End of the Road is a belief-defying, obscure early 70s film (actually filmed in summer '68 but took a long time in production). It stars veteran actor Stacy Keach, only in his late 20s at the time, as an emotionally frazzled young novice academic, and James Earl Jones, like you've never seen him before, as a ludicrously "unorthodox" psychiatrist who's probably insane himself.
Some parts of the movie are so crazy it's almost like a live action cartoon. But the script is also extremely clever and dark. A lot of hard but weird thinking went into this. Perhaps only people who are a little messed up can fully understand it. It contains numerous weird and ultimately hilarious things which you never thought anyone would put on screen.
After the brilliantly made opening sequence in which Keach's character Jacob Horner loses it on a rural railway station platform, Jones' character, simply known as "Dr. D", whisks him off to his asylum somewhere in the countryside of New England, where he is subject to strange, loud and obnoxious experiments & "treatment" with the aim of waking him from his stupor. The dialogue and interplay between himself and Jones is definitely one of the highlights of the film.
After his initial treatment Horner is encouraged to take up an academic job, teaching English grammar. He ends up in an uneasy friendship with the more experienced lecturer Joe Morgan, played by another veteran actor Harris Yulin (if you know him from playing authority figures in various films or TV shows, it will be odd to see him without grey or white hair). Morgan is a morbidly nihilistic jackass who lives in his own little world and abuses his wife, which is probably why she jumps all over the fresh new Horner at the first chance.
The movie from there is conducted at perhaps a more "sustainable" pace than the opening frenzy between Jones and Keach, but it still overflows with deliberate absurdity (cooked to various different degrees). No film could possibly keep up the pace of the first 20 minutes... but if you enjoyed the opening scenes even half as much as I did, you'll want to stick around for the rest of it, as it sleepwalks toward to a horrible conclusion which even the most hardened viewer would wince at.
Both the lead actors are brilliant but Jones' presence in particular gives the movie extra power. I'm not sure if there is any other actor then or now who would take on such a bizarre role. Luckily Jack Nicholson was too young to give us his annoying overdone shtick playing this role. Jones is too funny to describe, and there's already been enough quasi-spoilers anyway.
Despite the difference in the colour of the two leads the movie never attempts to tackle race. Which is good, cause it would probably be the film's only clichéd element.
But it does work with other feverish and scary aspects of American life which existed in the 60s (i.e. Nixon, the counterculture, the cold war, etc.) It's a perfectly hilarious artefact from the time, but since it is so dark and wild, maybe it's not surprising that it languishes in such obscurity.
There is an absolutely terrible trailer for this, viewable on YouTube, which makes it look like cheap schlock, that probably doesn't help either.
Some parts of the movie are so crazy it's almost like a live action cartoon. But the script is also extremely clever and dark. A lot of hard but weird thinking went into this. Perhaps only people who are a little messed up can fully understand it. It contains numerous weird and ultimately hilarious things which you never thought anyone would put on screen.
After the brilliantly made opening sequence in which Keach's character Jacob Horner loses it on a rural railway station platform, Jones' character, simply known as "Dr. D", whisks him off to his asylum somewhere in the countryside of New England, where he is subject to strange, loud and obnoxious experiments & "treatment" with the aim of waking him from his stupor. The dialogue and interplay between himself and Jones is definitely one of the highlights of the film.
After his initial treatment Horner is encouraged to take up an academic job, teaching English grammar. He ends up in an uneasy friendship with the more experienced lecturer Joe Morgan, played by another veteran actor Harris Yulin (if you know him from playing authority figures in various films or TV shows, it will be odd to see him without grey or white hair). Morgan is a morbidly nihilistic jackass who lives in his own little world and abuses his wife, which is probably why she jumps all over the fresh new Horner at the first chance.
The movie from there is conducted at perhaps a more "sustainable" pace than the opening frenzy between Jones and Keach, but it still overflows with deliberate absurdity (cooked to various different degrees). No film could possibly keep up the pace of the first 20 minutes... but if you enjoyed the opening scenes even half as much as I did, you'll want to stick around for the rest of it, as it sleepwalks toward to a horrible conclusion which even the most hardened viewer would wince at.
Both the lead actors are brilliant but Jones' presence in particular gives the movie extra power. I'm not sure if there is any other actor then or now who would take on such a bizarre role. Luckily Jack Nicholson was too young to give us his annoying overdone shtick playing this role. Jones is too funny to describe, and there's already been enough quasi-spoilers anyway.
Despite the difference in the colour of the two leads the movie never attempts to tackle race. Which is good, cause it would probably be the film's only clichéd element.
But it does work with other feverish and scary aspects of American life which existed in the 60s (i.e. Nixon, the counterculture, the cold war, etc.) It's a perfectly hilarious artefact from the time, but since it is so dark and wild, maybe it's not surprising that it languishes in such obscurity.
There is an absolutely terrible trailer for this, viewable on YouTube, which makes it look like cheap schlock, that probably doesn't help either.