80 Steps to Jonah

Police chases after a speeding car which crashes. The car is stolen and one of two men gets killed. Mark Jonah Winters (Wayne Newton) is found in the driver seat, but he claims to be only a hitchhiking passenger. The police officers don't believe him. He crashes the ambulance and escapes. He finds himself in a camp for blind children who mistake him for their new handyman. Blind Tracy Rutledge (Diana Ewing) takes a liking to him.

Jonah is really dumb for rushing away from the gas station. There are a couple of issues with the story. Wayne Newton is doing some mumbling acting until he starts singing. He's trying to be Elvis. This is an odd mix of a kiddie movie, a melodramatic young romance, and a high stakes police fugitive hunt. Mostly, this fails as a Wayne Newton vehicle. He doesn't do well especially if he expects to be the next Elvis.

I remember this as a dog of a movie that played on a late-evening flight from O'Hare to San Francisco in January, 1969. Wayne Newton was awful. I saw that he was in a car accident and that he ran away from the police, for some reason. After a bit, I went to sleep, only waking up when Mickey Rooney wandered through to save Newton and a happy ending.

This afternoon, something itched in my brain, so I went looking on IMDB for a Mickey Rooney movie. This is it. I almost never walk out of movies, I would have walked out of this if the exit had not been about 30,000 feet up.

I watched this movie when I was so young that I can hardly remember what it is called. I went to my local video stores and they all had books and said that if it was not in their books it was not a movie. All the books you could look up the actors name. It said nothing about this movie when I looked under Wayne Newton. I just have to say I think a lot of people are missing out by not seeing this movie. I was very compelled when I saw it as a young boy and now hope to be compelled again. I just want to thank the people at IMDB.com for being so extensive in their movie selection.

I recently ran across a letter that I sent to my mom on 11MAY70 from Da Nang, Viet Nam. 80 Steps must of made some kind of impression for this young Marine to write home about altho 32 years later I have no recall about the movie. I wrote "that it was a real family type film and a tear jerker, but a lot of guys really liked it" so now I need to go find a copy on video and see what impressed me so.

About twice a year they'd pack us into the gym on folding chairs and show us a movie. The only one that stuck in my mind was "80 Steps to Jonah." Every kid loved it, and universally declared it to be the best movie we'd ever seen.

Was it really that good? Who knows? I've not seen it since then. But if you're looking for something to watch with kids in the middle-school age range, this one's a good bet.