While watching Leachman in "Spanglish" yesterday, I happened to think of the "Dying Room Only", and the terrific job done by Leachman, Ross Martin and the rest. I can still feel the incredible tension that was created entirely by the good acting and dialog alone.....no special effects. Having a loved one disappear without a trace while stopped at a creepy, remote diner seemed so believable the way it was portrayed. Leachman's character displayed such courage and determination motivated by her love for her husband. As the movie develops, you can REALLY feel Leachman's character's desperation. I agree that Kurt Russell's "Breakdown" was a modern day remake of this movie. "Dying Room Only" was much more simplistic, yet still managed to create just as much, if not more, suspense! Does anyone know a way to see this movie again? Please let me know.
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LudwigVonW18 May 2008Not many movies give great thrills/suspense like Dying Room Only or Steven Spielberg's Duel. A couple makes a stop in the Arizona desert at the Arroyo Motel, a shabby diner-like place with two hostile locals: a cook (Ross Martin) and a customer (Ned Beatty). When Cloris Leachman comes back from the toilet her husband (Dabney Coleman) has disappeared. Now she's on her own and does her best acting ever. A lady at the motel (Louise Latham) and the local sheriff (Dana Elcar) aren't much help either and no contact with home can be made. So Cloris must search the place herself... Eerie atmosphere and great suspense should teach modern movie makers how to save on budgets and do some real entertaining. The big mystery: why doesn't a great thriller like this one get reruns or gets out on DVD? Only crappy overpriced VHS tapes in the net can be found... ABC please please please spread this movie.
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stevenfallonnyc23 June 2006I just saw "Dying Room Only" for the first time in over 30 years, and this is a typically great 70's TV-movie thriller. A couple (Cloris Leachman looking pretty good, and hubby Dabney Coleman) stop at a lonely desert cafe (in the daytime, not the nighttime as the summary here states) and the husband disappears as the wife is in the ladies room. The only two possible witnesses (the cafe cook and customer Ned Beatty, in a great sleazy role) are saying nothing. What happened? Where did the husband go? The movie then takes off to have Cloris Leachman trying to figure it out, since she is getting almost no help at all from anyone. Is even the local cop in on it, whatever "it" may be? Everyone is suspect. Nighttime comes, and danger looms....
I do agree with the reviewer that stated this film could have been better in the second half. The first half is amazing - very suspenseful and thrilling. The second half kind of veers into "typical" fare but is still decent.
A bunch of familiar 70's faces round out the small cast. Especially since the film is fairly short at about 1:13 (most TV-movies back then were 90 minutes with the commercials) this is definitely a fun watch. -
Well-received but unsatisfying movie-of-the-week written by Richard Matheson, expanding his short story about a married couple driving through the desert who stop at a roadside diner for a bite to eat. The husband goes into the men's room and never comes out, leaving his wife in the hands of the suspicious-acting staff at the diner and the unsympathetic local law. Matheson could have taken this plot any which way, but instead settles on the most obvious scenario. I was hoping for something along the lines of "The Twilight Zone", perhaps placing the husband in an alternate reality. Instead, it's Formula 101--the old abduction plot--and the obviousness holds no suspense for us. In the lead, Cloris Leachman does very well, although she doesn't have much to work with. A promising premise, but I was "Dying" for a better denouement.
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rick200023 December 1998All must view this priceless gem.It creates a delicious sense of dread. Cloris Leachman's performance is unequalled.
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PimpinAinttEasy18 February 2016Dear Philip Leacock,
you made a good film alright. Here, have a beer. Or how about an orange soda? Or a grape soda? You deserve it.
Dying Room Only starts off with beautiful shots of a deserted road in Arizona. It preceded Long Weekend, the Australian film by five years. Like the Long Weekend, the TV film has a squabbling and seemingly miserable middle class couple driving across the desert in a car as protagonists. Clois Leachman does the irritating and nagging wife really well. She nails the role and the mood of the couple in the first few minutes itself.
The couple stops for drinks and food at a roadside café and after this the film wears its genre credentials on its sleeve. The roadside café with the bright red sign reading "Beer" is a nice set piece. The happenings inside the café with the hostile locals are very tense and entertaining. The proceedings do have a play like quality. Ned Beatty is great as one of the hostile locals. This man played so many diverse roles in the 70s.
