Before The Simpsons normalized living next to a nuclear power plant, Neil Young (under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey) gave us the film Human Highway. Part social commentary and part live action cartoon akin to an episode of Hee-Haw. Familiar and deeply underrated, Human Highway started off in quite a few different directions. But with the help of friends like Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, and Devo as sort of a Greek Chorus, we’re left with a musical of atomic anxiety where the fringes of nostalgia burn. Utilizing miniatures, projection screen backgrounds, and the hyper realistic sets at Raleigh Studios, many believe this bizarre comedy has inspired other Avant garde directors. Whether or not Alex Cox or David Lynch was taking notes, the audience is taken for a ride to Otto’s Corners. A liminal gas station and diner on the edge of Megapolitan City, deep in the heart of the Linear Valley. A nuclear garden run by corporate entities, where residents dream of escaping their tiny lives by any means necessary.
Don’t They Know? It’s The End of The World
“Bernard Shakey” paints a rosy portrait of small-town life, the nostalgic echoes of yesterday mutated by the industry of today. Dense smog feathers across the horizon of this company town, controlled by Cal-Neva Nuclear Power Authority. Neil Young portrays Lionel Switch, a dorky mechanic with apple pie dreams of being a rock star. Perhaps an inversion of Young himself, dreaming of giving up the life of fame for something simple–though we all know it’s never quite that organic. The nuclear glow is always brighter on the other side of the reactor.
Lionel gets his friend Fred (Tamblyn) a job at the gas station right before the boss, Otto Quartz, dies from radiation poisoning. The fellas want to double date with the Goodnight sisters, Charlotte and Irene, both waitresses at the Hi-Rail Café. Old Otto’s son, Young Otto (both played by Stockwell), begrudgingly inherits his father’s business and starts changing things. More money for less product, no more customer tabs, and fewer coffee breaks for employees. The short order cook, Cracker, keeps repeating that Young Otto just doesn’t have “that glow to him” that Old Otto had.
Broadcasting out of Linear Valley, K-GLO radio announces there’s a big talent show tonight at the nuclear plant. The winner gets a trip to the Indian space casino. Charlotte sashays around the diner, rehearsing for the show and gushing to Lionel about her big chance. “All the big shots are gonna be there!” When he’s not making googly eyes at the waitress, Lionel spends a lot of time whistling to the cigar store Indians in the garage and clanging wrenches together. But when our hero takes a nasty conk on the head, he trips out to a fantasy land where he is a famous rock star. Wandering into a punk show where Devo is performing “Come Back Jonee” dressed as cowboys. Lionel gets swept up in the crowd with a ukulele until he finds himself on stage with a backup band of the wooden cigar shop figures. This is where Human Highway becomes a concert film with a live jam session between Devo and Neil Young covering “My My, Hey Hey”. Featuring Mark Mothersbaugh in a baby crib with his moog and Booji boy mask. If this is the norm for talent shows in the Linear Valley, radiation be damned—I gotta get me a ticket.
The love-in dream sequence ends in a bonfire of xenophobic effigies and Lionel comes out of his delusion. Everyone gathers around him in the garage, but instead of “there’s no place like home”, an explosion goes off in the distance. The rosy glow of the sky turns a haunting red. This is it! Booji Boy pulls up in a Cal-Neva truck with a megaphone, “Listen up hippies! I’ve got your shovels– now dig your hole!” The film culminates in a choreographed civil defense boogie to Devo’s cover of “Worried Man Blues”. A happy, heel-kicking ending as Armageddon has arrived and of course the only folks happy about it are the working class. FINALLY.
Talk About a Weenie Roast
Child actor of Old Hollywood, Dean Stockwell, is best known to me as the wise cracking hologram, Al from Quantum Leap. One of my first childhood crushes. Beyond The Boy with Green Hair, Stockwell was a working actor most of his life until the mid-60s when he dropped out of show business and joined the hippie counterculture. Living between Topanga Canyon and Haight Ashbury, he got mixed up with beatniks and flower children like Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper, and Neil Young. The group frequently collaborated on creative projects, such as Stockwell doing photography for Neil Young’s American Stars and Bars LP.
Hopper had connections with Universal after the success of Easy Rider and asked Stockwell if he was interested in writing a script. With the help of Tamblyn, Young, and Herb Bermann (Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band) came the screenplay titled After the Goldrush, inspired by Young’s 1970 album of the same name. It was about the end of the world in the form of a tidal wave hitting Topanga with Neil doing the soundtrack. According to Russ Tamblyn at a 2015 Q&A in Los Angeles, “The suits from Universal saw the script and wanted nothing to do with it.” When Neil moved out of the canyon area, he got the idea for a film about a rockstar’s life on the road. He called up Dean and Russ and reignited the excitement of working on a film together.
