Intriguing, offbeat film by famed radio writer-director Arch Oboler about the survivors of a nuclear holocaust. FIVE stars William Phipps, Susan Douglas and Charles Lampkin, and is probably the first film to deal with a post-apocalyptic theme. 2018-12-10  Damnation Alley was supposed to be 20th Century Fox’s BIG sci-fi blockbuster for the year 1977. Landmaster Dave New Member. Aug 23, 2018. Movie is strange but pretty ambitious considering the state of SFX back then. The SciFi Rock group Hawkwind used it as inspiration for one of their songs as well.

Damnation Alley was quite an unlucky movie seemingly, it was put out with the idea that it would be another profitable sci-fi b-movie but unfortunately for it, a few weeks before it was released a movie called Star Wars was released which changed the rules for sci-fi forever more. To be honest though, I kind of like this one. It has its own significant factors too, for instance it's quite early in the cycle of post-apocalypse movies - the Mad Max series certainly seems to have borrowed some of its ideas – and so I think it's fair to say that its core look and feel went on to be used in quite a few similar movies in the 80's.

Its story starts with a nuclear war devastating the world, leaving a small band of survivors in a desert outpost. After a while they are forced to set off on a journey to try and find other survivors in an all-terrain vehicle. This one has a plot that boils down to a succession of set-pieces strung together along a hazardous trek. It's essentially a road movie.without a road. Along the way our heroes battle giant scorpions, swarms of flesh-eating cockroaches, mutant feral humans and they endure an electrical storm. They also pick up a woman and an incredibly annoying teenage boy.

The film is chock full of corny dialogue and charmingly poor special effects but it remains entertaining nevertheless with good pacing and enough variety of events to ensure things remain interesting. It has to be admitted though that it does end with a very poorly conceived conclusion that felt like it was tagged on because the original idea was too expensive. But on the whole, I found this to be good fun mainly, certainly a fair bit better than its poor reputation suggests. Throughout the beginning of the last half of the 20th century, multiple films have been made that were based off of novels that took place in dystopic wastelands after nuclear fallout. This was all due to the U.S. And Russia being two of the biggest super powers at the time and were currently having a cold war over it.

Well this science fiction genre film is no different in that aspect. But everything else about it isn't entertaining at all. Damnation Alley (1977) is a film adaptation of novelist Roger Zelazny's short story of the same name. And honestly, I think Zelazny's work was more enjoyable than this. This whole movie is just one giant traveling expedition. There is no plot.

Did the writers bother to even jot down the plot or did they just create dialog for the characters? I mean Lukas Heller, the screenwriter from The Dirty Dozen (1967) was on the crew list! Juice cubes 125. Did he become lazy and decide to let Alan Sharp do all the work? And that's just the plot, let's dive into the characters.

The storyline follows Major Eugene Denton played by George Peppard and a small band of misfit characters. That's right, John Hannibal Smith from the original A-Team (1983) stars in this film. Unfortunately, he did not make a wise choice to join this slog of a mess. Along with Peppard is a young Jan-Michael Vincent, who earlier starred in the classic The Mechanic (1972), Paul Winfield who later would play a role in Schwarzenegger's The Terminator (1984) and even Jackie Earle Haley has a part as a homeless kid.

Even the actor who plays Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) remake and Rorschach from Zack Snyder's Watchmen (2009) plays in this movie. Oh and I have no idea how this girl named Janice (Dominique Sanda) even held her own at Las Vegas inside a gambling building with a bunch of sand. Not to mention but she's just there to be an annoying damsel in distress. But enough about her. Here there's barely anything for these characters to expand on. What's made up for lost time, is filler with either traveling through wasteland or trying to survive radioactive storms.

Isn't it amazing how well the cast was put together even before half these actors were famous and still this movie couldn't get much of anything right? The writers are really to blame for this film. Every ten minutes it would be a reoccurring plot point. Travel a little, stop a little, and every time they stopped, they'd either run into someone or something. Sometimes it's human, other times they're over-sized killer animals.

It's just lame. Oh and let's not forget that every time they stop, Jan- Michael Vincent has to pull out his trusty motorcycle to solve all his problems. He uses it for everything! Not even composer Jerry Goldsmith could save this movie. Never have I heard a score so weird that it I couldn't tell what it was trying to represent.

The music sounds like a cross between a video game and real orchestra music. Also it didn't help that for majority of the time, the music was absent. The score is so minimal it is barely even used in any of the important scenes.

Even the introduction had me sitting awkward. Nuclear warheads are blowing up the country and there's no music going on at all?! I mean, that's what it would be like in real life but this is a movie! It's supposed to enhance that experience. The only points I do give it, is for having the really cool looking landmaster vehicle and a couple good special effects.

