Norman Lear had a great run on television in the 1970s. He created one of the decade’s most popular shows, All in the Family, and also benefited from spinoffs such as Good Times and Maude. But before that, in 1969, he made a movie called Cold Turkey… a movie that sat on the shelf for over two years as the studio figured out what they heck to do with it.
Rewatching it today, that reaction is understandable. It’s a very dark and cyncial comedy, with a thin premise: a tobacco company decides to give any city that stops smoking, “cold turkey,” twenty-five million dollars… knowing full well that cigarettes were so addictive that they would never have to pay up. When one small town in Iowa bands together in an attempt to win the prize, the tobacco company tries to sabotage their efforts.
Realistic? Not a chance. A great premise for some satire? At the time, sure… the Surgeon General’s report that tobacco was dangerous was less than a decade old, and the first backlash against the tobacco industry whads begun. Looking at the movie now, though, it’s very dated… and the performances don’t help. Because all the characters are going through nicotine withdrawl, all the actors amp up their performances, and dialogue is less spoken than it is screamed. A particularly painful performance is provided by Jean Stapleton, who later did better work as Edith on the aforementioned All in the Family. She’s just bad here – loud and unfunny, as she “smokes” gherkin pickles.
There are some good points to the film, though. Dick Van Dyke plays the town Reverend that leads the no-smoking effort, and does good work here. Bob Newhart, as the man sent by the tobacco company to sabotage the town, has several funny moments… but that’s more to his credit than the script. And the score by Randy Newman is good – it was his first, and he will go on to create classic film music for movies such as The Natural and provide songs for most Pixar movies. And the dark ending is quite dark, and quite brave of the filmmakers to attempt. It may be over the top, but it works for me.
Am I glad I revisited this film? Well, yes and no. I remember watching it on CBS in the early 1980s and was quite taken by it at the time… but this rewatch has exposed a lot of the flaws my younger self didn’t notice. It’s a mean film, with very few sympathetic characters, and it makes the cardinal sin of frequently being very unfunny. Lear will go on to do better work, but he never directed another movie after Cold Turkey.
It’s not hard to figure out why.