Uma Estrada Muito Doida

I remember watching this movie over and over again when I was a kid. I loved it. Whilst I haven't watched it recently, I am sure I would enjoy it just the same today. Its a very light funny movie guaranteed to make anyone laugh. The situations with each one of the characters were so funny and imaginative! I particularly liked the one with the girl traveling with her mother's ashes (who ends up picking them up on the highway after the explosion) , the robbers and the nuns. This nice humour style is much missed these days. Also, this movie proved that actor Paul Keenan (Dynasty/Days of our Lives) was off to a great start. I recommend it to anyone lucky enough to find it in their local video shop.

HONKY TONK FREEWAY involves a small Florida tourist town named Ticaw and the people who live there, led by William Devane playing the part of the Mayor/Preacher Kirby T. Calo who also operates a hotel and tiny wildlife safari park. The town's major draw is a water-skiing elephant named Bubbles. When the state highway commission builds a freeway adjacent to the town, Devane slips an official 10,000 dollars to assure an off ramp. The off ramp doesn't come so the townsfolk literally paint the town pink to attract visitors. Meanwhile, we are introduced to several characters from various parts of the United States all for one reason or another are heading to Florida. We know they will all end up in Ticaw but finding out why and how is half the fun. There are bank robbers from New York (George Dzundza, Joe Grifasi) who pick up a cocaine dealing hitchhiker (Daniel Stern), a Chicago copy machine repairman and wannabe children's author Duane Hansen (Beau Bridges) who picks up a waitress Carmen Odessa Shelby (Beverly D'Angelo) who is carrying her mother's ashes to Florida, a dentist and his family (Howard Hesseman, Teri Garr, Peter Billingsly) vacationing cross country in their RV, an elderly woman Carol (Jessica Tandy) with a drinking problem and her loving husband Sherm (Hume Cronyn, of course), two nuns (mother superior Geraldine Page, novice nun Deborah Rush), a wannabe country song writer hauling a playful rhino and other wild animals to Ticaw, and more. This is a very funny movie with quirky interesting characters, good actors, a great director (John Schlesinger who helmed Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man and The Falcon and the Snowman) and a mix of slapstick comedy in the tradition of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and biting satire of American small towns such as Cold Turkey. Think Mayberry meets Picket Fences, or Hal Needham meets Robert Altman. A fun film with where half the fun is to see who's going to show up in the film and what's going to happen next.

Unappreciated in a way MAD MAD WORLD was celebrated, HONKY TONK FREEWAY is an international view of crass funny Americana. A megaton flop in its day, it does deserve reappraisal and basically awe for the extravagant scope and cost of the production. Also like NASHVILLE or THE BIG BUS or even RAT RACE it is an ensemble comedy cruelly harpooned by dumb critics of the day who only reviewed the excess and the cost. This must have been an unappreciated accounting legend, like CLEOPATRA, or 1941 (which I love), HEAVENS GATE, LUCKY LADY or later THE BLUES BROTHERS as demented American films that are clever and made with vision, especially when one considers the cost and failure of Mall releases of today. A DVD reissue with the sort of 3rd disc that Cleopatra has will be very welcome.

VERY memorable comedy. It's fun to watch the many situations develop and finally converge after a long journey on that greatest collection of eclectic humanity (and the world's largest honky-tonk) - the great American Freeway. Like "...mad, mad world" it's got loads of contemporary talent, old-boy politics, good comedic action and dialog. Unlike that one it is the target that seeks, not the unwitting seekers - they have no idea what they really want as they drift along America's great road. Nor does it carry the weight of having a great fall guy who is saved only in the end by a great belly-laugh. But the ending stunt sequence is nothing short of spectacular with excellent film editing, humor and timing, and the big city bank scene is hilarious with very original acting by one very talented character in particular. The total aplomb of the city dwellers in the face of chaos leaves one feeling like the proverbial fly on the ceiling. The slapstick is funny, but Honky Tonk Freeway deserves to be heard and seen closely because it is surprisingly loaded with nuance and character reactions that are easily missed. All in all a very funny reflection of who we were and are, good or bad, and the goofy situations we find ourselves in. It was just meant to be FUNNY and it is!

I think I've been in the movies.

The freeway scenes were filmed in Orlando, on the East-West Expressway (today known as SR 408.) I worked evenings for a bus company on Division St. (about 20 blocks south of downtown) and one summer night in 1980 I got off work about 1 a.m. and took the East-West Expressway home to Goldenrod (on the east side of town.) Back then, the toll was only 25 cents (man!) and it shaved half an hour off your driving time, so I went up Orange Ave., hung a right on Anderson St. and burned rubber up the entrance ramp. There was some guy standing there with a flashlight and he almost jumped out in front of me to get me to stop, but I swung around him and floored it! I thought "who the H*** is that?" as I swung up onto the Expressway at 65 MPH.

Suddenly I realized something funny was going on... the traffic was bunched together in one giant wolf-pack, and the whole pack was only going about 45. Thinking nothing of it, I just started weaving from lane to lane through the pack, still going at least 65, until I popped out the front and left 'em all in the dust.

It was only later that I found out that the cops had closed the expressway for about 2 hours that night so that they could film a scene in Honky Tonk Freeway! (Everybody was driving 45, but the film was sped up later to make it look like 65 or 70.) I busted right into the middle of their scene, and maybe I messed it up! Maybe they had to re-shoot that scene! To the director, I can only say: sorry!

So, if you see a brand-new pastel-blue 1980 Chevrolet Citation notchback coupe in that scene really hauling butt, it was me!