Professional dancer and choreographer Toni Basil (Yes, “Hey Mickey” Toni Basil) was part of that counterculture friend group, even having a part in Hopper’s Easy Rider. Basil had seen the band Devo play in Germany and told everybody about them. Neil was particularly curious and went to see them in West Hollywood. Blown away by the band’s frenetic stage presence and the crowd’s wild energy. Gerry Casale of Devo said in an interview that the guys in the band had regarded Neil Young as the “grandfather of granola” until they got to know him. Realizing that he fit into Devo’s idea of normal, Gerry described him as a “loopy mad scientist”. Collaborating in the studio with a camera crew, Young and Devo had their experimental jam session, which was to be incorporated into the movie.
Neil dragged a camera crew along with his hippie entourage while he was on the road touring. Becoming overwhelmed with the initial idea of his movie, he felt stuck and unsure of where to go with it, and so the footage was divided. The concert film Rust Never Sleeps was constructed with most of the content from life on the road. The rest was cut down to a 10-minute dream sequence, with the remainder being filmed on the sound stages of Raleigh Studios. Described as a “rock n roll Wizard of Oz”, the scenes were improvised, and the script was being written in tandem with filming.
Members of Devo were shocked by the atmosphere on set, Mark Mothersbaugh remarking that, “We were kind of repulsed by the whole experience.” The lack of sobriety and control, with the motto on set being “today’s plan is no plan”. Imagine a hippie group of friends making a movie together…of course , the cast and crew were showing up to work drunk or high. Most notably Dennis Hopper.
Out of all the film reviews I read, it was unanimously decided that Hopper was out of his mind on drugs during his performance. But that just seems like the parroted opinion from a bunch of vanilla squares. Having known and worked with many eccentric line cooks (becoming one myself), Hopper’s role as a short-order cook named “Cracker” felt incredibly real. Excited about the menu, ignored by the waitresses, and constantly muttering to himself, “Nobody listens to me around here.” Hopper’s gonzo flavor of acting portrayed a traumatized veteran holding down a regular blue-collar gig. Kind enough to feed the strays and local wildlife, wise and all-knowing, but completely out of touch with the world beyond the kitchen. Standing in a hot grease box for hours will make ya nutty eventually.
However…there is the knife incident while filming Human Highway.
Sally Kirkland as the waitress Kathryn, seems to be the only character mourning the passing of Otto Quartz. Bawling her eyes out to a Skeeter Davis tune on the jukebox, with the late boss’s portrait hanging above. A little green under the gills and chugging Pepto Bismol. Most of her time on screen is spent behind the counter with Cracker, as he attempts to comfort her. Hopper and Kirkland were actually pretty close in real life, following Young around like groupies in San Francisco. Some might even say they were connected at the hip, so if he was over-indulging in party favors on set, she was just as guilty. Practicing for a scene where Cracker would perform a knife trick, Hopper was using a real knife instead of a prop. Obsessively repeating the stunt, he started to freak Kirkland out. The knife-play was pretty on brand for Hopper and Cracker, so Young just rolled with the chaos and let him be that character. After a great deal of bickering with Dennis to get him to stop, Sally tried to physically take the knife away! Severing the tendons in fingers on her right hand, requiring years of physical therapy. Despite the incident, Kirkland continued filming, and you can actually see her bandaged hand in the musical finale of Human Highway. She ended up suing Neil and Hopper but lost her case, claiming that nobody believed her story about Dennis being on amyl nitrates.
The Answer is Breaking in the Wind
The big question of Human Highway is “who influenced whom?” First and foremost, this film is in debt to old Hollywood as so many cast members were once part of that machine and some of the first to reject it. From Tamblyn’s slapstick to Stockwell as the Groucho-esque straight man, and even Geraldine Baron as Irene Goodnight, summoning Looney Tunes celebrity.
