I’m happy to report that after having had all of my matter rearranged by my second Covid shot on Wednesday, I have been feeling tip-top all weekend. So I will arise, phoenix-like, to assume the co-pilot’s chair for tonight’s rescheduled conversation about “Damnation Alley” (1977).
20th Century Fox put all its chips on this post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, starring a mustachioed George Peppard (clearly a long way from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” but getting a lot closer to “The A-Team”) and bad boy Jan Michael Vincent (inordinately proud of his dirt bike skills).
They’re joined by lifetime Actors Studio member Paul Winfield, and young Jackie Earle Haley, trading rocks for baseballs, right in the middle of his hot streak of “Bad News Bears” movies. Winfield and Haley were past and future Academy Award nominees (Winfield for “Sounder” in 1972, and Haley for “Little Children” in 2006). Bertolucci favorite Dominique Sanda lends some cosmopolitan “je ne sais quoi” to the “gonna say cray-cray.”
Director Jack Smight delivered his cut of the film in time for a projected December 1976 release. Unfortunately, that’s when the serious meddling began. Thanks to studio intervention, corner-cutting, and some rather unfortunate decisions made in post-production, “Damnation Alley” did not open until October of 1977 – five months after Fox’s other, generally-dismissed, sci-fi kid’s picture, a little film called “Star Wars.” And we all know how that turned out. Over the years, “Damnation Alley” may have developed a cult following, but “Star Wars” changed the course of the entire industry. But what’s a little egg on your face, when you wind up sitting on a mountain of gold?
I hope you’ll join us, in our all-terrain armored Landmaster, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Giant scorpions and flesh-eating cockroaches can’t keep me away. From Vaccination Valley to “Damnation Alley,” we’ll be following your signal in the comments section, as we livestream on Facebook this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT!
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