Cold Turkey

Norman Lear's 1971 film is set in a small town in Iowa. A tobacco company offers twenty-five million dollars to any town whose entire population stops smoking for a month, calculating that nobody can do it. Reverend Brooks persuades the town to enter. The film is a hard satire on the American provinces. The clergyman's motivation is career rather than faith, the townspeople's is money rather than health, and the company's aim is public relations. Nobody acts in good faith and the film does not hide it. Norman Lear went on to become one of the most influential producers in American television; this is his only work as a film director. The ending is unusually dark for a comedy of its period, which caused problems for its release. Who it's for: those who like seventies American satire and black comedy. Who it's not for: viewers looking for a sympathetic character; there is nobody in this film to defend.