Una scommessa in fumo

I came across this film on BBC2 late at night one time only in the early eighties. I've never seen it again, and I would love to. There are moments in this film which will make you wet yourself laughing. Puppy on the pavement anyone? If this movie ever shows up on your TV schedules, set the video, pop open a beer or five and watch a totally underrated classic. Dick Van Dyke makes up for his horrendous "Gawd bless yer, Mary Poppins" accent with this one movie. Watch it - and any TV schedulers out there who can get this on British TV again, DO IT!

Much like "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "Cold Turkey" shows how crazy people can get when they're greedy. The plot centers on a town whose people are offered a lot of money if they can stop smoking for an entire month. They agree after getting convinced by the local clergyman (Dick Van Dyke), but things start going crazy when they don't get to have their cigarettes.

The movie also pokes fun at the media, with characters like "Hugh Upson" and "Walter Chronic". But overall, the movie makes fun of the "wholesome Middle America" image, showing how even seemingly idealistic small town folk can get corrupted when money is in the picture.

Never was the human limitations tested as they were in this film, when the town of Eagle Rock, Iowa, must quit smoking for 30 days to win a foolish challenge proposed by a big tobacco company. As Parent Trap became a strange testimony on how divorce affects children, so has Cold Turkey become a statement on addiction and withdrawal, with humorous results.

Dick Van Dyke is the town minister who finds himself caught up leading the fray; first he must develop an addiction, then join his neighbors in quitting. Barnard Hughes is the town doctor, who cannot quit smoking at all. The fight with his wife over the ashtrays in the car brings a smile to my face everytime. Bob Newhart is the tobacco company representative who must now get someone to start smoking so they will lose the bet. Pippa Scott is Van Dyke's wife, Natalie, who endures some of the most verbal spousal abuse, laced with concern and mock sincerity ("There's a demon in you, Natalie. Why are you working against me, Natalie?"), that I have ever heard. Scott only has one scene with dialogue. Jean Stapleton, Vincent Gardenia, Paul Benedict, Barbara Cason, Tom Poston and Graham Jarvis also appear in various roles. And yes, Bob and Ray spoof many of the newscasters who were popular at that time with hilarious results. They do it so well and are both so unassuming, you will not realize it is the same two guys over and over again. But the town's withdrawal is hysterical as well. I will always love when the crossing guard screams at the little girl. And the auto smash-up that happens just before the dog-kicking incident will hold your undivided attention. Finally, the town council is told if they can wait another day or so, the president of the United States himself, then Richard Nixon, will present Eagle Rock with the prize money. The council's reaction is absolutely brilliant. Add to all of this a typical Randy Newman song, 'He Gives Us All His Love', played at the beginning, the end and when Dick Van Dyke realizes the town is caught up in its own celebrity as he watches over a dozen children run by wearing masks of his own face. They just don't make films like this one anymore.

I can't understand why a film with such big names, both in front of and behind the camera, is not available on DVD. Is there a conspiracy? Does "Big Tobacco" not want anyone to see this? I understand this is a "niche" film, but c'mon, surely there is a small distributor willing to pick up the rights and get this into the hands of the people? Dick Van Dykes name alone should be enough to warrant a release, along with Bob Newhart and Norman Lear. I guess that unless there are some big, firey explosions or gratuitous nudity (not that there's anything wrong with that)then something isn't worthy of a DVD release. This is a well-acted and scripted satire of the culture of smoking and gives great insight into how smoking was treated 35 years ago.

... and that is really no surprise since this film was written and directed by Norman Lear, architect of so many hit TV shows in the 1970s.

Bob Newhart plays Merwin Wren, a tobacco executive who pitches the idea of giving 25 million dollars to any town that gives up tobacco for one month. He figures this will redeem the image of the tobacco industry, and what town could get every smoker to give up smoking for a month?

Enter tiny town of four thousand, Eagle Rock, Iowa. It lost a major employer and people are leaving town. The military has said that Eagle Rock is at the top of the list to receive a new missile manufacturing plant, but they have to spruce up the town's infrastructure first. But how, with a diminishing tax base? So, encouraged by the town's preacher, Clayton Brooks, the town takes the pledge.

Wren's job is on the line if Eagle Rock succeeds, so he goes to the town to try and get just one smoker's foot to slip. Meanwhile, tobacco withdrawal hits the entire town hard with comic results. If you've ever watched a loved one go through such withdrawal, this will look familiar to you. The first half of the film is about the comic attempt to stop smoking. The second half is about how easy it is for greed to set in once the town becomes famous and is making just about as much money from tourism as it hopes to make from the tobacco company if it succeeds.

The film is classic Lear as he lampoons just about everything - men of the cloth, men of medicine - they were all men back then, marriage, big business, right ring groups that see Communism everywhere but really just want to be authoritarians themselves, and news anchors back when they were actually respectable and weren't just talking heads.

The billing of the cast is really odd in retrospect. As expected, Dick Van Dyke is top billed. But second billed is...Pippa Scott? She doesn't even have that big a role in the film! And Bob Newhart, who was really great at playing the slimy little weasel here is bottom billed!

I'd highly recommend it. It is certainly one of Dick Van Dyke's better film roles and you get to see Norman Lear at work just as he was becoming famous.