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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: An Unlikely Pair
Message-ID: <4059@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 23-Feb-85 23:38:17 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.4059
Posted: Sat Feb 23 23:38:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 21:09:35 EST
References: <361@wjvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 26
Summary: 

In article <361@wjvax.UUCP> ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) writes:
>The next
>feature is something called 'Damnation Alley'.  Now that's more like
>it!  Not excellent, but definatly worth the two bucks to see it.
>Quite impressive.  +2 on a -4 to +4 scale.
>
>Lo and behold, I recently found out that Damnation Alley was written
>by none other than Roger Zelazny!  Be damned!  Was this a hack book-from-
>-the-movie job, or did the book come first?  Anyone know?

The book definitely came first, and was definitely much better.  In my
opinion, the film version of "Damnation Alley" was a terrible, typical
Hollywood hack job on a decent science fiction novel.  Were I given to
numerical ratings, "Damnation Alley" would run several notchs below average.
I thought the effects were cheap, the story a stupid derivation of what
had been an interesting plot, the acting average to poor, and the direction
mediocre.  The film was apparently made to showcase a new, special sound
effect system, back in the days when people thought Sensurround might 
actually be worthwhile.  The sound system was worthless, too.  "Damnation
Alley" may look good by comparison with rotten Italian SF, but even average
Hollywood SF blows it away, and that's not saying much.
-- 

        			Peter Reiher
        			reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher