Thursday, April 28, 2011

CULT-TV MOVIE REVIEW: Short Walk to Daylight (1972)


Disaster movies were very much in vogue during the early 1970s, due in large part to the efforts of producer Irwin Allen, the so-called "Master of Disaster." 

The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974) and Earthquake (1974) all proved early box office hits during the decade, and the appeal of such films -- both then and now --  arises in witnessing the varied and colorful human responses to chaos, mortality and apocalypse. 

Some characters in these dramas may rise above their petty everyday problems to survive.  Others find the weight of their own prejudices, problems and weaknesses too tremendous to overcome, even in moments of high crisis.  The group dynamic is important too.  In most good disaster films, power struggles arise, and group loyalty shifts back and forth.  Who knows the "right" path to survival?  The right fork-in-the-road that will save lives?

One made-for-television movie that exploits this tried-and-true  yet still efficacious disaster formula is Barry Shear's impressive Short Walk to Daylight (1972).  The TV movie aired on October 24, 1972 and involves a small handful of subway passengers in Manhattan who, late on a quiet Saturday night, become trapped in a catastrophic earthquake and must escape from the ruined, collapsed tunnels. 

The film stars James Brolin as a white police officer, Tom Phelan, and James McEachin as African-American train driver Ed, two very different prospective "leaders" during this particular crisis. 

Each man sees the survival of the group as his bailiwick and responsibility.  And ach man wants to call the shots based on his own knowledge and experience.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group consists of two young white women returning home from a night on the town, Joanne (Brooke Bundy) and Sylvia (Suzanne Charny), a sullen, disenfranchised African-American man, Alvin (Don Mitchell), and a hard-working African-American mother ending the night shift, Dorella (Abbey Lincoln).  

Also on the train when the quake hits is a junkie, Jax (Lazaro Perez) and his girlfriend, Sandy (Laurette Spang). We begin the subterranean odyssey with these eight characters, and along the way, their numbers begin to dwindle in crisis after crisis.

The elephant in this subway system, other than the earthquake itself, is clearly racial tension.  As noted above, Tom and Ed butt heads over leadership, and whether to remain in the train, or to seek escape in the tunnel systems.  More plainly, Tom and Alvin also develop an immediate dislike of each other.  Tom takes Alvin for a criminal and thug at first, and Alvin sees only a racist cop who is out to judge him.  As the film progresses, Alvin and Tom confront each other as well as their own  prejudices.  Although they don't realize it at first, they are each  looking only at a stereotype, rather than the individual.

Desperation grows in the tunnels as several escape routes are blocked, and one tunnel route system under Brooklyn begins to flood.  The group realizes quickly that "no one is digging for" them early on a Sunday morning, under Wall Street, or anywhere else for that matter.  If they are going to survive, it's up to them.

A crisp 73 minutes in duration, Short Walk to Daylight makes the most of a small budget by fostering a powerful sense of claustrophobia.  After the film's first shot of Manhattan by night, the film cuts to a view of Sylvia and Joanne descending a long flight of stairs.  From that shot onwards, the film never actually returns to the world of the surface or the world of daylight.

Instead, after the earthquake scuttles the train, the film adopts a shaky cam to present an informal, spontaneous aura to the action.  Sometimes, the camera is also positioned behind broken glass, observing characters through a shattered lens, in essence. 

This kind of expressive mise-en-scene, along with the minimal lighting and restrictive set confines, grants Short Walk to Daylight a strong sense of disorder, chaos and urgency.  The small, gritty details are appreciated, and worth noting too.  The Iowa girl, Joanne (Bundy) breaks her nose in the quake, and spends the movie with a bloodied face.  And Tom's shirt is covered in sweat for the narrative's duration.  The persistent overlapping dialogue also adds to the unnerving vibe of a disaster unfolding "as live," essentially.

Short Walk to Daylight is also bolstered by a few impressive effects sequences, thanks to the hard work of Albert Whitlock.  A good matte painting reveals an overburdened tunnel at one point, and near the film's climax, water bursts into the tunnel and gravely imperils the survivors.  One character is washed out to sea in the rushing waves.  It all looks very convincing, and very deadly.

But in the final analysis, what works best about Short Walk to Daylight is the intense, unserving focus on the eight diverse dramatis personae.  Tom is a good cop, but one who thinks "you can shake people enough," so they'll do what he wants.  Alvin, by contrast, is a man with an overdeveloped persecution complex, and sees the earthquake as yet another one of the daily hurdles in his life to overcome.  "All my life, this city has been coming down on me," he notes, "and all I have to say is let it crumble on down."

The most sympathetic character in the drama  is Abbey Lincoln's character, Dorella, who is slow to trust and like her fellow survivors, and already exhausted from a hard night's work. 

The only thing Dorella desires is to be back at home, on a Sunday morning, with her two little boys.  Every Sunday morning you see, she gets to relax, and her children bring Mom breakfast in bed for a change. 

