Chattanooga Choo Choo (1984): Forgotten Summer Movie Review & Cast (Barbara Eden, Joe Namath)

[00:00:00] From Los Angeles, California, the entertainment capital of the world, it's the 80s Movie

[00:00:13] Podcast.

[00:00:14] I'm your host Edward Havens.

[00:00:16] Thank you for listening today.

[00:00:18] On this episode we're going to visit yet another orphan film, a movie that represents

[00:00:22] the soul theatrical release from its distributor.

[00:00:25] Today we'll be talking about Chattanooga Chuchu based on the Oscar-nominated song of

[00:00:31] the same title from the 1941 movie, Sun Valley Cernade.

[00:00:36] But as always before we get to the movie we need to go back a little further in time.

[00:00:42] In 1976 a gentleman named Phil Borak who owned a service company called Tri-State Theatre

[00:00:47] Services which book films for independent theater owners in the Midwest decided he wanted

[00:00:53] to be a film producer and he decided his first movie needed to be based on Harper Valley

[00:00:58] PTA, a song that had scandalized some parts of America in 1968 with his lyrics about

[00:01:04] a single mom who stands up to her daughter's school's parent teacher association for

[00:01:09] taking their frustrations about mom's unique lifestyle out on the daughter.

[00:01:14] He would start April Fool's Productions to get the $1 million film made.

[00:01:20] After the film's completion Borak couldn't find a distributor willing to release the film,

[00:01:24] so he would add a distribution company to his production company to get it into theaters.

[00:01:29] The Harper Valley PTA movie would be released on May 23rd 1978 featuring I Dream of

[00:01:35] Genie's Barbara Eden as the mom and it was a hit in theaters earning $25 million during

[00:01:41] its nine month of run in theaters.

[00:01:44] After the film finished its rounds around the country Borak would shut down the distribution

[00:01:48] side of the operation and soon thereafter the production site as well once the television

[00:01:53] series adaptation of the movie finished its 30 episode run in 1982.

[00:02:00] But soon thereafter Borak decided to try and make another movie based on another song.

[00:02:06] Chattanooga Tuchu was a big band swing tune recorded by Glenn Miller and his orchestra which

[00:02:12] told the story of a young man on a train from New York City bound for Chattanooga Tennessee

[00:02:17] where the love of his life is waiting for him to arrive so they can settle down together.

[00:02:22] The song would be the first single ever to be awarded a gold record from the Recording

[00:02:26] Industry Association of America and had been the number one song in the nation when Japan

[00:02:30] attacked Pearl Harbor.

[00:02:33] The song had been covered by hundreds of artists over the years from Cab Callaway and

[00:02:36] the Andrew Sisters to Harry Connick Jr and the Muppets.

[00:02:41] Not together those last two.

[00:02:43] Harry Connick Jr. did a version and the Muppets did a separate version.

[00:02:48] Mel Brooks would even borrow a passage from the song to use as a joke in Young Frankenstein.

[00:02:53] Hardly boy, is this the Transylvania station?

[00:03:01] Yeah yeah, truck 29!

[00:03:05] But rather than reopen April Fool's Productions he would start a new company April Fool's

[00:03:11] Production 2 to get Chattanooga to to made.

[00:03:16] Borak would hire Bruce Bilsen a second-generation director who had won an Emmy for directing

[00:03:21] an episode of Get Smart in 1968 to direct the film.

[00:03:25] Side note Bruce Bilsen is the father of Danny Bilsen, the co-creator of the 1990 TV version

[00:03:31] of The Flash and co-writer of The Rocketeer and the grandfather Vactress Rachel Bilsen.

[00:03:39] Borak would hire a first-time screenwriter Stephen Phillips Smith to adapt the song into

[00:03:43] a screenplay, but when Smith's first effort wasn't up to snuff Borak would bring in

[00:03:48] a new writer Robert Mundy, the co-writer of the 1979 sci-fi horror film The Visitor,

[00:03:55] to make more sense of it all.

[00:03:57] Mundy's draft would have almost nothing to do with the story of the song outside of

[00:04:01] a train that needed to get from New York City to Chattanooga.

[00:04:05] Now, that would be too simple.

[00:04:09] Now we have Alonzo, whose entire life has been the ownership of the Chattanooga to to railway.

[00:04:15] Alonzo is about to celebrate his 75th birthday with his family which includes his daughter

[00:04:19] Estelle, her husband Bert, their daughter Jenny and Jenny's fiance Paul, as well as many

[00:04:26] of the staff of the train.

