Taiga Road Truckers

The low-budget B movie Alaska Passage is coming up on FXM Retro again tomorrow at 4:45 AM and again on Monday at 7:25 AM, so I made it a point to watch the copy on my DVR to be able to do a full-length post on it.

The movie starts off with an opening title card that mentions it's in "Regalscope", although of course FXM are running this one panned and scanned down to 4:3. After the credits, full of a bunch of names you've probably never heard of, we get a brief scene that would have fit in a Traveltalks short if it were in color and made over at MGM. US Secretary of State William Seward purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867 and, as the movie opens, it's recently become the 49th state. Alaska isn't contiguous with the rest of the US, which wasn't that big a deal until World War II, when the US was worried about the sealanes getting cut off, at which point a road connection was deemed vital. So the US and Canada got together and made what would become the Alaska Highway, stretching well over 1,000 miles from eastern British Columbia through Yukon and eventually to just southeast of Fairbanks Alaska. (I'm not giving the exact length because many curvy sections have been straightened out over the years, reducing the length of the highway.)

A documentary about the building of the highway would be interesting, but of course that's not what we get. Al (Bill Williams) runs the local business side of Northern Transport in Alaska, often driving the trucks as well. He's currently on a run with Pete (Nick Dennis), who for whatever reason has a Greek accent. On this trip, an airplane pilot helpfully informs them that the road ahead has been washed out by the spring thaws and snowmelt runoff. So, on the way back to their base in Tanana, they run across... a hitchhiker! Really. Her name is Tina (Nora Hayden), and somebody down in Washington state had offered her a job in Fairbanks, but he was enough of a jerk that she ran off. Tanana is short of women, especially ones as good-looking as Tina, so she'll have no problem getting a job.

Also back in Tanana, Mason (Leslie Bradley) is waiting for Al. He's the lower-48 half of Northern Transport, the one with the capital but not the know-how. He claims to be fair, although he seems way, way, too obsesed with the bottom line, not realizing that often local goodwill trumps what would be "good" business practices down in the 48. Part of the conflict involves Mason's disputes with Al (who has the know-how but not the capital) over how to run the business.

And then Mrs. Mason shows up. It turns out that she used to be Al's girlfriend, and she still has the hots for him, although the feeling may not be mutual. She's also trying to use her position to get a better financial state for the business, but for which partner? Tina, meanwhile, had been falling for Al, and she's not happy about anything that's going on with Mrs. Mason.

Alaska Passage is an ultra-low budget movie, but as far as such movies go, it's not that bad. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's nowhere near as good as the traditional studios' prestige movies, or even many of their programmers. But when you think extremely low budget and a cast of nobody's, you expect the worst. You don't get that. There's a fair deal of wooden acting, and a plot that meanders for 50 minutes before rushing to a climax in the last 20. But overall it does just about work. Just don't set your expectations very high.

Alaska Passage is, as far as I know, not avaiable on DVD, and wouldn't be worth it if Fox only releases the pan-and-scan version. So you'll have to catch the FXM showing.