Smash-Up on Interstate 5

I was 7 when this was on TV and was so hyped by the commercials for it. My favorite thing was the time clock in the corner of the screen: 40 minutes to smashup, 30 minutes to smashup, 20 minutes to smashup, etc. Obviously trying to keep people tuned in. And it worked!! At least for a 7 year old kid. My 10

year old brother and I were on the edge of our seats, even tho we were sitting on the floor, our eyes glued to the screen. I was so excited by it waiting for the big smashup and was in heaven when it finally happened! Being kids we just wanted to see cars smashed, not concerned about anyones welfare. Awesome!

After years of disaster films set on planes, ocean liners and even on trains, we finally got one set on the freeway. Other than that, it is just like the rest of the seemingly endless parade of mid-1970's disaster epics. Also, the characters were just like the ones in the others. You had the lonely rich middle age lady who finds love with a trucker, the older couple facing a terminal illness, the young lovers on the run and the vengeful cop looking for his partner's killer. All of these characters could have been put on the plane, train or ship but instead they are all on a collision course on a major California freeway. Also, it was pretty interesting that this film began with the "smash-up" and showed all the events leading up to it and showing it again at the end and all the aftermaths. For all its faults, it still was a pretty good film.

I saw this movie when it aired on ABC, and at the time I was 10 years old. This movie scared the daylights out of me, but I have always remembered it for decades. I'd love to be able to see it again, and have just now saw it posted on here. I didn't realize the amount of stars that at the time weren't even known. This and several other movies from ABC's line up would be great to get on DVD.

I know now why highways have always scared me, and it was because of this movie. I still can't believe that my parents let me watch it at such a young age, but then I saw Deer Hunter, Godfather and Apocalypse Now before I was ten.

The 1976 TV movie SMASH-UP ON INTERSTATE 5 was one of the many disaster movies that popped up on the small screen during the 1970s as a spin-off of the larger big-screen efforts like EARTHQUAKE and THE TOWERING INFERNO.

Instead of being set in a plane, a train, or in a highrise, this film's disaster takes place along one of the most heavily traveled highways in America--Interstate 5 in Southern California. In flashbacks, it depicts the film's main characters in the forty-eight hours leading up to those frightening moment when dozens of vehicles pile into one another in a freakish fashion. Featuring such TV stalwarts as Robert Conrad, David Groh, and Donna Mills, as well as a young Tommy Lee Jones (still four years away from his breakthrough role in COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER), SMASH-UP ON INTERSTATE 5, given the melodramatics of the situation, is fairly well-directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, who helmed the classic 1972 TV film THE NIGHT STALKER, and with a reasonably convincing pile-up scene.

SMASH-UP ON INTERSTATE 5 was one of the most entertaining entries on the Tuesday and Wednesday Movies of the Week. This episodic drama, somehow economically told in 90 minutes, opens with a spectacular 39-car crash on a deserted stretch of highway. The film then flashes back 48 hours before the crash occurs and through multiple stories we get to meet all of the people involved in the crash and what they were going through at the time of the crash. The impressive all-star cast includes Vera Miles, Robert Conrad, Donna Mills, Buddy Ebsen, David Groh, Scott Jacoby, and there's an especially lovely turn by Harriet Nelson, widow of TV icon Ozzie Nelson. I like the way this movie showed us the crash first and then took us back. For some reason, it made us care even more about these people, knowing what was ahead for them.