By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the 1976 disaster flick Smash-Up On Interstate 5, starring Vera Miles, Robert Conrad, Donna Mills and Buddy Ebsen.
One of the main plays of the vintage 1970s telemovie was to run alongside major trends happening in the cinema at the time. One of the biggest fads on the big screen in that decade was the disaster movie, best exemplified in the films of spectacle-master producers like Irwin Allen (1972’s The Poseidon Adventure, 1974’s The Towering Inferno, 1978’s The Swarm, 1980’s When Time Ran Out…) and Jennings Lang (the Airport series, 1974’s Earthquake, 1977’s Rollercoaster). Though disaster movies traditionally required big-name casts and considerable special-effects budgets – things not usually within the purview of the standard telemovie – this popular genre did make its way to the small screen, though mainly in a considerably more enervated form.
Disaster master Irwin Allen himself was actually one of the principal driving forces in crafting toned-down small screen spectacle with titles like 1976’s Flood! (Robert Culp, Barbara Hershey and Roddy McDowell try to keep their heads above water), 1977’s Fire! (Ernest Borgnine, Patty Duke, Donna Mills and Erik Estrada attempt to outrun a huge wildfire) and 1979’s Hanging By A Thread (a group of friends re-examine their lives while trapped in a dangerously disabled cable-car). While none of these telemovies come close to achieving the high-wire thrills of Irwin Allen’s big screen output, they’re all highly entertaining and appropriately gripping small scale disaster flicks in their own right.
Another rock-solid and often mildly shocking entry in the disaster telemovie field was Smash-Up On Interstate 5, which was first broadcast on major US network ABC on December 3, 1976. Based on Elleston Trevor’s novel Expressway (with a well-structured script by reliable TV regulars Robert Presnell Jr. and Eugene Price ) and directed by prolific TV helmer John Llewellyn Moxey (who directed episodes of just about every 1970s show going, as well as essential telemovies like 1972’s The Night Stalker, 1976’s Nightmare In Badham Country and 1981’s The Violation Of Sarah McDavid), Smash-Up On Interstate 5 is a consistently compelling collision of on-road carnage and heightened character-driven melodrama, all melded together by the eponymous expressway accident.
The film begins with a quick, flash-cut depiction of the expressway pile-up that an ominous voiceover informs the audience will cost a number of lives and cause major injuries. The voiceover comes from Sargeant Sam Marcum (a lively and engaging Robert Conrad), an experienced Highway Patrol officer who forms part of the telemovie’s large cast of characters, all of whom are headed on a one-way trip to tragedy. Introduced to the audience in the days leading up to the eponymous expressway pile-up, there’s also Sam’s nurse girlfriend Laureen (an on-point Donna Mills), and his colleague Officer Hutton (a young and charismatic Tommy Lee Jones), whose wife Barbara (Sian Barbara Allen) is in the hospital awaiting the arrival of their new baby.
Outside of the world of public service, we also meet elderly couple Al and June Pearson (TV icons Buddy Ebsen and Harriet Nelson make their characters instantly sympathetic and loveable), who are looking forward to a well-deserved vacation after a heartbreaking medical diagnosis; and young driver Lee Bassett (popular 1970s teen actor Scott Jacoby from Baxter!, Our Winning Season and the classic telemovies Bad Ronald and That Certain Summer), who finds himself caught up with a dangerous couple on the run. The bulk of the film’s running time, however, belongs to Hollywood royalty Vera Miles (Psycho, The Searchers and many more), who plays the optimistic Erica, a woman looking for love and excitement after ending a long relationship.
It’s via the adventurous Erica that Smash-Up On Interstate 5 derives a little surprise era-specific energy. We first see Erica meeting her glam, hard-partying friend Trudy (fellow Hollywood legend Terry Moore) in a very 1970s over-forties singles bar, where she is promptly hit on by smarmy, heavy-hustling doctor Danny (Herb Edelman, dialling it up to eleven with his characteristic comedic flair). From there, Erica is literally put through the emotional wringer, first at the hands of a very peculiar, wholly unthreatening biker gang (one of whom is played by – continuing this film’s wonderfully oddball sense of casting – Lolita’s Sue Lyon), and then in a far more positive manner by a considerably younger truck driver (the likeable David Groh) who comes to her rescue. Erica is a character with a lot of potential, and Vera Miles really rises to the occasion, throwing herself into it with complete abandon.
Though Erica’s story is undeniably the most dynamic and dramatic in Smash-Up On Interstate 5, the other narratives all throw up their own distinct pleasures. This well-made telemovie is pure small screen soap opera, but it’s so well-written and solidly performed that it grabs the audience hard and never lets go for the duration of its 100-minute running time. The variation in the stories keeps things interesting, while the first scenes foreshadowing the ultimate on-road tragedy give proceedings a tinge of melancholy as the audience is made painfully aware that not all of these characters will survive the deadly mass crash event.
When it unfolds as the film’s grim finale, the smash-up itself plays out with a real sense of punch via a series of impressive pre-CGI car stunts, while director John Llewellyn Moxey ratchets up the breaking glass and grinding metal to devastating effect. With its well-stitched combination of high-stakes melodrama and visceral on-road carnage, Smash-Up On Interstate 5 is one of the strongest examples available of the small screen disaster flick.
Availability: Smash-Up On Interstate 5 is available to stream on Prime Video in a clean, clear presentation.
If you enjoyed this review, check out our other vintage telemovies Something Evil, Savage, A Step Out Of Line, The Boy In The Plastic Bubble, The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission, A Very Brady Christmas, The Gladiator, Elvis, The Rat Pack, Silent Victory: The Kitty O’Neil Story, Terror Among Us, The Hanged Man, Hardcase, Charlie’s Angels: Angels In Vegas, Vanishing Point, To Heal A Nation, Fugitive Among Us, To Kill A Cop, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Police Story: A Chance To Live, Murder On Flight 502, Moon Of The Wolf, The Secret Night Caller, Cotton Candy, And The Band Played On, Gargoyles, Death Car On The Freeway, Short Walk To Daylight, Trapped, Hotline, Killdozer, The Jericho Mile, Mongo’s Back In Town and Tribes.