The effects were standard but SOME of the way the sky's were constructed. They were rather neat. I was more interested in that than the story or characters. The landmaster was also cool. Twelve wheels, rockets, could even be used in the ocean and an extended cabin? What a fortress. That is definitely a vehicle that could withstand nuclear fallout.

Besides this, the film is a wreck unfortunately. This science fiction film adaptation is a boring trek about a story that's not even being told. The whole film is just random events put together. A film I wanted to like, but I was left feeling quite indifferent.

This adaptation of Roger Zelazny's novel turns out to be a junky, often exaggerated piece of cheap post-apocalyptic drive-in schlock that pales alongside its inspiration. The problem mainly lied with it lack of plot episodes within this road movie through a dangerous landscape and the ones they went with were quite flat and half-baked (obviously outside the killer cockroaches segment). In some aspects its budget couldn't entirely match its vision. What made the feature though were its steady performances (Paul Winfield is always a delight) and of course how can you pass on that vehicle - 'The Landmaster'.

Where can I buy me one of those? George Peppard and Jan Michael Vincent lead the cast, as two U.S Air force soldiers who survive a nuclear holocaust caused by WW3, causing the earth to tilt on its axis creating freak weather patterns (storms, floods) and mutated insects. So a small crew head out in two armoured vehicles through radiation affected areas known as 'Damnation Alley' in their journey for survivors and a safe area. Also coming for a ride are Dominique Sanda, Kip Niven and a young Jackie Earle Haley who's pretty good at chucking stones. The special effects that are projected are chintzy with some blotchy optical effects.

While limited, it has its moments, but I wished a little more did happen and that ending couldn't be any more sickening (, in a suger-coated sense). 'Nothing good happens by itself.'

Damnation Alley is a 1969 science fiction novel by American writer Roger Zelazny, based on a novella published in 1967. A film adaptation of the novel was released in 1977.

Plot introduction[edit]

The story opens in a post-apocalyptic Southern California, in a hellish world shattered by nuclear war decades before. Several police states have emerged in place of the former United States. Hurricane-force winds above five hundred feet prevent any sort of air travel from one state to the next, and sudden, violent, and unpredictable storms make day-to-day life a mini-hell. Hell Tanner, an imprisoned killer, is offered a full pardon in exchange for taking on a suicide mission—a drive through 'Damnation Alley' across a ruined America from Los Angeles to Boston—as one of three Landmaster vehicles attempting to deliver an urgently needed plaguevaccine.

Reception[edit]

Barry Malzberg found the book 'an interesting novella converted to an unfortunate novel,' faulting it as 'a mechanical, simply transposed action-adventure story written, in my view, at the bottom of the man's talent.'^[1] Zelazny himself agreed with Malzberg, stating that he preferred the novella and only expanded it at his agent's request to make it more viable for a movie deal.

Film adaptation[edit]

In 1977, a film loosely based on the novel was directed by Jack Smight. Roger Zelazny had liked the original script by Lukas Heller and expected that to be the filmed version; he did not realize until he saw it in the theater that the shooting script (by Alan Sharp) was quite different. He never liked the movie and was embarrassed by it. However, assertions that he requested to have his name removed from the film (and that the studio refused) are completely unfounded. The movie was released before he ever discovered he did not like it.^[2]

Related works[edit]

The novel Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams is an homage to Damnation Alley. The two authors (Zelazny and Williams) later became good friends.

Kevin O'Neill has said that the 2000AD story The Cursed Earth was inspired by Damnation Alley.^[3]

The Hawkwind album Quark, Strangeness and Charm contains a song inspired by the story.

The setting and premise of the 2011 Lonesome Road add-on for the post-apocalyptic computer game Fallout: New Vegas was inspired by Damnation Alley, according to lead designer Chris Avellone.^[4] The film adaptation of Zelazny's novel was also one of several sources of inspiration for the original Fallout, according to designer R. Scott Campbell.^[5]

Notes[edit]

1. ^'Books,' F&SF, May 1970, p.26-7
2. ^'..And Call Me Roger': The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 4, by Christopher S. Kovacs. In: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 4: Last Exit to Babylon, NESFA Press, 2009.
3. ^Kevin O’Neill interview, Death Ray #17, February/March 2009
4. ^http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/vault/diaries_diary15-9-20-11.phpArchived 2013-05-11 at the Wayback Machine
5. ^http://archive.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=60788

References[edit]

• Levack, Daniel J. H. (1983). Amber Dreams: A Roger Zelazny Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller. pp. 26–29. ISBN0-934438-39-0.
• Ackerman, Forrest J. (1994). Reel Future: The Stories that Inspired 16 Classic Science Fiction Movies. New York: Barnes & Noble Books. pp. 396–471. ISBN1-56619-450-4.

External links[edit]

• 'Damnation Alley (novella)' title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• 'Damnation Alley' (novella) at the Internet Archive
• Damnation Alley title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Damnation Alley at Open Library