SMASH UP ON INTERSTATE 5
US, 1976, 106 minutes, Colour.
Robert Conrad, Donna Mills, Sian Barbara Allen, Buddy Ebsen, Harriet Nelson, Scott Jacoby, Tommy Lee Jones, Vera Miles, David Groh, Sue Lyon.
Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey.
Smash up On Interstate 5 is a disaster telemovie, a variation on the common treatment of trains, planes etc. This is a highway crash on a public holiday involving 39 cars in which 14 people die and 62 are injured. The crash is shown in detail at the opening and in slow motion and then is repeated swiftly at the end with the audience knowing the people involved and their backgrounds. The flashbacks take the viewers back 43 hours,introducing the characters in a routine kind of way, showing their dilemmas and crises and making them interact in many ways. It makes the final repetition of the crash the more telling. There is a documentary tone taken indicating that while there are statistics there are stories behind the statistics, melodramatic and frequently commonplace.
1. The film seen in the light of the disaster trend of the 1970s? Audience enjoyment of disaster films? Death, danger, human interest, identification? The reality of the highway, audience involvement with cars, the possibility of accidents, injury and death?
2. An enjoyable and satisfying telemovie? The adaptation of the disaster genre and conventions for the television audience: the disaster itself, audience identification and interest, melodrama and soap opera characters and situations, the level of acceptance and appreciation? The suspense, commercial interruptions? Disaster for the audience at how?
3. How authentic was the story? The Californian locations and situations, the cars, trucks and bikes? The American highways, the smash itself and the chain reaction? The reaction of the people as theu crashed? Audience identification with the characters, interest in their lives, the good and the bad, the ordinary and commonplace?
4. The disaster film as a fable about life and death? The significance of life especially when people are confronted by death? When the audience sees death interrupt the flow of life? The significance of values? The readiness of people to die? The film's comments on statistics and the human stories behind the statistics?
5. The effectiveness of the structure of the film: the details of the people in the cars and trucks on the road, the crash, the slow motion of the crash, the freeze?frame and the identification of the characters? The 43 hours and the gradual moving towards the crash? The highlighting of the time and the anticipation of the smash?up? The final reliving of the driving and the crash itself, the fast motion and its effect?
6. Sam as the central character? His explaining the situation to the audience, as a policeman and the film's pro police stand, his training of the men, the difficulties of manning the roads on public holidays? His fellow policeman and the expectation of the child? The relationship with Barbarals sister? The importance of themes of life and death and discussion about these? Sam and his unwillingness to settle down, his girlfriend and her influence and pressures? Barbara and the birth sequence and the sadness of her husband being dead? Her having to cope with this and the help she received? The importance of grief, confrontation? Sam and his work, the encounter with the van, the pursuit of the van, his presence in the crash, his helping with the injured, the reconciliation with the nurse?
7. The screenplay's showing the interplay of people and the coincidences of encounters prior to the crash? The significance of coincidences?
8. The story of Erica, her divorce, her going to the bar, her friend, the pick?up, her refusal, his ringing her up, her decision to go on the trip, the encounter with the bikies and the humiliation, Dale and his saving her, their talk, date, dancing, spending the night? How realistic, authentic? Her comments about the difference of age, interests? Dale's explanation of himself and his wanting to see the world, offering Erica the choices? The morning after and her decision to leave? Dale's pursuit? The discussion prior to the crash? The fact that they survived? The film's presentation of this kind of affair?
9. The elderly couple, the wife's heart condition? Their background, a pleasant couple, their earthy talk, the holiday
and the sabbatical, the house, the party, the illness and the wife's wanting to kill herself and spare her husband, her
going into the sea and being rescued, the hospital sequences, the crash and the irony of the husband being killed and the wife's grief? Themes of death, illness, retirement, suicide?
10. The ugliness of the robbery and the shooting, the hitch-hikers and the bleeding, the driver and his callous
attitude? The shooting of the policeman? The girl and her wanting to go to Big Sur? The bond between the two? Themes of justice, young criminals? The exploitation and their callous attitudes? Death?
11. The picture of the bikies, their seeming innocence, the clash with the police, the taunting of Erica, death?
12. How well did the film emphasise the reality of people involved in such disasters and their repercussions?
