Rating: B-
Dir: Richard Crennah.
Star: Harold Gould, Tyne Daly, Strother Martin, Donald Pleasence.
A TV movie about life in an old folks’ home is not my typical viewing. However, I was drawn in on discovering it was co-written by John Carpenter. Yes, that John Carpenter. Given that, I was sorely disappointing by the low number of senior citizens possessed by alien parasites, or breaking out to go on a homicidal spree. However, I still enjoyed it – more for a very good, deep cast of faces you’ll recognize, than the story, which does not much beyond hitting the expected notes. It’s a simple scenario. After his home is demolished to make way for a freeway, Harry Landers (Gould) is placed in the Last Horizons home by his family. He’s not happy about it, to put it mildly.
Part of it is his firm belief he is still perfectly capable of taking care of himself. But he also butts heads immediately with facility manager Ms. Davis (Daly, two years before achieving TV fame in Cagney and Lacey), who has a far more sedate view than Harry of what old age means. He finds a like-minded resident in J.D. Ashcroft (Martin, in one of his last roles), and they begin to rebel against Davis’s regime – breaking out at night, hijacking the home’s bus, and eventually stealing a train. Nowadays, these hijinks would probably get you labelled a domestic terrorist. But it was the seventies, and it merits merely the threat of being shipped out of Last Horizons, and off to the state home for the aged – the “last stop”.
Co-written by Carpenter and TV veteran Greg Strangis, the director may also seem a bit unusual. Crennah was better known as an actor, in particular Colonel Trautman in the Rambo franchise. But he also had a fair career as a TV director, including episodes of Lou Grant and The Rockford Files. It’s the cast of veteran character actors here which really sells this though. In addition to Pleasence, who needs no introduction, there’s the likes of Harry Morgan (Col. Potter on M*A*S*H), Victor Buono (King Tut in Batman) and Larry Storch (Cpl. Agarn from F Troop). There’s an easy-going charm to this which helps counter the generally cliched nature of proceedings – to be fair, it is a seventies TV movie.
This is more affecting than it should be, such as the recitation of the poem Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep. [Incorporated by Carpenter after hearing John Wayne recite it at the funeral of Howard Hawks] It helps there is a lot of personal resonance here. My mother had to be put in a care home after suffering a stroke (originally misdiagnosed as a sinus infection – thanks, NHS!). She was initially so unhappy there, she escaped in the middle of the night and walked a mile and a half back to our house. Since she died, Dad has utterly refused to go into any kind of assisted living facility. Like Harry Landers, I think it would require demolition to change his mind, even though he turned ninety last October. You will likely have to pry my independence from my cold, dead hands too, and that’s why I completely get this film.