Neil Young started work on his debut feature film, Human Highway in 1978 Four years and, reportedly, a few million dollars later, the film was finally released, just in time to take advantage of the VCR market that it linger on the home video shop shelf for the benefit of Neil Young obsessives and cult movie fans.
The story, as much as a narrative exists, is played out around the generic American mid-western town of Linear Valley, the location of a nuclear power plant (whose employees include members of Devo, including Booji Boy) that appears to follow Homer Simpson’s approach to safety. Neil Young plays Lionel Switch, a geeky petrol station attendant who rises above his station to reach stardom as a musician (the film’s musical highlight comes when Young joins Devo for a killer version of Hey Hey My My). The petrol station is attached to a diner, both of which are now owned by young Otto (Dean Stockwell), whose approach to running the business he’s inherited from his father is devious, corrupt and petty. In the background exists the omnipresent threat of nuclear war, with occasional news broadcasts referring to the nuclear-powered sabre rattling of the super powers.
Human Highway isn’t a great film, by any stretch of the imagination: the cinematography is reminiscent of a UCLA film student’s graduation project, the acting – despite the presence of Stockwell, Sally Kirkland, Dennis Hopper and Russ Tamblyn – is rough, perhaps deliberately so. But Human Highway is, oddly enough, enjoyable, in spite of its amateur appearance and rubbery storyline. Human Highway is a film of its time: the apocalyptic political backdrop, the marginalisation of ordinary working Americans, the sense of individual futility, the veneer of humour in the face of impending doom. But if it wasn’t a Neil Young film, no-one would really care about it.
BY PATRICK EMERY
