Heatwave!

There probably isn't another movie out there that could make you thirstier than this one. Plot follows a young couple and their newborn through a devastating heat wave. Everyone's looking for water as the towns supply dries up. Things get tough especially on the baby. Look for the makeshift incubator. (Great Idea!) Reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode where the Earth shifts and heads towards the sun as the temperature keeps climbing. Acting is O.K. Worth a look on late night TV.

Well, now we know the first sign that the end is near: restaurants limit customers to one glass of water.

This is a better than average 70s TVM. I don't know if it was inspired by the blossoming environmental movement or the disaster film craze. In 2021, I find it comforting to watch old disaster films from a more civilized era.

Heatwave! (1974)

** (out of 4)

ABC Movie of the Week has a large city battling one of the worst heatwaves the country has ever seen. Frank (Ben Murphy) and his pregnant wife Laura (Bonnie Bedelia) decide to jump in their car and try to make it to the top of a mountain where they hope to find a doctor as well as cooler temperatures but they hit one roadblock after another.

HEATWAVE! is a pretty bland movie from start to finish that's biggest flaw is its screenplay, which offers some rather unappealing characters as well as too many predictable moments. One of the biggest issues that I had with the film is how every single turn led the couple to another major issue. I'm not going to ruin some of the plot points here but let's just say that everything imaginable happens to the two but not for a second did I believe it. I also never really felt that the script was putting either of them into any real danger so that means there's no drama or suspense to be had.

Bedelia does turn in a good performance in the role of the 7 month pregnant woman who finds herself battling the heat. Murphy is also good in his role but his character is a major jerk, which is a turnoff as well. Lew Ayres shows up as a county doctor and it was fun seeing him and David Huddleston is also fun in his role as a beer salesman.

HEATWAVE! thankfully runs only 72 minutes or else it would have been more of a chore to sit through. As it is, it's mildly entertaining but there are just too many flaws for it to work.

You know a disaster movie is serious businesses when there's an exclamation point in the title! Adding an exclamation means that the title, which is generally speaking just the type of disaster featuring in the film, still isn't powerful enough to underline how hopeless the situation is for the poor people in the story. Jerry & David Zucker understood this principle when they made their brilliant disaster movie parody "Airplane!" and Jerry Jameson cleverly understood the added value of the exclamation point as well, especially since his film is "only" a modestly budgeted made- for-TV production from the early 70s. After all, let's be honest: "Heatwave" merely sounds as if it's going to be a little hot & sweaty, whereas "Heatwave!" immediately rises the impression that people will die the heat! And they are damn right to add the exclamation point, because at one point in the film, there's an outside thermometer showing a temperature of 118°F. I'm from Europe, so I had no idea how warm that is, but I looked it up and convert to °C (Celsius) … And you know what, fellow Europeans? That's almost 50°C!

Personally I really liked "Heatwave!" and I truly appreciated that it's a small-scaled but intense, honest and compelling story rather than a massive blockbuster with fancy special effects or expensive fake set pieces. Unlike "The Towering Inferno", "The Poseidon Adventure" or any other Irwin Allen production, "Heatwave!" entirely relies on script, atmosphere and acting performances. This works wonderfully well, and I was particularly impressed with how realistically these ordinary and usually good-hearted people turned into monsters due to the unendurable temperatures. Throughout the entire movie, I kept thinking about a famous line of dialogue spoken by the almighty Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men"… There he says at one point: "I'm a decent guy, but this (swearing) heat is driving me absolutely crazy!" Too true, and the strongest quality of "Heatwave!" is how the film masterfully depicts how regular city people suddenly become very selfish, aggressive, cowardly and even violent. In the midst of all this, we have a young couple, Frank and Laura Taylor, trying to cope with the heatwave that now lasts for two weeks already. The girl is seven months pregnant and needs to take good care of herself, but there isn't any fresh food or bottled water left anywhere. When then also the power supplies, like electricity and gas stations, are switched out, they decide to head out to her family's holiday retreat up in the mountains. The journey turns out long, difficult and full of unforeseen obstacles, and the circumstances in the little mountain village aren't any better. The worst is yet to come when Laura goes into labor two months too soon. "Heatwave!" has everything I've come to expect from an adequate disaster movie… Extreme circumstances, genuine drama, some characters you care for and many others you wish will suffer, a handful of very memorable scenes and a (admittedly forced) happy ending. Great performances are coming from the entire cast, with specific compliments to Ben Murphy (?) and the unbelievable ravishing Bonnie Bedelia, that both carry the entire film without effort. After seeing her here and in "The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie", I honestly don't comprehend why Bedelia didn't become one of the most successful and desirable actresses of the late 70s and 80s.

This film begins with a man named "Frank Taylor" (Ben Murphy) and his pregnant wife "Laura" (Bonnie Bedelia) lying in bed drenched in sweat due to a severe heatwave which has swept Los Angeles and indirectly caused massive brownouts all over the city. Eventually, with city resources strained to the breaking point and tempers flaring up as well, chaos erupts which in turn prompts Frank and Laura to leave Los Angeles and head to their parent's cabin in a more remote part of California. But even there the conditions aren't much better and not long afterward the impact of the weather crisis results in both Frank and Laura having to make major adjustments--along with some other equally tough decisions--in order to survive. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this made-for-television movie had some slow parts which caused it to drag a bit here and there. Fortunately, things improved near the end sufficiently enough for me to rate this movie a little higher. Average.