source: Cold Turkey

Trailer—Cold Turkey

Cold Turkey

I think this is the funniest film I've ever seen. I might vote it as the most under rated film of all time. Only seen it once - about 20 years ago - so I can't be sure. Extremely funny, satirical but also building to a very tense climax. Dick Van Dyke is a great light comedy performer. Script is superb. Satirises an important issue and the central premise is simple and powerful.

This comedy is 30 years old, but with today's cries about NO SMOKING it is relivant, and FUNNY! Dick Van Dyke is a riot along with Bob and Ray, and the rest of the "characters" from a small town. The town, led by van dyke , the local preacher, try to quit smoking for 30 days to win a 25 mil$ prize, offered by a tobacco co. for any town that can stop smoking. This film needs to be on DVD. FOR anyone who ever tried to quit "Cold Turkey" , this film will bring back memories, whether you succeded or not.

I can understand why Norman Lear went into TV -- in "Cold Turkey", he takes an amusing light premise, then stretches the life out of it to try to turn it into a feature-length film. Unfortunately, despite some droll social commentary here and there, he fails. The film just takes too long to tell the story, which would have been better down in a one-hour TV show. To make it worse, Dick Van Dyke is completely miscast as a priest -- you just can't take him seriously. Other familiar faces show up here and there, but basically this is one film that really has nothing to recommend about it. UPDATE: I just read DVD's autobiography, and he mentioned often thinking of joining the clergy. Since he didn't, maybe he knew he would be miscast too!

I saw 'Cold Turkey' on TV back in 1978 or 1979 when I was eleven. Twenty-five years later I can still remember Bob Newhart's portrayal of the evil, wily tobacco executive and his motto "I believe in Wren." Even better was the little old lady in the pro-tobacco group who compared the organizers of the tobacco boycott to the troops who invaded Czechoslovskis in 1968. Dick Van Dyke was brilliant as the befuddled minister who had to put up with the everyone from larger-than-life TV anchormen and pot smoking hippies to evil tobacco executives. Norman Lear was way ahead of his time by using Randy Newman to write the soundtrack and I hope there are still copies of the movie on VHS or DVD.

There seemed to be a string of American farces set in small towns in the late 60s as if some sort of antidote to Easy Rider horror and Vietnam war re examination. This film, along with SOME KIND OF A NUT, ANGEL IN MY POCKET, THERE'S ONE BORN EVERY MINUTE (the George C Scott film, it had a different name in the USA), and all sorts of Americana schenanigans ended up on screen as if to prove the Yanks were wacky but not horrible. COLD TURKEY as an ensemble comedy (as were most) probably belongs in the film making folder with THE PARTY or CALL ME BWANA or even MAD MAD WORLD.........in fact all those were UA releases too. A door slamming comedy with yelling and gawking faces, it features the last performance by Edward Everett Horton who I seem to remember kept farting.....as if every imaginable attempt to continually barrage us with anything helped to keep the audience reacting. Well, they actually did, and this comedy went over very well on the Saturday night I saw it in 1971. I laughed.

A great vintage comedy based on an original idea with non stop comic action and hilarious gags that will keep you laughing all the way.The actors are superb demonstrating the human weakness in a splendid manner.They do their best to stay of smoking for a month to win the big money prize.It sounds easy but is almost impossible because the city is full of fanatic smokers including the town's doctor who is the heaviest of them all.Will they make it?You'll never know until the end because....I can't reveal anything else Find it and watch it now..I love this film and i can't understand why it has not been reissued on dvd yet.Surely it deserves it and i for one would buy it instantly.Deserves to be in any self respecting comedy collection.....8 out of 10

I can't understand why a film with such big names, both in front of and behind the camera, is not available on DVD. Is there a conspiracy? Does "Big Tobacco" not want anyone to see this? I understand this is a "niche" film, but c'mon, surely there is a small distributor willing to pick up the rights and get this into the hands of the people? Dick Van Dykes name alone should be enough to warrant a release, along with Bob Newhart and Norman Lear. I guess that unless there are some big, firey explosions or gratuitous nudity (not that there's anything wrong with that)then something isn't worthy of a DVD release. This is a well-acted and scripted satire of the culture of smoking and gives great insight into how smoking was treated 35 years ago.