[00:04:29] Bert is late to the party because he's been fooling around with his mistress Maggie, who

[00:04:33] he plans on marrying once he divorces Estelle.

[00:04:37] Alonzo dies shortly after the party and leaves $5 million in the will for his granddaughter

[00:04:42] and his property and company to his daughter.

[00:04:45] To teach Bert a lesson Alonzo's will, specifies Bert will get $1 million only if he can

[00:04:52] get the Chattanooga Chuchu which is not operated in years to bring Alonzo's body which has

[00:04:58] been buried in one of the train's box cars from New York City to Chattanooga within 24

[00:05:03] hours adhering to the train's historic timetable.

[00:05:07] And there's a ton of subplots involving football teams, bikers, Memphis con man posing as

[00:05:12] account, peepoles, a half blind train fireman and a half deaf train engineer, racist slurs,

[00:05:19] biker cliches and a bunch of other things that are so silly they can only be seen to be

[00:05:25] believed.

[00:05:26] Barbara Eden is back at this time as Bert's mistress along with George Kennedy as Bert,

[00:05:32] a double house on the prairies, Melissa Sue Anderson as Jenny, Christopher McDonald as

[00:05:36] Jenny's fiance, Clue Gugliger as Jenny's fiance's father and because football is involved,

[00:05:43] Joe Namath.

[00:05:44] Like any good producer, Borac did not spend much of his own money producing the film.

[00:05:49] While two million of the $4.5 million budget would come from loans and deferrals, the remaining

[00:05:55] $2.5 million would come through a stock IPO in the film.

[00:06:00] Once the film was fully funded, the movie would begin two weeks of shooting on October 24,

[00:06:04] 1983 in Sacramento, standing in for several Eastern and Southeastern cities before moving

[00:06:10] to five weeks of shooting at the Rally studios in Hollywood across the street from the Paramount's

[00:06:15] famous studio lot.

[00:06:17] Post-production would continue through the end of February 1984 so the film could be screened

[00:06:22] for potential distributors in early March as Los Angeles would be the focus of the film

[00:06:27] world at that time for the annual American film market.

[00:06:31] Borac himself would not be participating in the AETFM but he would try to piggyback on

[00:06:37] the market to hopefully snag a release partner.

[00:06:40] It didn't work.

[00:06:45] Much like Harper Eurvedale PTA six years earlier, no distributor bit and Borac needed to create

[00:06:51] his own distribution company to get the film out in theaters.

[00:06:55] And once again, he called that distribution company April Fools.

[00:06:59] Although it was technically April Fools Productions 2.

[00:07:04] Borac wanted to release the film on May 23rd, the same date he released Harper Valley PTA

[00:07:10] but that date was already taken by the first expected blockbuster of the 1984 Summer

[00:07:15] Movie season, Indiana Jones and a Temple of Doom.

[00:07:19] So Borac decided on a different date.

[00:07:22] May 25th.

[00:07:24] It was definitely calculated risk but if there's one thing we have seen time and time again

[00:07:28] in the movie distribution game, is that the market can and will expand as needed if

[00:07:33] there are multiple movies out at the same time that audiences want to see.

[00:07:37] We saw it in the summer of 2023 when Barbie and Oppenheimer both opened a huge business

[00:07:42] the same weekend and we saw it just two weeks after the release of Temple of Doom when

[00:07:48] Ghostbusters and Gremlins both opened a big box office with Temple of Doom coming

[00:07:53] less than half a million short from beating Gremlins for second place.

[00:07:59] And there's a valid argument for counter-programming.

[00:08:02] When a company deliberately releases a movie that is the polar opposite of the big blockbuster

[00:08:06] coming out that week, in the hopes of luring those not interested in seeing that movie

[00:08:11] to see their movie or hoping some people who didn't want to wait another hour or two

[00:08:15] to see this old out blockbuster and just buy a ticket for this movie that's about to

[00:08:19] start.

[00:08:21] Dreamerx did this to some effect in May 1999 when they released the romantic comedy The

[00:08:26] Love Letter, the same weekend as the Phantom Menace and ended up having the third best

[00:08:30] per-screen average of the top 10 films that weekend.

[00:08:34] We also saw that happen in the same June weekend in 1984 when Orion Pictures released

[00:08:38] the Urban Dance Drummer Beat Street against Ghostbusters and Gremlins opening in fifth

[00:08:43] place with more than $5.2 million in ticket sales that weekend.

