Dying Room Only (1973)

Cloris 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.

Sadly 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.

This 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".

Married couple driving through the desert stop off at a diner; the husband goes into the men's restroom and never comes out. A fascinating premise for a so-so TV-made thriller which does give Cloris Leachman (Phyllis on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show") one of the four best roles of her career (the others being "The Last Picture Show", "Young Frankenstein" and "A Girl Named Sooner"). Ross Martin is truly scary as the diner's proprietor, and the movie creates amazing tension amidst a realistic rural scenario. Too bad the script isn't as thought-out as one would like. After viewing this on video, a friend and I debated long into the night about what might've been done with the concluding events. The movie doesn't cop-out exactly, but neither does it give us any truly thrilling answers to the wife's predicament. Overall, worth-seeing for Cloris and the promising premise, but I was "Dying" for a better denouement.