St. Helens (1981)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Ernest Pintoff

Writers:

Peter Bellwood (writer)
Larry Ferguson (writer)

Release Date:

September 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama

Tagline:

it really happened!

Plot:

Dramatization of the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The movie begins with the volcano's awakening on March 20 and ends with its eruption on May 18...

Plot Keywords:

1980s | Volcano | Explosion | Volcanic Eruption | Mountain

Cast

Art Carney	...	Harry Truman
David Huffman	...	David Jackson
Cassie Yates	...	Linda Steele
Albert Salmi	...	Clyde Whittaker
Ron O'Neal	...	Otis Kaylor
Tim Thomerson	...	Sheriff Wayne Temple
Bill McKinney	...	Kilpatrick
Redmond Gleeson
Nehemiah Persoff	...	Mr. Ellison
Brendan Burns	...	David Crockett
Henry Darrow	...	Lloyd Wagner
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Dan Chambers	...	Col. Arnholt
Mitchell Fullerton	...	Band Member
Van Hurst	...	National Guard Sergeant
Biff Manard

Also Known As:

St. Helens, Killer Volcano

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:L | UK:18 | Finland:K-12 | Norway:15 | USA:PG | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Bend, Oregon, USA

Company:

Davis-Panzer Productions

Trivia:

Central Oregon's Mt. Bachelor was used for the pre-eruption scene of Mt. St. Helens. Mt. Bachelor and Mt. St. Helens, both volcanoes, are on the same mountain range known as the Cascades.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Harry Truman plays the piano, he is clearly faking the movements (his hands don't come close to matching the music).

Quotes:

Harry Truman: [reading from his wife's recipe] "Baste duck every twenty minutes in cherry sauce." Cherry sauce. Dammit, Edie, how can I baste the duck in cherry sauce when I'm all out of sauce? I guess I'm gonna have to make a load of sauce. If I had any cherries, I could make a load of sauce. (to his dog) What're YOU looking at? The least you could do is set the table!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Alpha to Omega: Exposing 'The Osterman Weekend' (2004) (V)

Art Carney steals the show

This is a superior made for TV movie about one of the worst natural disasters in the history of North America. The film centers on the crusty old mountain man Harry Truman played by the fine actor Art Carney who gives one of his best performances. Harry was a cracker barrel philosopher of sorts who loved all the attention given him my the media. Determined to stay put come hell or high water or a mountain blowing up in his face, Harry represents the stubborn American type who wants to hang on to cherished memories of his wife and daughter at any cost, choosing to die with his canine companion than to face an uncertain future elsewhere in a world he doesn't know. Art Cartney captures the spirit and essence of this eccentric oddity out of place in the present high-tech world he never made.

The weakest aspect of this film is the awful music. Who ever tried to write the country and western songs had absolutely no feel for the genre. (The Italian rock band Goblin is credited.) The lyrics are cold and lifeless, the melodies hackneyed and bland. Too bad they couldn't have got someone of the caliber of Merle Haggard or Dolly Parton to give the flick some real s**t-kicking hoedowns and barroom crying in your beer songs.

The cast other than Art Carney is adequate. David Huffman and Cassie Yates make a cute couple of opposites attracting, he a professional geologist, she an uneducated waitress with a failed marriage and a son. But they make the relationship believable and the ending probable. Of special note is the appearance of Bill McKinney as one of the loggers Kilpatrick. He is perhaps the most famous villain in screen history because of his work as the Mountain Man in "Deliverance." In "St. Helens" he gets the short end of the stick.

The on-location photography is an added attraction with actual shots of the Mt. St. Helens eruption inserted. The scene toward the end where Harry is fishing as the mountain spews forth its load is harrowing. The attentive viewer will come away from this picture with new questions concerning the meaning of life and its brevity.