The ending and the plot resolutions were a bit of a disappointment. The revelations at the end does call into question the behavior of the locals at the beginning of the film.
There were quite a few films with the rural folk vs urban values in the 70s. While it is not as good as Deliverance or Wake in Fright, Dying Room Only is pretty tense and intriguing for the most part.
The background score reminded me of Morricone's noisy and jarring music for Ecce Homo (1968).
The final scene was very interesting. Duel, which came out a couple of years before Dying Room Only had a similar scene at the beginning of the film.
I hope to check out more films by you, Philip Leacock.
Best Regards, Pimpin. -
Tony Rome19 March 2011Some of the best made for TV movies were made in the 1970's. This film has the great Ross Martin playing a role that is a far cry from that of Artemus Gordon. Here he plays a mysterious cook in a filthy dinner somewhere in the middle of the desert. Cloris Leachman is excellent as the terrorized woman. This film contains an early performance by Dabney Coleman as her husband. The supporting cast is great, Ned Beatty straight of his role in "Deliverance," and three years before his Oscar win in "Network," Dana Elcar is equally as good as the policeman. Dana Elcar starred in many TV shows, films and Made for TV movies, and seemed to have always been underrated. I give this film **** and highly recommend it.
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The_Void25 October 2007It seems that the seventies was a good period for made for TV horror films, and this film helps to prove it. Dying Room Only will be familiar to anyone who has seen the excellent 1997 Kurt Russell thriller 'Breakdown' as it's obvious that this film was it's inspiration. The plot focuses on bickering couple Jean and Bob who stop at a diner while travelling through the desert. Bob gets into an argument with the owner, and when Jean returns from the bathroom, her husband is nowhere to be seen! The way that this film plays out is very similar to the later 'Breakdown', except this time it's the woman that is looking for her significant other rather than the man; which is actually a shame because Dabney Coleman has a more interesting character than Cloris Leachman, and I feel the film would have worked a lot better had it been the other way round (obviously the makers of Breakdown did too!). The mystery that is presented builds well and the film makes good use of its seventy five minute running time. I can't say that it's enthralling for the duration, but the film never becomes boring and overall, Dying Room Only is a very nice little made for TV flick.
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Is Richard Matheson awesome or what? Who else could conceive of something so simple and sinister as a woman's husband disappearing in a men's room at a broken down café in the desert? The same guy who conceived of a monster truck stalking a beleaguered motorist to great effect in "Duel," and that's only a slight sample of the other legendary tales he's penned. His skill at deriving something so evil out of the ordinary is very comparable to Stephen King at his '70s peak with "Night Shift" and "Dying Room Only" is indicative of that prowess --- it still makes an impact on people I show it to today.
The great news is that this film is now widely available as part of the Warner Archives collection, remastered in widescreen, and though there's nothing but the film on the disc, it's a bargain at about $10.
The locals, played by Ross Martin and Ned Beatty are creepy and cruel, the motel night clerk is surly and obtuse. It's really all on Ms. Leachman to figure it out, and Chloris does a really fine job here: she transmits her urgency and controlled panic without making herself into a blithering, hysterical wreck. She's a strong heroine. Dabney Coleman is almost unrecognizable as her husband, here, he's so very young looking.
I've heard many comparisons to "Breakdown" but this film is really only similar in plot structure. Breakdown was an adrenaline fueled roller coaster ride that was definitely one of the better road thrillers ever produced. DRO is more a psychological head-game and a mystery, more suited to rainy evenings at home than crowded nights at the multiplex. Pick it up, before they remake and ruin it. -
Exact rating 6.5.
I spent some time going through the supposed classics of television horror, most of which were relatively mediocre (eg. Dark Night of the Scarecrow, The Norliss Tapes, Trilogy of Terror, which is 1/3 good) or weak (Gargoyles, Devil Dog, Don't be Afraid of the Dark). Certainly many folks have some sentimental attachment to these movies, but I don't.
Although I like the idea of atmospheric low budget seventies TV horror, I did not stumble upon anything nearly as good as Tobe Hooper's second best movie, Salem's Lot or Spielberg's Duel or the first Nightstalker movie.
