Cold Turkey 1971

In this sharp, tongue-in-cheek drama about public image and moral high ground, a suave advertising executive sets a flamboyant game plan that could redefine corporate philanthropy and public health. Merwin Wren, Bob Newhart, pitches a bold wager for Valiant Tobacco: offer a tax-free check for $25,000,000 (about $214.4 million today) to any American town that can quit smoking for thirty days. The catch is simple and daunting—the town must demonstrate a complete, cold-turkey commitment to staying smoke-free, turning a private vice into a nationwide spectacle. The stunt is framed as a humanitarian gesture, a dramatic contrast to the grim realities of Big Tobacco, but the clock starts ticking with the world watching.

Into this setup steps Reverend Clayton Brooks, Dick Van Dyke a warm, principled yet formidable pastor who views the challenge as a spiritual test as much as a public relations stunt. He hails from Eagle Rock, Iowa, a community struggling under economic strain after a base closure sent jobs fleeing and families packing. Brooks rallies the town to seize the prize, urging every smoker to sign up and showing a rare blend of moral conviction and practical leadership. To him, the mission becomes a chance to prove communal resilience and redeem a town’s fortunes through a collective rite of restraint.

To underscore his solidarity with his flock, Brooks even resumes smoking himself, a symbolic act that serves as a bridge between his pulpit and the smoky reality his people face. He mobilizes volunteers, including the elderly, the anxious, and the hopeful, to pledge abstinence. One of his reluctant recruits is Edgar Stopworth, a man struggling with alcoholism who confesses that his drinking fuels his smoking. In a moment of candor, Edgar tells the Reverend, “My drinking is directly connected to my smoking. The booze bone’s connected to the smoke bone.” The Reverend, filled with mixed resolve, decides to give Edgar a thirty-day away-from-town retreat to preserve the town’s chances.

As midnight marks the start of the thirty-day clock, Eagle Rock becomes the stage for a nationwide experiment. The town proudly claims every smoker has signed the pledge, a feat that would set it apart from every other community. The parish priest’s own cravings intensify, and he seeks solace in the familiar—though his personal life keeps him busy, his public purpose remains unwavering. The town’s center, once vibrant, grows quieter, and Brooks’s personal life—his relationship with his wife, Natalie Brooks—adds a human cadence to the campaign.

The situation grows more complicated as the media descend. National reporters, talk shows, and magazine profiles transform Eagle Rock into a symbol of whether a community can resist an addictive habit under the gaze of the nation. Brooks’s rising fame—he even appears on the cover of Time—boosts the town’s profile and complicates his own sense of mission: if he succeeds, he could become a national hero; if he fails, the prize slips away and the town faces further hardship.

Amid the organized effort, a dedicated faction within Eagle Rock—29 members of the Christopher Mott Society—takes it upon themselves to police every entrance and exit for any tobacco product, determined to safeguard the pledge at all costs. Yet the public scrutiny and the influx of countermeasures—massage parlors, beer vendors, souvenir shops—test the town’s resolve and transform the quiet Iowa streets into a theater of public opinion. The town’s attempt to preserve moral order even extends to Brooks’s personal life, as he searches for balance between leadership and ordinary human needs.

Valiant’s board, impatient for results, orders Merwin to undermine the town’s plan by any means necessary. The clock races toward midnight, and the company’s scheme is set to hinge on a single broken link: one smoker must relapse. The tension peaks as the planners deploy a battery of manipulations to trigger a relapse, from high-tech distractions to last-minute social pressure.

With moments to spare, chaos erupts. A dramatic, almost farcical sequence unfolds as the plan spirals into violence and misfortune. Dr. Proctor, a respected physician who has gritted to resist the pledge even under pressure, fights the urge to smoke with all his remaining will. The climactic gathering turns perilous as a cigarette lighter shaped like a gun and a gun-shaped misadventure collide in a fateful scramble. In the ensuing confusion, Dr. Proctor is shot, Merwin Wren is struck by a gun, and Reverend Brooks, attempting to intervene, is fatally wounded. An elderly woman, Odie Turman, who has long guarded the crowd with a conservative vigilance, intervenes, and tragedy compounds as she fires, taking the Reverend’s life.

The town’s perseverance, however, prevails. Eagle Rock succeeds in staying smoke-free for thirty days, securing the promised prize. In a public-relations turn that mirrors the very spectacle that began the whole affair, the president appears in a motorcade to declare Eagle Rock the home of a new missile plant. The final image is stark and unsettling: the plant’s smokestacks spew thick, black smoke into the air, a grim reminder that progress in one form can bring new shadows in another.

In this blend of satire, public spectacle, and human drama, the film probes the uneasy alliance between empathy and publicity, the costs of moral posturing, and the way communities rally—and fracture—under pressure. The story unfolds with a dark humor that never loses sight of its core humanity, leaving viewers to weigh the price of collective virtue against the pull of sensationalism.