Damnation Alley (1977) on Netflix
After World War III tilts Earth off its axis, Major Eugene Denton and Jake Tanner pick up a radio broadcast from Albany, New York, and plan a crossing of the wasteland.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb5.3/106,660 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes42%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jake Tanner, a first lieutenant, and Major Eugene Denton share duty in a missile silo at an Air Force base in the Mojave Desert, and Denton has asked to be reassigned, judging Tanner an unsuitable partner. When the United States detects incoming Soviet missiles, the two launch their silo's missiles in a retaliatory strike. Two years on, the Earth has been knocked off its axis, storms sweep the planet, and the sky holds a constant aurora-like glow. Tanner has resigned and scouts around Barstow, California, while Sergeant Tom Keegan, who has also left the service, now works as an artist in a base out-building. A radio transmission has aired from Albany, New York, every week since the war, and Denton proposes a crossing of the wasteland to find its source.
Cast
- Roger Creedas Mountain Man
- James R. Parkesas Mountain Man
- Bob Hackmanas Colonel
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Damnation Alley (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lukas Heller's 1975 first draft pleased novelist Roger Zelazny, but Robert Wise, Douglas Trumbull and Linwood Dunn all judged it unfilmable with the technology of the day. Alan Sharp was brought in to strip it back, and Zelazny only learned how little of his book survived when he watched the film in a cinema.
- The giant scorpions defeated the effects crew. Full-scale eight-foot props were built for the motorcycle attack but worked so badly that the footage was scrapped, and the shots were rebuilt in post-production by compositing real scorpions onto the live action with a blue screen.
- Filming lost three days in Flagstaff, Arizona after Jan-Michael Vincent got drunk and insulted local Native American residents, who then gave him peyote; the intoxicated actor could not be found.
- The Landmaster, with its hinged center section and rotating 12-wheel assembly, was built from scratch for the film by automotive customiser Dean Jeffries at a cost of $350,000 in 1976 money.