Amongst the best of the bunch is Dying Room Only, a sharply written and well paced piece of rural paranoia, written by Richard Matheson, with an excellent and natural performance by Cloris Leachman in the center, giving gravity to the weird goings on.
This is very simple persecution horror, along the lines of Spielberg's Duel, which it thematically resembles (both were written by Matheson), and for a 75 minute movie experience and nice 1970s flavor, I can recommend this engaging and taut little piece over the many better known television films of this era. -
BandSAboutMovies20 May 2020Phillip Leacock also directed When Michael Calls and Baffled!,two other TV movies of note, in addition to this taunt little thriller.
It was written by Richard Matheson, who wrote the scripts for House of Usher, The Legend of Hell House, Somewhere in Time and some great TV, like "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and "Steel" for The Twilight Zone, The Night Stalker, The Night Strangler, Scream of the Wolf, Trilogy of Terror and so much more.
Bob Mitchell and his wife Jean (Dabney Coleman and Cloris Leachman) are on their way to Los Angeles when a detour takes them to the nearly deserted Arroyo Motel, which only has two people there: cook Jim Cutler (Ross Martin, Artemus Gordon from The Wild Wild West) and a customer named Tom King (Ned Beatty). Both of them are beyond rude and Jean feels like something is wrong.
She's right. When she comes back from using the phone, Bob is gone and soon, someone is driving off in their station wagon, leaving her trapped between the diner and a hotel, which is manned by another untrustworthy local named Vi (Louise Latham, Marnie).
Dana Eclar (Condorman) plays a lawman and Ron Feinberg (Fellini from A Boy and His Dog) is another shady character. A tiny cast for a big feeling movie that honestly escapes the small screen and could have played theaters, Dying Room Only fits neatly into the early 70's genre of films where city folk using the new highways and byways of America run smack dab into small town backwoods menace.
Originally airing on September 18, 1973, the film faced criticism for how Leachman's character is nearly destroyed by the loss of her husband, feeling that the movie had no aspiration toward feminism. There were also other reviews that it embodied the worst aspects of regional and cultural prejudice, which is pretty much what every movie in this genre does. -
Toronto8524 March 2012Dying Room Only is another one of those great 70's made-for-TV movies. This one is about a couple (Jean and Bob) travelling on a desert road who stop at a roadside diner/motel. The two people they meet in the diner are your typical angry, rude, city hating hicks. When Jean returns from the restroom, her husband is missing. The two men do not help her out at all with her search, in fact make things even more difficult for her. She calls the sheriff, but he ends up being no help. Did the two men do something to Bob, or did he simply take off leaving his wife deserted in the desert?
This is such a great little gem. Cloris Leachman is great as the heroine, you feel how helpless she feels when trying to get one of the men to help her find Bob. She is a very rootable character. There are some pretty tense moments throughout as well near the middle to end of it, pretty good for a TV movie. I was pleased to find out this was released on DVD, if you can find it for an affordable price; pick it up.
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Coventry27 June 2010Sadly I can't share the enthusiasm of my fellow reviewers around here. "Dying Room Only" is a solid and tense little thriller, but I honestly can't label it a masterpiece and there are many better early 70's made- for-TV Lorimar Productions out there. Particularly the first half hour of this thriller is stupendous, with an extremely unsettling atmosphere and a few moments of unequaled suspense, but the film loses a lot of its power when the script inevitably has to come up with explanations and plot twists. The basic concept is close to genius and yet another imaginative idea of master writer Richard Matheson ("Duel", "The Omega Man", "The Devil Rides Out" and so many other genre classics ). The bickering middle-aged couple Bob and Jean Mitchell are on the homeward journey after their vacation and stop for lunch in an extremely remote and dowdy roadside diner/motel. The proprietor is very inhospitable and Bob nearly gets in conflict with him, much against the will of Jean. When she returns from the lady's room, Bob has inexplicably vanished and the proprietor as well as another client pretend to be unaware of his leaving. Those are the sequences in "Dying Room Only" are genuinely nightmarish! When we, as viewers, feel equally powerless as Jean and wonder what possibly could have happened during those few lousy minutes when she was in the bathroom. The interactions with the unfriendly and very unhelpful locals, the disbelief of the Sheriff, Jean's personal doubts That's really terrific thriller cinema. It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the exact same concept got copied in the late 90's, by director Jonathan Mostow, in the thriller "Breakdown" starring Kurt Russell and J.T. Walsh. Unfortunately the unfolding of the mystery can't live up to the atmosphere of despair and fear of that initial half hour and the film gradually lost my interest. The denouement isn't bad or anything, it just could have been grislier and more horrific (even in spite of this being a TV-movie). The performances of Cloris Leachman and Ned Beatty (as the sleazy diner regular) are splendid and the isolated San Diego filming locations add a great deal to the suspense as well.
