Fantastic!

Better Late Then Never

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

My standard disclosure, even though I've watched Avalanche what seems like a million years ago, I rewatched it this week courtesy of the new MST3K. I've always prided myself in my ability to separate MST3K from the movie being presented and not let the jokes cloud my judgment of the movie. In this instance, it hardly matters because Avalanche is just plain old bad regardless of what format you're watching it in. Why is Avalanche so bad? For a movie that is supposed to be about a ski resort buried under (as they tagline puts it) "Six Million Tons of Icy Terror", it's really more about the failed relationship of the ski resort's owner and his wife. Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow play the troubled couple. The problem is they have zero in the way of on- screen chemistry. I'm not sure of a married couple in the history of film that has less chemistry than these two. Their whole relationship feels fake and phony. And it doesn't help anything that three quarters of the film centers around Hudson trying to reignite his relationship with Farrow. It's just pathetic. Beyond the problems with the big name leads, the movie has other issues. Chief among them is a string of nameless, faceless characters that are presented in rapid fashion style that I didn't know or care about. Though I didn't know them, most seemed so annoying I was rooting for them to die. This most likely wasn't the filmmakers were going for. Add to that some poor special effects, ridiculous dialogue, and alcoholism as the punch line to most of the film's jokes and you've got a stinker. I know Producer Roger Corman was trying to cash-in on the 1970s era disaster movie craze. But the budgetary limitations put on the movie by Corman's New World Pictures proved to be the real disaster. Well, that and the Hudson/Farrow relationship debacle.

Roger Corman's cheapo entry in the disaster movie sweepstakes. It has not aged well. Hard headed land developer Rock Hudson builds a ski resort at the foot of not so stable mountain. Environmentalist Robert Forster tries to stop him. When there's an avalanche, shown via some dim special effects, a lot of people are trampled, buried in snow and asphyxiated. Hudson yells nearly every line of dialog in what is perhaps his worst performance. Forster looks tired (or bored) and Mia Farrow (as Hudson's ex-wife) is simply out of place in this type of movie. Jeanette Nolan, who once played opposite Orson Welles in MACBETH, is featured as Hudson's free-spirited mother. Barry Primus is cast as a talk show host! Directed, very blandly, by former actor Corey Allen. Lewis Teague did some of the second unit work.

I was surprised to see that Avalanche was produced by Roger Corman of all people. I would think that even the skimpy budget that this film had by Irwin Allen standards was not something Roger Corman was used to dealing with. Corman didn't spend it on big name guest stars for sure. His stars are Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow. Hudson is the Donald Trump like owner of a big state of the art ski lodge which is hosting that weekend some winter sporting events. He's been told like William Holden in The Towering Inferno that the lodge is in a bad place and the snow looks like it's about to come a tumbling down.Tumble down it did during a storm when a plane crashes into the top of a mountain. The Avalanche starts and it buries the whole cast in that white stuff. This is a disaster film made on the cheap, some winter sports footage mixed with real avalanche footage and some cheesy special effects by seventies standards to bind it together. The plot such as it is, is almost non-existent, the characters are never developed in the slightest, so you don't really care about them.I guess the lesson to be learned from Avalanche is for Roger Corman not to try to be Irwin Allen.

Checking in rather late, though not at the tail end, in the 1970's disaster movie cycle, this Roger Corman cheapie is only entertaining in fits and starts. Hudson (looking ragged and drunk at times) has just built a huge winter paradise in the mountains of Colorado. His ex-wife (Farrow) comes to the opening, for old times sake, while employee Forster foresees danger in the snow caps. Hudson's mother (Nolan, in a white fright wig) wines and dines with abandon. There are also trite and annoying plot threads about a studly skier, a TV show host (Primus) and his unfaithful wife and a nervous ice skater. Aside from having less than stunning production values, the film's main problem is that it takes an hour for the title event to occur and then races through all the resultant carnage with choppy editing and distorted timing. The viewer must endure a shabby, clichéd script and some bad acting while waiting for the Styrofoam chunks and plastic snow to may their way down the hill. Hudson is bad. He barks and yells inappropriately when he isn't wooden. Farrow looks idiotic much of the time and is completely mismatched with Hudson. (She learned nothing from this experience as she was soon to film the disastrous "Hurricane", another career killer. Thankfully, for her, Woody Allen was just around the corner!) Forster actually outshines the others with his charm and conviction in a thankless part. Nolan shamelessly hams up her role in a desperate attempt to add life to the often dull proceedings. She is funny, but not always in the way intended. Primus had worked for Corman before, so he should have known what he was in for. On the plus side, there are a few hooty lines of dialogue and some unintentionally hilarious, overwrought, emotional scenes among the lesser players. Also, a few of the ice and snow effects and destruction scenes are solid (most, however, are shoddy.) One hilarious scene has a skater spinning obliviously while snow encompasses her. In another, folks digging a hole out of an enclosed lodge keep knocking against the rubber "snow" so that it springs back! Then there's the rescue workers who, after witnessing an electrocution, allow the victim to fall onto the ground instead of into their net, which is right under him! There's also an ambulance door that apparently flies open simply by leaning against it. One distinction: This has to be the only 1970's disaster film that has nudity. Hudson (in a bid to reinforce his heterosexual image?) has a secretary that walks around his chalet naked! If the film had spent a half hour getting to know the people and an hour rescuing them (instead of the opposite), it might have been more entertaining. The way it stands, viewers wind up not really liking the characters and can barely keep up with the rescues!