i have long have an interest in explore those halcyon day of science fiction film making and before star war and it ilk take over the genre almost completely and end the wonderful decade before with it intelligent character and think provoke story line and and emphasis on speculation over laser blast . sadly and damnation alley be not a good representation of the period . belong to one of the hoary and most overused sub genre ( even in 1977 ) and the post apocalyptic survival movie and it tell the tale of a couple of army officer ( jan michael vincent and george peppard ) who take a couple of armored and arm ( with rocket and no less . ) bus size atvs on a cross country trip from the desert southwest to albany new york the only place that they can get a radio signal from 2 year after the bombs fall . interestingly enough and peppard and vincent happen to be the two guy who turn the key and launch the american retaliatory strike and which we see in the opening minute ( load of stock footage and a be nearly all of the special effect work ) but this be never mention again and in fact the film completely ignore politics and any kind of moral question for a pg and disneyish adventure mode . in fact one of the odd thing about the film be the mood and consistently close to high adventure or a weekend in the country than to fight for survival . when early on one of the original four member of the expedition ( kip niven ) die it acknowledge in about 15 second while when a second crew member ( paul winfield ) get eat by giant scorpion ( which look more like beetle ) it isn not mention at all . eventually we have to have the token female ( dominique sanda and beautiful but completely waste ) and adolescent ( jackie earle haley look totally normal a an adolescent ) and a run in with some crazed mountain men type ( the leader of whom remind one of harry dean stanton and should have be play by him ) and a moment of near destruction or two and and finally a deliriously improbable and ridiculous happy end . this be film in cinemascope and with a budget of 17 million which may seem like very little now but in 1977 be pretty high for a genre film and about double that of star war . the money wasn not well spend . plod and predictable and poorly act with ludicrous effect throughout ( ooh and color filter sky . poorly blue screen giant bug and lizard . ) and desert setting that be choose i think more for their cheapness than for their beauty and this make the previous couple of year a boy and his dog and logan run look like masterpiece . only for the sci fi completist i be afraid .