[00:08:48] Bill Borak would even say as much when he was interviewed by the movie industry trade

[00:08:52] publication Variety in early April 1984 when he noted that every other distributor was

[00:08:58] scared to release a film against Temple of Doom.

[00:09:01] And as a family movie, he said, the longer he waited to release during the summer, there

[00:09:06] would be more competition in the number of studio releases in the market and he was correct.

[00:09:11] The week after Paramount released Temple of Doom, Paramount released the third start

[00:09:14] track movie The Search for Spock.

[00:09:17] A week later came Ghostbusters and Gremlins.

[00:09:19] Then there would be the Karate Kid, Hop Secret, Cannibal Run 2, Conan the Destroyer, Bachelor

[00:09:25] Party The Last Starfighter, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Neverending Story, Purple

[00:09:30] Rain, Red Dawn, Tightrope, Revenge of the Nerds, practically every weekend in June,

[00:09:35] July and August, there were two or more new studio films and theaters.

[00:09:40] It definitely got crowded that summer, taking the crown of the busiest summer season ever

[00:09:44] from 1982, when all was said and done.

[00:09:48] In fact, Borac had a pretty good plan.

[00:09:51] Release the film in about 750 theaters nationwide, keep advertising spending down by utilizing

[00:09:56] only local television ad spends, use co-op newspaper ads with local exhibitors, and avoid

[00:10:03] the most expensive markets to advertise them, the Northeast corridor representing Boston,

[00:10:07] Cleveland, New York City, Philly and Pittsburgh.

[00:10:11] That is until the film could show its strengths and markets like Chicago on Los Angeles.

[00:10:16] Despite opening in nearly 600 theaters in more than two thirds of the country, April

[00:10:21] Fools didn't release grosses for the film.

[00:10:24] Regular listeners know it isn't necessarily strange for an independent distributor in the

[00:10:28] 1980s but for a company that wanted to show how well their film was doing so that they

[00:10:33] could open in some of the bigger markets, it was a bizarre non-move.

[00:10:38] So lacking any official numbers, we turned to our reliable backup the Variety Top 50,

[00:10:44] which tracked approximately 1800-2000 theaters in 17-20 major and medium metropolitan areas

[00:10:51] each week.

[00:10:52] And on the Top 50 list for its opening weekend, Chattanooga Chuchu found itself in 17th

[00:10:57] place with $157,600 from 82 theaters.

[00:11:04] For comparison's sake, Temple of Doom was at the top of the Variety Top 50 list with

[00:11:09] $11.75 million from 282 sample theaters versus its national gross of $45.7 million from

[00:11:19] $1687 theaters.

[00:11:22] In its second weekend still know official numbers from April Fools but the Variety charts

[00:11:26] show the film falling to 26th place with $45,909 from 47 theaters.

[00:11:34] And by week three it'd be off the charts, its final numbers $219,272.

[00:11:44] And the film would never open in Boston or New York or any of those cities in the Northeast

[00:11:48] corridor.

[00:11:49] It also didn't help the film that the week before Chattanooga Chuchu opened in theaters

[00:11:55] Warner Bros released Finders Keepers, another train-based comedy with an almost identical

[00:12:02] ad campaign.

[00:12:05] Like many of the non studio films of the era, the last time the movie would be readily

[00:12:09] available for public consumption as its VHS release and some cable screenings in the mid-1980s.

[00:12:16] As of November 2023 the film has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray and has never

[00:12:21] been available on any streaming service.

[00:12:24] The only way to see the film today is a poorly formatted rip of the 1985 Thorn EMI VHS

[00:12:30] tape available on YouTube.

[00:12:33] The film is not very good regardless of that formatting on YouTube with the one interesting

[00:12:38] thing happening at the end of the movie when during a wedding scene Joe Nameth uses his

[00:12:43] actual Super Bowl 3 championship ring to be trod himself to his pride.

[00:12:49] So there's a lot of silly slapstick stuff that you've already seen 100 times before

[00:12:55] in 100 better movies.

[00:12:58] Thank you for joining us, we'll talk again soon.

[00:13:01] Remember to visit this episode's page on our website at the80smoviepodcast.com for extra

[00:13:05] materials about Chattanooga Chuchu.

[00:13:09] The 80s movie podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens

[00:13:14] for idiosyncratic entertainment.

[00:13:17] Thank you again.