Damnation Alley (1977)

Damnation Alley is a low-key 1977 post-apocalypse science fiction movie. Perhaps a bit too low-key.

The movie was based on a novel by Roger Zelazny which he expanded from an earlier novella.

It start with an all-out nuclear war. The men of the 123rd Strategic Missile Wing have survived, at least until another disaster strikes. Four survivors set off on a cross-country journey to Albany, because that’s the only place from which they’ve ever picked up radio signals indicating that there might be other survivors. Denton calls the route to Albany, which skirts areas of high radioactivity, Damnation Alley.

The nuclear war has tilted the Earth’s axis, sending the weather totally crazy. The sky is filled with auroras and radioactive clouds.

They make their journey in two top-secret armoured Landmaster vehicles, which are kind of like a cross between an SUV, a tank and a motorhome. They’re kind of cool, sort of.

In a post-apocalyptic movie you expect roaming bands of mutants but you don’t get that in this movie. In fact the crew of the Landmaster encounter very few humans of any kind. The dangers they face come mostly from the hostile environment.

There are very few action scenes, which again is not what you expect in this genre. The major hazards of post-apocalyptic life seem to be bugs. Gigantic scorpions and armoured cockroaches, that sort of thing.

There is an encounter with radiation-scarred hillbillies.

Four men set off on this journey, some die and two extra passengers are picked up. There’s Billy, a frightened teenaged boy. And there’s Janice (Dominique Sanda), a showgirl they find in an abandoned casino in Las Vegas.

The special effects are at times a bit iffy but this was a 70s movie and I tend to think of iffy special effects as a feature rather than a bug. And it has to be said that the killer cockroaches are very well done and very scary. And the weird skies give this movie a distinctive feel - you really do get the impression that the nuclear war changed absolutely everything and that the world is now a very disturbing place.

The encounter with those killer roaches in Salt Lake City is certainly the highlight of the movie. It’s extremely well shot, it’s creepy and it’s scary.

This was a major studio big-budget production. The visuals (such as the weird skies) are quite impressive. There’s some fine location shooting. But this is a movie that bears little resemblance to Star Wars, which the studio had in production at the same time. There are no epic battle scenes. Damnation Alley had a troubled production history with numerous script rewrites. The original concept was very ambitious but the film fell victim to constant budget cuts. The original cut of the movie was much much longer and included more action scenes and a romantic triangle sub-plot which was eliminated entirely. Which is a pity, since it meant that Janice becomes a minor character and it also has the effect of making the uneasy relationship between Denton and Tanner less interesting.

The main attraction here will be the two leads, George Peppard and Jan-Michael Vincent. Peppard was always fun and enjoyed huge success on television in the 70s and 80s with Banacek and The A-Team. He has a southern accent in this movie, or at least he thinks he’s doing a southern accent. Peppard plays Major Denton, a bit of a martinet who still clings to the military mindset. Jan-Michael Vincent is Tanner. Denton used to be his commanding officer. Tanner was always out of place in the military and he’s a good-natured rebel. Vincent later starred in Airwolf on TV.

As a result of the many script rewrites and the fact that about 45 minutes was cut from the film by the studio the characters feel undeveloped. We never find out what is really bugging Denton. We never find out why Tanner is a rebel or why he and Denton have such a tense relationship. We don’t really get to know Janice. And unfortunately the movie doesn’t have quite enough action or excitement to compensate for the thin characterisations.

Signal One’s Blu-Ray release includes two audio commentaries (plus loads of other extras). I only listened to one of the commentaries, the one with Paul Talbot. He gives an enormous amount of fascinating information about the history of the movie from the time the film rights were bought in 1970 to the time it was finally released in 1977 and he offers plenty of insights into how various effects were achieved. The 16:9 enhanced transfer looks very good (the movie was shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ration which director Jack Smight uses effectively).

There’s also a US Blu-Ray release, from Shout! Factory.

Damnation Alley clearly should have turned out to be a better movie. The potential was there. It just doesn’t really engage the viewer. We don’t get interested in the characters because all the scenes that offered us insights into their emotions and motivations seem to have been ruthlessly cut by the studio. As it stands it’s still not really a bad movie, certainly better than its reputation would suggest, but a bit flat. Worth a look.