Cold Turkey (19-Feb-1971)
Director: Norman Lear Writers: Norman Lear; William Price Fox, Jr. From novel: I'm Giving Them Up for Good by Margaret Rau and Neil Rau Music by: Randy Newman Producer: Norman Lear Keywords: Comedy As a publicity stunt, a big tobacco company offers $25M to any town that can fully stop smoking. The cash-strapped hamlet of Eagle Rock, Iowa accepts this challenge. Extremely funny satire, but catch an unbutchered version. The first movie scored by Randy Newman.
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CAST REVIEWS Review by Timothy (posted on 23-Sep-2007) One of the best (and yet lesser known) post-"Rob Petrie" roles for Dick Van Dyke, a must-see for Van Dyke fans. The film has plenty of co-stars (such as the late Tom Poston), and a uniquely interesting plotline.
A major cigarette company makes a "publicity" offer which is intended to "prove" that smoking is so embedded in our society that anti-smoking efforts are useless: they offer any community that can quit smoking, 100%, for one month, a one million dollar reward. They are confident that it cannot be done.
In the small Iowa town of Eagle Rock (on-location filming done in Eagle Grove, Iowa) the residents all vote to win the prize to solve their town's budget crisis, and the effort is headed up by a local minister (Van Dyke), who had once quit smoking, but re-starts to show the townsfolk that they can succeed, and to be a part of the effort.
Interestingly, this movie is significant in that prior to the release of this film, most anti-smoking efforts were fairly limited to advertisement by a handful of charitable organizations such as the American Lung Association; but independent efforts grew stronger following the film's brief first run.
Dick Van Dyke's two most notable films of the era are family / children's films (Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and his earlier efforts in more sophisticated films did not fare so well (such as Fitzwilly); perhaps this is why there was not as much focus on this film as it deserves.
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