return to the East.

The Plains (1851): Lilith, who showed a knack for singing, dancing, and just being entertaining during The Rivers, is now a professional entertainer in St. Louis.  She receives word that an admirer has left her a gold strike in California.  She decides to claim her gold mine and joins a wagon train headed to California.  The wagonmaster, Roger (Robert Preston), finds her attractive and pursues her.  Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), a down on his luck gambler, had heard of her gold claim and is following to take advantage.  The journey makes him a better man and he weds Lilith.

The Civil War (1861 to 1865): Zeb Rawlings (George Peppard) wants to join the army and follow his father to war.  Eve tries to convince him to work for her sister in California but he's determined.  He joins and soon finds that war has no glory.  His father dies at Shiloh in 1862.  When the war is done, he returns to the farm to find his mother has died.  He declines his brother's offer for half the farm and stays in the army to go further west.

The Railroad (1868): The railroad is being built to join the east and the west.  Mike King (Richard Widmark) cares not a whit about anything but getting the railroad constructed as fast as possible.  It is left to Lt. Zeb Rawlings to try to keep the peace with the Arapaho.  He is helped in that task by Jethro Stuart (Henry Fonda), a man who used to trap with his father.  Eventually, King presses the Arapaho too far and Zeb can take it no more.  He resigns the army and rides out west.

The Outlaws (1889): Lilith is forced to sell most of her belongings in San Francisco as she is broke and Cleve has died.  However, she still has a ranch in Arizona and she knows just the man to run it: her nephew Zeb.  Zeb spent much of the intervening years as a marshal.  He has married and has 3 children.  A settled life appeals to his wife.  However, an old enemy, Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach) happens to be in Arizona and is keen on revenge for his brother's death at Zeb's hands.  Deducing that Gant has arrived to stage a train robbery, Zeb plans to be on that train to catch him in the act with the help of Sheriff Ramsey (Lee J Cobb).

At 2 hours and 44 minutes, it's a long film.  Some casting choices are goofy.  According to his tombstone, Linus Rawlings was born in 1810, meaning he was 28 or 29 when he met Eve in The Rivers.  In fact, Jimmy Stewart was 53!  Agatha Clegg has joined the wagon train to find a man in the west but is played by 60 year-old Thelma Ritter.  Optimistic.  Though I like Harry Morgan, he is totally overshadowed by John Wayne in their scene together.  General Grant should not be so overshadowed by a subordinate, even Sherman.  Someone with more star power should have been cast as Grant to balance out John Wayne.

This is a Western that covers all the bases: mountain men, buffalo stampede, railroads, Indian attacks, wagon trains, gambling on steamboats, train robbery, gun fights, romance, dancehall girls, and on.  Five movies in one which tie together neatly.  Entertaining from start to finish.  Thumbs up.