Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976)

          Offering a slight twist on the disaster-flick formula, bland telefilm Smash-Up on Interstate 5 begins with the titular catastrophe—a 39-vehicle accident in Southern California—then rolls back to the clock 48 hours. This structure sidesteps the fact that a car accident, by its nature, precludes conventional narrative tension. After all, it’s impossible to anticipate a freak occurrence, whereas if an ocean liner is sinking, a skyscraper is burning, or an earthquake and its aftershocks are happening, characters have time to contemplate impending doom. Smash-Up at Interstate 5 makes a reasonable effort to contrive drama between the setup and payoff, and to create empathy for a spectrum of characters played by a typically hodgepodge TV-movie cast.
          The nominal protagonist is California Highway Patrol Sergeant Sam (Robert Conrad), an adrenaline junkie whose girlfriend, nurse Laureen (Donna Mills), worries she can’t build a life with such a reckless man. Laureen’s sister, Barbara (Sian Barbara Allen), is married to another cop, Jimmy (Tommy Lee Jones), and they’re expecting a child. You get the idea—per the template for this sort of thing, Smash-Up invents lots of ticking-clock plotlines to give the accident as much impact as possible. Other threads include an elderly couple (Buddy Ebsen and Harriet Nelson) dealing with terminal illness, a middle-aged woman (Vera Miles) swept off her feet by a younger man (David Groh), and a small-time crook (Scott Jacoby) taken hostage by a robber on a killing spree. It’s all quite pedestrian, of course, but the ensemble approach ensures that whenever a scene starts to drag, the film is just a cut away from something livelier.
          Directed by small-screen workhorse John Llewelyn Moxley, Smash-Up on Interstate 5 delivers the requisite mixture of romance, pathos, schmaltz, and tragedy. As with most such telefilms, whether any particular scene commands the viewer’s interest depends largely on the viewer’s enjoyment of particular actors—Conrad does his stoic bit, Ebsen provides folksy warmth, Miles lends a touch of elegance, and so forth. (Points to Herb Edelman for his brief but pungent appearance as a swinger.) Alas, the element the movie handles least effectively is the big accident—despite giving a solid blast of crashes and explosions and stunts, the movie rushes through the aftermath too quickly, denying viewers the carnage they’ve been promised for more than 90 minutes.
 
Smash-Up on Interstate 5: FUNKY

Murph the Surf (1975)

          Better known by its rerelease title Live a Little, Steal a Lot, this somewhat entertaining crime picture tells the real-life story of two surfers who made their living as jewel thieves in Miami, Florida, until getting caught following a brazen robbery they committed at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. Competently directed by Marvin J. Chomsky and featuring strong location photography, the picture suffers from a muddled and shallow script. Jumps back and forth in time during the first hour of the story are confusing and unhelpful, while attempts to delve into characters during the remaining 40 minutes never quite bear fruit. Typical of the movie’s narrative problems is the ambivalence about which character occupies the center of the story. Although roguish and tempestuous Jack “Murph the Surf” Murphy (Don Stroud) is the title character and the engine driving most of what happens, the real protagonist, if only by dint of having the most screen time, is his best friend and partner, Allan Kuhn (Robert Conrad). Yet neither character is put across with sufficient insight or nuance to grab the viewer’s imagination. Although they’re both amusing and handsome and mischievous, it’s hard to care when they start quarrelling with each other, and even harder to care whether they get caught.

          The first hour intercuts moments from the big New York job with vignettes of the days and weeks leading up to the crime. Jack and Allan live carefree lives in Miami, committing crimes and surfing and wooing pretty girls, all while managing to avoid capture by police. Some of this material is exciting, such as a boat chase through canals, and some of it is mundane. Complicating the criminals’ idyllic lifestyle is the arrival of lovely Ginny Eaton (Donna Mills), who becomes Jack’s girlfriend but catches Allan’s fancy. She’s a stewardess who eventually helps the boys smuggle loot out of New York City, and Allan’s desire to be with Ginny drives a wedge in his friendship with Jack.

          Beyond mediocre storytelling, the main problem plaguing this picture stems from the leading performances. Conrad does his usual routine of preening and scowling, while Stroud occasionally sacrifices his appealing naturalism on the altar of bug-eyed overacting. One man does too little and the other does too much. Mills is merely adequate, and there’s not enough time devoted to Burt Young’s cranky performance as an investigator. Murph the Surf basically works as a compendium of beefcake shots, daring escapades, and macho standoffs, with playful moments including the bit where the robbers play marbles with priceless gems. Nonetheless, the movie fades from memory almost immediately. Conrad and Stroud reteamed, albeit with much less shared screen time, for the nasty action thriller Sudden Death (1977).

Murph the Surf: FUNKY

Play Misty for Me (1971)

          Clint Eastwood stepped well outside his comfort zone for his first feature film as a director, setting aside the action genre for a psychosexual thriller, and although his casting in the lead was inevitable—trading acting for opportunity is how most stars get their first directing gigs—it’s admirable that he took on the additional challenge of playing a textured role. Instead of incarnating his usual tight-lipped tough guy, Eastwood portrays a man who makes his living by talking (a radio DJ), and instead of battling some formidable male equal, he squares off against little Jessica Walter.

          The story is basically the same as that of Fatal Attraction, which was made more than a decade later—a man has a fling with the wrong woman, and then pays for his misdeed when he tries to dump her and thereby invokes her violent wrath. Eastwood plays Dave, a radio personality based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, the quaint Northern California enclave that, incidentally, has been Eastwood’s offscreen home base for decades. One of Dave’s regular callers is a sexy-voiced mystery lady who asks him to play the smoky jazz standard “Misty” every night. The woman, Evelyn (Walter), soon appears in Dave’s real life and offers herself to him. Yet while Dave made it clear all he wanted was a one-night stand, Evelyn has different ideas. She becomes obsessed, intruding into every aspect of Dave’s life, making public scenes that hurt his career, and eventually threatening the real object of Dave’s affection, his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Tobie (Donna Mills).

          Play Misty for Me is a straightforward stalker picture, and the best parts of the movie illustrate how easily Dave falls into Evelyn’s trap and how impossible it is for him to extricate himself. He’s complicit in his own crisis. Screenwriters Jo Heims and Dean Riesner carefully foreshadow Evelyn’s dark side even in the character’s first scenes, and the script emphasizes that the only thing preventing Dave from sensing Evelyn’s danger is his arrogance. Well, that and lust, since Dave is a swinger whose relationship with Tobie is forever being tested by his extracurricular conquests. Like Fatal Attraction, this movie is a warning to men who play the field—as Dave’s fellow DJ, Al (James McEachin), says with a wink, “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.”

          The last hour of the picture pays off the premise nicely, with several vivid scenes of suspense and violence, and Walter devours her role, creating a memorable movie monster grounded in believable, if deranged, emotions. Many of Eastwood’s directorial tropes manifested in this first effort, notably dark lighting and languid pacing, and the only major flaw with Play Misty for Me is that it sometimes meanders—for instance, was the indulgently long scene at the jazz festival really necessary? Still, this is well-executed popcorn entertainment, and it’s touching that Eastwood cast his directorial mentor, Don Siegel, in a minor recurring role as Dave’s favorite bartender.

Play Misty for Me: GROOVY