There's a moment in the film -- traversing a flooded tunnel compartment -- when Dorella's life is unexpectedly imperiled, and this TV-movie gets you exactly where it wants you.  After her monologue about Sunday mornings and her two sons, all you can think about are Dorella's children, facing the thought of life without their Mom.  Kathryn, who watched the film with me, threatened to bail out if anything bad happened to Dorella.  That's a testament to the film's effectiveness, and to the careful treatment of the characters.

Short Walk to Daylight never wears out its welcome, and never returns to daylight, even in its valedictory moment.  The reason, of course, is that all the drama is right here: these diverse people forced to contend with one another in the dark.  The issues at play, like their locale, are all part of the "underneath" of the American experience.  The battles over the law, jurisdiction and race reveal how different from one another Americans can sometimes seem; in every regard from philosophy to background.  But ultimately, the film also reveals  how similar we all are aside from such skin-deep differences.

Many disaster movies thrive on epic and expensive imagery: buildings falling down, skyscrapers on fire, the end of the world, even.  Short Walk to Daylight features good but minimal visual effects and saves the real fireworks for the character interaction.  It's a good call, because a Short Walk to Daylight is actually better than a  big-budget 1996 disaster film with roughly the same premise, called Daylight.   There, the focus was on impressive stunts and mock heroics, not people...and what people fear losing. 

Yet loss is the real looming threat of any disaster or crisis.  What moves us and motivates us is the terrible  fear of losing loved ones, or even our lives.  And that's what Short Walk to Daylight never forgets; the human  component of such tragedy.

13 comments:

  1. Barry Shear is a director who needs to be rediscovered, there was always a lot more going on than what was on the surface--just look at Across 110th Street, Wild in the Streets or the finally-released-to-DVD The Todd Killings (I'm working on a post about that one for Ivanlandia). I *think* I saw SWtD when it was first aired, but I'd bet that young me was disappointed there wasn't more explosions, etc. How did you get to see this film? Was it through the "underground economy"?
    Thanks,
    Ivan

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  2. Hi Ivan,

    I agree with you about Shear, and I'm really looking forward to your post on Ivanlandia for The Todd Killings. I'll keep an eye out for that.

    I got to see Short Walk to Daylight through the "underground economy" indeed; actually through a friend who was kind enough to dub a copy for me.

    Great comment!

    best,
    John

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  3. I remember this one so well from TV back in the day! Great to see this wonderful appreciation of it!

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  4. Hi Lisa,

    Thank you for the great comment. I wish I had seen this on the original run (or even a repeat), but it was great to finally get the chance to view such an accomplished film.

    best,
    John

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  5. Fine write-up to underrated TV movie. I've only seen it once, but it was that first broadcast back in Oct 1972, in fact. SWtD is a marvelous piece of work by Barry Shear. I think director Rob Cohen used it as a basis for his 1996 homage to the 70s disaster films, DAYLIGHT (which I coincidentally just picked up in Blu-ray Disc). Perfect timing, my friend. Thanks for this.

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  6. Anonymous4:17 AM

    I remember seeing that film when I was a kid. However it wasn't an earthquake that was the cause of the subway disaster but a bomb. I saw the version on you tube with the earthquake, which is the first time I've seen that plotline.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:27 AM

      What you saw was a remix with a totally different flick about a terrorist bomb. The original on ABC was a taut 90 min with ads. When I saw the remix I wanted to vomit.

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  7. I've seen the movie twice as a kid many years ago on TV in the UK the title of the film as been bugging me for many years now. Ive seen stallones movie daylight.

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  8. John: I saw this movie sitting in the dark, on the living room floor w/my Dad when I was 10yrs old & this movie left a lifelong impression on me. Your review was "Spot On!" & I couldnt have agreed more w/you! Even being as young as 10, I was sucked in & hung on bated breath for the entire lenght of the movie. The 70's Made 4 TV Movies are so underrated, I wish more credit were given their due. Thank You! :) PS If u never seen "Sweet Hostage" w/Linda Blair & Martin Sheen, its a MUST SEE! :)

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  9. Actually, the original broadcast was shown on ABC TV during Prime Time (I think it was a Wednesday Movie of the Week). That version focused on the "earthquake/trapped" scenario. But a longer cut was shown a couple of years later on CBS (which was broadcast in NYC at 11:30 PM on a Friday or Saturday, I think). In that version there was a story about Weathermen-type terrorists planting bombs throughout Manhattan, which caused the cave-ins and derailments underground. The terrorists are killed by one of their own bombs in a botched attempt. Of course, the subway characters knew nothing about the events above ground and were cut off from all radio contact. In any case, the extended story line added nothing to the original, shorter one. I saw both versions and believe me, in this case, Less is More. Thanks for writing this article.

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  10. Did the survivors make it out of the subway or were they trapped there for good?

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    Replies
    1. They made it out. But you didn't see them exit. The movie ended as they were walking toward the light (surface).

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  11. Saw the original showing on TV when I was 10. Great movie, and so much better than the "just special effects" movies made now. I'm going to watch it again now.

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