Cold Turkey

Norman Lear, who turned 97 yesterday, is well-remembered for his television sitcoms that are considered groundbreaking, such as All in the Family. Lear and his partner Bud Yorkin made a couple of movies before All in the Family but were never quite successful. Cold Turkey is a good example of this.

The movie starts off with public relations man Merwin Wren (Bob Newhart) talking to a bunch of tobacco company executives headed by Hiram Grayson (Edward Everett Horton in his final film role; the movie was released posthumously) about an audacious scheme that will bring big publicity but can't possibly fail. They'll put up a prize of $25 million to any town that can get every one of its residents to stop smoking for 30 days. So many people smoke, and have such a habit, that there's no way any town can get every last resident to quit, is there?

Needless to say, one town is going to try. Rev. Clayton Brooks (Dick Van Dyke) is the pastor of a generically Protestant church in the town of Eagle Rock, IA (the real Iowa town of Greenfield serving as Eagle Rock). The town is beginning to die, largely because the biggest employer has left. There's a chance that the military could open a new missile plant in town, but that would require investment in infrastructure that the town just doesn't have. That is, until the announcement of the tobacco company's $25 million prize.

Rev. Brooks and the town council decide to go ahead with the attempt to quit smoking. But even qualifying to try is going to be tough, as they have to get four thousand people (well, less since one presumes children too young to sign will be exempt) to sign up before a certain deadline. There are a lot of smokers in town, and some are more reluctant than others to sign up, with the most reluctant being town drunk Mr. Stopworth (Tom Poston). There's also the Christoper Mott Society, an obvious parody of the John Birch Society, who think it's authoritarian to sign up.

But eventually, the down does qualify for the 30-day trial. The first days should be the most difficult with all the people going through withdrawal symptoms. Meanwhile, to keep contraband tobacco from coming in, the Christopher Mott Society was brought on board with the promise of getting to set up blockades to check all vehicles coming into town.

Eventually, the town's participation becomes national news, to the point that all sorts of gawkers are coming to town to see what Eagle Rock is doing, and that brings in just as much revenue, and a whole lot more of a carnival, than the tobacco company's $25 million jackpot does. And it looks at though the town might succeed, too, so Wren heads to Eagle Rock with a plan to make certain at least one person takes up smoking again....

Cold Turkey is a movie that reminded me of my opinions of the other Lear movies that I saw, those being Divorce American Style and The Night They Raided Minsky's. All three movies have some really good ideas, but at the same time all three also wind up being less than the sum of the parts. In the case of Cold Turkey, I think there were two big issues for me. One is that the satire became increasingly heavy-handed, while the other was camera work that used too much rapid cutting without good effect. The actors -- a lot of people who would be remembered for their TV work including Jean Stapleton and Paul Benedict -- do well with the material they're given, but the material could be better.

Still, I think Cold Turkey is worth at least one viewing. You can get it on DVD if you want to see it.