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mark.waltz3 November 2021A solitary desert greasy spoon and dingy hotel, not quite in the petrified forest but every bit as desolate, leaving Cloris Leachman panicked when her husband suddenly disappears. She gets absolutely no help from the nasty cook Ross Martin or customer Ned Beatty, and hotel proprietor Louise Latham is no help at all. Only local sheriff Dana Elcar believes her, and this leaves Leachman on a desperate night of trying to solve what happened.
A very difficult film to watch, it is disturbing in many ways but Cloris Leachman do such a good performance, filled with frantic worry that you can't take your eyes off of her. The opening half hour of Leachman and husband Dabney Coleman dealing with the nasty Martin and Beatty is very upsetting because there's no real motive for their nasty demeanor other than the hatred of city folk. Beatty is an absolutely hideous hick, completely vile and filled with no remorse, and Martin is a ridiculously violent tempered bully. If you watch with the knowledge of how intensely ugly this is in its place, you'll have an easier time. -
mls41828 June 2021Compared to most TV movies of the era that start out well and have their plots fizzle out, this one is far superior. The writing is above average and the cast top notch.
My advice, if you are being chased at night by Ned Beatty, still angry from his experience in Deliverance, don't wear white pants. They reflect the moonlight and you stand out like a sore thumb. -
sonny_19633 June 2005You've read the plot for this television film on this page. What can I add? A married couple pulls up to a seedy diner on the way home from vacation. They are smack in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the desert.
They encounter a nasty cook and a goof-ball customer. Both enter the bathrooms to wash up. She comes out, but he does not. She knocks on the door calling to him. No answer.
The fun begins. Kind of spooky at times. Good entertainment. Cloris Leachman is very good in this film. So are Ross Martin and Ned Beatty. And Dana Elcar does a good job as the sheriff. Oh, and the husband is a very young Dabney Coleman.
I would love to see this one again. -
PaulJ746029 January 2010Apparently there was enough interest in "Dying Room Only" that made Warner Bros. release this on DVD on 1/19/10. Its on a web-site called www.warnerarchive.com. This is also a re-mastered print which isn't too common for made-for-TV-movies. I just ordered mine and it is definitely worth the investment. TV airings of this movie have all since passed and probably won't get the time of day any longer, so the DVD is worth it's weight in gold. ($19.99) It is crystal clear and the movie is un-cut. There aren't any extras or special features but it is still a treat. Kudos to Warner Bros!! (who has the Lorimar Productions library of movies).
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karlericsson24 August 2012"Was soll das?" is German and it means something in the neighborhood of: What the heck is the matter with you, doing this c-p?" Why does a film like this get produced? I guess the answer is that if you are a redneck and/or a republican, then you are automatically switched off from everything worth while, since everything worth while is not just a story for the sake of being a story and instead a story in order to illuminate some point to be made. There is no point in this story. It's just a story for no other reason than being a story, like the weather report when you don't give a damn about the weather.
This story leaves nothing behind for afterthought. I guess some people like it that way. I don't. -
sourpussss9 November 2004A favorite t.v. movie from the 70's. Again, Richard Matheson creates atmosphere and suspense out of almost nothing as a couple stops at a remote diner/motel and the husband never returns from the bathroom. From the bathroom? Who writes a suspense movie where the husband apparently falls in the toilet? The man who brought you the vindictive 16 wheeler of "Duel." Unlike that clever but overpraised feature, "D.R.O." (What's up with that title? It can't be a play on "S.R.O." can it? You don't buy tickets for the toilet?) stays close to realistic scale, and the less than apocalyptic climax is a face-off by two determined middle-aged women. Complain all you want - it worked for me then, it works for me now.
