The Great Smokey Roadblock [The Last of the Cowboys] *** (1977, Henry Fonda, Eileen Brennan) – Classic Movie Review 13,206

The Great Smokey Roadblock [The Last of the Cowboys].

The 1977 comedy road film The Great Smokey Roadblock [The Last of the Cowboys] stars Henry Fonda and Eileen Brennan, along with Austin Pendleton, Robert Englund and Susan Sarandon.

Writer/ director John Leone’s 1977 American comedy adventure road film The Great Smokey Roadblock [The Last of the Cowboys] stars Henry Fonda and Eileen Brennan, along with Austin Pendleton, Robert Englund, John Byner, Dub Taylor, Susan Sarandon, Melanie Mayron and Daina House.

Dying 60-year-old truck driver Elegant John Howard (Henry Fonda) escapes from an LA hospital and steals back his own repossessed truck, and meets his old lover Madam Penelope (Eileen Brennan), who is heading up an illegal Wyoming whorehouse.

Penelope suggests that she and her five other prostitute girls head east with John and hitch-hiker Beebo (Robert Englund), helping them to earn money along the way. So John tries for one last haul, piloting the lorryload of hookers through a cross-country odyssey and attaining the status of folk-hero as the cops chase them.

The Great Smokey Roadblock may be a road movie that seldom gets up beyond third gear, but it is nonetheless thoroughly amusing and enlivened by great playing from the cast: the ever-reliable Fonda, the estimable Brennan and a young Susan Sarandon, who also co-produces.

It runs 106 minutes, with the cut version at 85 minutes.

Release date: May 1977 (Cannes).

It premiered in May 1977 at the Cannes Film Festival as The Last of the Cowboys. Against Fonda’s wishes, Dimension Pictures re-edited and retitled the film as The Great Smokey Roadblock. The new cut was previewed on 3 February 1978 in Texas, and premiered in Cincinnati on 12 April 1978.

Fonda himself was not well at the time during filming in Oroville, California, afflicted by a number of illnesses.

The cast are Henry Fonda as Elegant John Howard, Eileen Brennan as Madam Penelope, Austin Pendleton as Guido, Robert Englund as Beebo Crozier, Dub Taylor as Harley Davidson, John Byner as Bobby Apples, Susan Sarandon as Ginny, Melanie Mayron as Lula, Leigh French as Glinda, Mews Small [Marya Small] as Alice C Smith, Daina House [Dana House] as Celeste, Gary Sandy as Charlie La Pere, Valerie Curtin as Mary Agnes, Johnnie Collins III as Jimmy, and Bibi Osterwald as Annie McCarigle.

The Great Smokey Roadblock [The Last of the Cowboys] is directed by John Leone, ns 106 minutes, is made by Mar Vista, is released by Dimension Pictures, is written by John Leone, is shot by Ed Brown Sr, is produced by Ingo Preminger, Allan F Bodoh and Susan Sarandon, and is scored by Craig Safan.

Daina House (born December 30, 1954) was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month in January 1976. She is now a ministry leader at the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,206

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