St. Helens (film)

St. Helens
Directed by Ernest Pintoff
Produced by Peter S. Davis
William N. Panzer
Screenplay by Peter Bellwood
Larry Ferguson
Story by Michael Timothy Murphy
Larry Sturholm
Starring Art Carney
David Huffman
Cassie Yates
Albert Salmi
Cinematography Jacques Haitkin
Release dates
  • May 18, 1981 (1981-05-18)
Running time
90 minutes
Country United States
Language English

St. Helens, aka St. Helens, Killer Volcano, is a 1981 made for cable HBO film directed by Ernest Pintoff and starring David Huffman, Art Carney, Cassie Yates, and Albert Salmi. The film centers on the events leading up to the cataclysmic 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state, with the story beginning on the day volcanic activity started on March 20, 1980, and ending on the day of the eruption: May 18, 1980.

Plot

The film opens up with an image of Central Oregon's Mount Bachelor and the Central Oregon Cascades, which is the fictional setting for Mount St. Helens itself. On March 20, 1980 an earthquake of 4.1 on the Richter Scale strikes Mount St. Helens, signalling the first signs of volcanic activity in 123 years.

During the first earthquake, a flight of quail becomes disoriented and smashes into the windshield of an Aerospatiale SA341G Gazelle helicopter being used for logging operations. Pilot Otis Kaylor lands the helicopter, only to be accused of nearly killing a group of loggers.

Shortly afterward, David Jackson (a fictionalized analog of real-life volcanologist David Johnston), a United States Geological Survey scientist, is sent to investigate the activity. Upon arriving in the small town of Cougar (a real-life town located 12 miles south of Mount St. Helens), he quickly befriends a single mother named Linda Steele (played by Cassie Yates), a waitress at a fictional restaurant named Whittaker's Inn. While there, he stirs up concern with the owner, Clyde Whittaker (Albert Salmi), and a group of farmers and loggers.

Art Carney stars as the 83-year-old Mount St. Helens Lodge owner Harry Randall Truman, who has a defiant attitude toward the idea of leaving his home.

Later in the film, as the volcanic activity increases, so does the attraction between David and Linda, and the two eventually fall in love. In their last scene in the movie, he packs Linda and her son off to safety and stays behind for the work that needed to be done on Johnston Ridge, presumably on the day before the eruption. Later that night, he pays a last visit to Harry Truman.

On May 18, 1980, David hikes to a ridgetop on the north face of Mount St. Helens to monitor some scientific equipment, then the mountain explodes, apparently killing him and Harry Truman in his nearby house. As the film ends, Linda soon realizes the horror of the day's events when a radio announcer declares that one of the first victims was Jackson.

The film ends with a scene of a small tree growing back to life amidst the barren moonscape that was the North Fork Toutle River valley.

Cast

Production

Fictionalized aspects of the film

References

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