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drownsoda9020 January 2015Cloris Leachman stars as Jean Mitchell, an upperclass Los Angeles woman traveling through the desert with her husband. The two stop by a rundown shack of a diner to grab something to eat, but are met with hostility from the cook (Ross Martin) and a local yahoo (Ned Beatty). After using the restroom, Jean returns to an empty table, and increasing aggression from the cook and patron who insist that they don't know where her husband has gone.
There was something remarkably charming about the television films of the 1970s; for being small screen productions, so many of them were of a much higher caliber than television demands ("Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," "Home for the Holidays," and "Dark Night of the Scarecrow" come to mind). "Dying Room Only" is another film to add to the list of exceptional made-for-TV horror/thrillers.
Scripted by Richard Matheson and based on his short story, the film here is structurally solid; the pacing is refined, the cues on point, and the cranking of suspense is incremental and tantamount. While the motifs and archetypes in place here are not particularly original (the vanishing man/woman; upperclass Californians vs. desert tumbleweeds), the presentation of the story here is done remarkably well. Moody cinematography of the landscapes and the nighttime chase scenes are almost a prototype for Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," which came the following year (check out Leachman's chase scenes toward the finale). On top of it all, solid performances from respectable actors take the cake here. Leachman is fantastic and sympathetic, while Martin and Beatty both play up the sinister country boys to a T.
Overall, "Dying Room Only" is a classy thriller that exceeds the parameters of the television film as we've come to know it. Moody cinematography and the slow buildup of unease really elevate a script that, while not particularly original, is still masterfully written no less. A solid thriller and superbly entertaining watch best-suited for a warm summer evening, when the sun is going down and anyone could disappear into the darkness. 8/10. -
poe42626 June 2013No other writer was ever able to take an ordinary setting and turn it on its head the way Richard Matheson could. DYING ROOM ONLY is about as perfect an example as I can offer: a roadside diner in the middle of nowhere, a couple who stop for directions- let the games begin. Cloris Leachman is at her harried best, here, and her slowly dawning realization that something's not quite right is 100% believable- as is her subsequent fury and then abject fear when she understands exactly just how FAR from the beaten path she really is. Ross Martin was never slimier. The third act is about as logical as it gets, in this context. If you want to see just how bad it COULD'VE been, I refer you to the Big Screen rip-off BREAKDOWN, with Kurt Russell. DYING ROOM ONLY isn't Richard Matheson's BEST- far from it- but evidence enough that he was a Master Storyteller.
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safenoe22 September 2016Fine performances abound in Dying Room Only, when you are left wondering what happened to Jean Mitchell, played by future Dancing with the Stars performer Cloris Leachman. It's quite tense, and Dabney Coleman (who was great in 9 to 5 several years later) draws a lot of sympathy from the audience as he searches for his wife.
This was Ned Beatty's post-Deliverance movie and he seems to have recovered well from the pig squealing experience thankfully. Here Ned, who plays Tom King, is a menacing figure big time. Incidentally, Ned isn't related to Warren Beatty. This movie deserves a reboot big time. I'm thinking Stephen Tobolowsky in the Dabney Coleman role, Renee Zellweger in Cloris's role, and Dustin Diamond in his comeback role as Tom King. -
a_l_i_e_n20 February 2006This TV movie is obviously the inspiration for the 1998 Kurt Russell thriller, "Breakdown". But in this earlier version the story is told from a distaff point of view as a woman (Cloris Leachman) desperately searches through a grim little community for her missing husband. Menacing locals Ross Martin and Ned Beatty get to play bad guys for a change and do a great job as they stymie Leachman's efforts at every turn. The music is well arranged and atmospheric. The final showdown is reasonably suspenseful. Oh, and you get to see a young Dabney Colemon as Leachman's husband- well, for a minute anyways as he soon vanishes in the first act. Trouble with this movie is, like his rather pedestrian work in "When Michael Calls", director Phillip Leacock's uninspired direction doesn't bring home the thrills that this interesting story (written by Richard Matheson, author of "Duel") had the potential of delivering. A great premise, but not a great movie. If you want to see a superior version of this story, just rent the unofficial remake, "Breakdown".