The Neon Ceiling

... in spite of all of that navel gazing! This film was a good effort among a string of mainly made for TV films made from 1967 until about 1973 in which middle class people opined and whined about how unhaaappy (yes I know that is a misspell) and unfulfilled they were. These people were usually too old to be boomers and too young to be the greatest generation, having been born during the Depression but not having many memories of hardship. Thus their earliest childhood memories were of WWII, so they did not contribute to that effort, and up until the 70s they had plenty of material comfort that sprang from that effort and the 25 year postwar boom that came with it. During the late stage of this material comfort, these kinds of films came along.

So Carrie Miller (Lee Grant) is a very pretty very bored 30 something California housewife married to a dentist who is equally bored and has discreet affairs with his nurses to cope. Carrie copes by taking off on unannounced adventures across country. The night she leaves with her daughter -apparently she takes Paula with her with no regard for her schooling - her husband is awake and knows she is going. He just lies in bed. He is OK with it if it diffuses the tension for awhile.

Both mother and daughter have their car break down at a desert gas station/lunch counter run by a gruff ruffian known only as "Jones". At first, stranded there, nobody gets along with anybody. But Paula breaks down Jones' defenses, because underneath the explosive temper and the hermit demeanor is a guy who seems to want a family, but that never came his way. Played by Gig Young, this is the kind of part that Robert Ryan would have excelled at in his day. You wonder just who is this guy? And you never get a complete answer to that question.

Paula plays the kind of kid you find in so many 70s films - she is thirteen going on a thousand as she is much more together than any of the adults. She actually wonders "What will mom do when the money runs out?" Meanwhile mom is happy to sit in the sun in a semi comatose state and sing "Hallelujah". The neon ceiling in the title? It is a ceiling in the desert diner full of antique neon signs that Jones has wired together into a Reddy Kilowatt kind of spectacle. It seems to be the only thing in his life that gives him pride.

The finale is very open ended, and you see lots of things in this film you would never see today. No mom would trust her daughter alone with ruffian hermit strangers today. In 1970 this still seems like a non threatening thing. To me the actual story is about a 6, but as an example of the changing culture of the time it is an 8. I average the two to give it a 7/10 rating.

I agree that this movie and other 70s TV movies (ABC Movies of the Week like Tribes, Duel, That Certain Summer, etc.) have been unjustly neglected both in reruns and movie guidebooks. However, I think perhaps the person who wrote the other comment is thinking of another movie. The movie I remember was certainly NOT a thriller. It was a very human story about the developing relationship among the three main characters. I admit that I was only thirteen years old at the time and could be wrong about this, but I was particularly fond of this movie since I had read the script before the movie was aired and remember looking forward to seeing how the final film would come out. I hope some of these great films will make a comeback. Thank you IMDb for remembering them!

I was very young when I seen this movie. For years I could not remember the name of the movie. I would talk to my late husband about it and he said he had never heard of it.(this was surprising because he had seen just about every movie made from the 30's to the 90's and the fact that his father was a projectionist in Redondo Beach, Calif). I will never forget two parts of the movie; when Jones would turn on the 'Neon Ceiling' and when he taught the daughter to drive & she dressed up and left to go back to her father. I think this movie is what made me like neon fixtures so much. Great movie, great story line, great actors, just all around great movie. If only they would make movies like this now.

I saw the movie in 1971, I suppose, on TV and never forgot it. I would very much like to have a copy of it. Can one be purchased from any source anyone knows?

Never play cards with a man named pops and never eat in a café called mom's or words to that effect, so you see, even though I am now 71, I remember part of the movie quite well after 30+ years. I remember the driving scene when the girl was learning and the incredible private show that Gig Young's character had arranged for himself and which he did not really care to share with others. It was an unlikely love story that had to end as it did.

I've been trying to find a video or even a review of this film for years. I recall what a deep impression it made on me when I first saw it. Definitely Gig Young's best part. Lee Grant was excellent,as usual & the story had an almost European bittersweet flavor to it. But best of all was that ceiling. Not long after I had accumulated a couple of dozen antique neon signs & constructed my own neon ceiling. Those were the days...