Anyone heard of this movie? My dad says he remembers seeing it on TV in the 70s, and that it's the worst movie he's ever seen.
Oh yeah, "ABC Tuesday Night Movie" or some such, waaaaaaay back in 197...4? I'm getting too old to remember anymore...
Hokum about a series of unconnected dramas that all finally come together in a multi-car pile-up. In the grand disaster movie tradition: WHO WILL SURVIVE?!? The stories I remember involve an elderly couple (one facing cancer and suicide), some teenagers rebelling and going on a violent crime spree, and a trucker's ill-fated romance with a career woman... Naturally, typical Hollywood irony and justice is doled out in the end, pretty much as you'd expect.
Good--not great--for Crummy Movie Night.
Yes oh yes one of the late night movies I know i was too young to be staying up for and watching back when they would put those on TV. It starred Robert Conrad as a sheriff or something. The old man had a heart attack and it caused a chain reaction that involved I believe 105 cars and trucks or so. The teenagers on a violent spree shot and killed the deputy who's wife had just given birth to their first child. And true to fashion on a Hollywood bad note, she finds out that he has been killed and in a scratchy screamy voice proclaims"but he never got to see the baby". What Hollywood thinks they are doing to make a good movie.
One of Tommy Lee Jones' early ones, by the way; 1976, not 1974.
I just found the really long Japanese title, which translates as: "Thirty-Nine Vehicles! The Largest Collision In History! HIGHWAY PANIC!" Hee hee hee. (I don't know whether the number of vehicles is correct, though.)
http://disasteronline.tripod.com/Movies/suoif1976.html
A little more info, another alternate title. No one seems to agree on the number of vehicles involved.
I went back and watched the movie, or at least tried to when the power went out due to a storm, there were aboput 40 or so cars from what I saw. I had thought that there were like 105 cars, but that number was in reference to the location of the accident from what I was at least able to watch. Sorry for the earlier mistake. A young Tommy Lee Jones at that but as far as facial features go has not really changed much except for getting older.