80 Steps to Jonah

I remember this as a dog of a movie that played on a late-evening flight from O'Hare to San Francisco in January, 1969. Wayne Newton was awful. I saw that he was in a car accident and that he ran away from the police, for some reason. After a bit, I went to sleep, only waking up when Mickey Rooney wandered through to save Newton and a happy ending.

This afternoon, something itched in my brain, so I went looking on IMDB for a Mickey Rooney movie. This is it. I almost never walk out of movies, I would have walked out of this if the exit had not been about 30,000 feet up.

This movie really DID exist. For the longest time, I thought this movie was synthesized from my collective unconscious. I remember seeing this movie on some impossibly late program about 25 years ago and being genuinely moved by it. Unashamedly sentimental, yet not too saccharine treatment of a man on the lam who finds refuge at a summer camp for blind children. A surprisingly well-casted movie with a decent soundtrack that would definitely appeal to the "Grab-a-hanky" set. Not a movie I would go out of my way to see - except for the purpose of reminiscing about the first (and only) time I saw it - but, I would definitely watch it if it appeared on my television while channel-surfing.

I uploaded my full recording of 80 Steps To Jonah at google video...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3888172006497514701 Shows up in flash player at that link but if you click the download link you'll get a much clearer mp4 version (330MB)

I put it on my computer from an old VHS tape recording when I saw it years ago on TV. Then I converted it to wmv and mp4 formats for viewing.

Also have some musical scene clips from the movie up at you tube. Includes the scenes where Wayne Newton & kids sing With A Little Seed And Some Love. Also Wayne Newton playing guitar and singing If I Could Be To You What You Are To Me. And scene where Wayne's music is 'Night Rushes In'

I recently ran across a letter that I sent to my mom on 11MAY70 from Da Nang, Viet Nam. 80 Steps must of made some kind of impression for this young Marine to write home about altho 32 years later I have no recall about the movie. I wrote "that it was a real family type film and a tear jerker, but a lot of guys really liked it" so now I need to go find a copy on video and see what impressed me so.

I watched this movie when I was so young that I can hardly remember what it is called. I went to my local video stores and they all had books and said that if it was not in their books it was not a movie. All the books you could look up the actors name. It said nothing about this movie when I looked under Wayne Newton. I just have to say I think a lot of people are missing out by not seeing this movie. I was very compelled when I saw it as a young boy and now hope to be compelled again. I just want to thank the people at IMDB.com for being so extensive in their movie selection.