Cold Turkey (1971) on Netflix
Reverend Clayton Brooks urges Eagle Rock, Iowa, to give up cigarettes for thirty days and win a tobacco company's $25 million prize. The company is counting on addiction.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on Prime
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.6/102,854 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Valiant Tobacco Company offers a tax-free $25 million to any American town that can go thirty days without a cigarette. Advertising executive Merwin Wren convinces the company to propose the challenge as a humanitarian gesture that will bring worldwide publicity, certain that no town will ever collect. In Eagle Rock, Iowa, the Reverend Clayton Brooks takes up the contest as a spiritual call and signs up every smoker. The town has been trying to bring back the military base it lost, families are moving away and the center is nearly deserted. Teased for having quit himself, he starts smoking again to share his congregation's struggle. Not everyone has pledged, among them the alcoholic Edgar Stopworth.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cold Turkey (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Veteran actor Edward Everett Horton, whose career began in 1906, plays tobacco company president Hiram C. Grayson in a wheelchair and without dialogue; it was his final role, as he died before the film was released.
- Cold Turkey was produced in 1969 but the distributor shelved it for two years over concerns about its box-office potential.
- Arthur Krim of United Artists, assessing the company's inventory, said Cold Turkey's producer and director went over a million dollars over budget to deliver a minor American comedy with no overseas value.
- Randy Newman wrote Cold Turkey's original music, among it the gospel-influenced ballad "He Gives Us All His Love" that serves as the film's theme song; it was his first film soundtrack.
