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.
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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