The most frequent name that gets brought up in comparison is David Lynch. Nobody can really say for sure if Lynch took any inspiration from Human Highway. The fact that he ended up casting a handful of the actors in his own projects was probably just a right-place/right-time kind of thing. Charlotte Stewart was roommates with a volunteer at the LA Film Institute where David Lynch was a student. She ended up being cast in the role of Mary X in Eraserhead a few years before Human Highway started filming. Dean Stockwell had said in an interview with Psychotronic Magazine that Lynch had held a screening of The Grandmother at his house, years before he was ever considered for the role of Ben in Blue Velvet. I think David Lynch and Devo have always not-so-secretly been in each other’s orbit. The industrial-noir soundtrack of Eraserhead had imprinted on Mark Mothersbaugh and his journey scoring film and television. There’s also an audio recording from 1979 on YouTube of Devo covering “In Heaven Everything is Fine”. If you’re a Lynch fan, you may have recognized Russ Tamblyn as Dr. Jacoby, the psychiatrist in Twin Peaks. In 2017’s reboot, Jacoby was calling himself “Dr. Amp” a conspiracy vlogger and huckster of golden shovels. The shovel could be a very David Lynch-like metaphor, or it could be a call-back to Tamblyn’s early career as an Academy Award winning actor and choreographer. In the 1956 western, Fastest Gun Alive, Tamblyn performs a shovel dance at a hootenanny, hopping around on them like stilts. A scene that he and Neil Young recreate in the dance number at the end of Human Highway.
Another name that comes up a lot in debate of the movie’s influence is the English director, Alex Cox. A leader in 80’s punksploitation, he’s best known for Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, and Straight to Hell. Cox’s films certainly feel like they could exist in the same universe as Human Highway. Surely , he bank robbing punkers or the glowing 64’ Chevy Malibu would make a pit stop at Otto’s Corners. There’s a lot of subtle easter eggs in the background as if “The Lattice of Coincidence” was unintentionally applied in post-production years before Cox ever put script to celluloid. The largest tie of Alex and Neil is the use of cult film icon, Fox Harris (sometimes billed as Jerry Fox). Eccentric character actor, Harris specialized in wacky supporting roles in offbeat low-budget films like Forbidden World, Deadly Spawn, and Dr. Caligari. He was a frequent player in Alex Cox projects, but best remembered as the lobotomized scientist, Dr. Parnell, in Repo Man. In Human Highway, Fox Harris portrays an Arab Sheik in the diner, struck with desire upon laying eyes on the hunky Milkman Duke. Fawning over his rugged looks, and quite literally trying to buy his “whiteness”.
Folk singer David Blue plays Earl Duke, the type of milkman husbands in the 50s worried about. Blue was an integral part of the Greenwich Village scene but struggled to find his place in music, constantly dogged by comparisons to Bob Dylan. A handsome liminal musician was ideal for the role of a milkman in the Linear Valley. Curly blonde hair, unnaturally white teeth, and perfectly filling out his crisp uniform. Milkman Duke certainly stands out in Glow Town as he whispers naughty nothings to the giggling waitress. Something about it feels a lot like the door-to-door Mr. Eggman of John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. In fact, the milk bath in the dream sequence might be a tribute to Edith Massey sitting in a playpen, smashing eggs into her bosom. If not the milk bath, the character Mrs. Robinson was a tailored homage to Massey as she calls out in the diner “Where’s my breakfast special, Cracker?!” Played by Mickey Fox, Ms. Robinson is a regular at Otto’s Corners, pulling up in a convertible Volkswagen listening to Neil Young’s “Transformer Man”. This character also reminds me of the nosey neighbor, Mrs. Steve, from Peewee’s Playhouse, played by Shirley Stoler.
The Playhouse connection continues as Human Highway was the very first score for Mark Mothersbaugh. A handful of years after the movie was released, Mothersbaugh would go on to compose music for 15 episodes of Peewee’s Playhouse. Also, the googly-eyed scene shared between Charlotte and Lionel was cut right out of the Saturday morning kid’s show. In a series of suggestive close-up shots, Charlotte Stewart channeled her inner Marilyn Monroe while Neil Young tapped into a well of Jerry Lewis. It was almost like Ms. Yvonne, the most beautiful woman in all of Puppet Land, had walked in the room.
Perhaps all the Playhouse familiarity is where some fans speculate that Human Highway held influence over a young Tim Burton. The similarities only seem to be present in his directorial debut, Peewee’s Big Adventure. Adults playing child-like characters and all the bike riding. If you gave it some time, I’m sure Lionel Switch would have built his own version of The Breakfast Machine.
If you watch Human Highway enough times, you’ll start recognizing similarities between other directors like Penelope Spheeris and Paul Bartel. Even maybe a little bit of Mike Judge with his 2006 film Idiocracy when the K-GLO radio DJ advertises the big talent show at the nuclear plant. “Exercise your right to entertainment. The event we crave.”
It’s hard to say “who inspired” when we should mention “what inspired” this atomic comedy. Both Neil Young and Dean Stockwell were well-known environmentalists. Using their platforms to protest pipelines, criticize fossil fuels, and advocate for a response to climate change. They were also outspoken against nuclear weapons and energy. Human Highway feels like a trauma response to repeated nuclear close calls and a disparagement on the rise of 50s nostalgia. In the omnipresent K-GLO radio broadcasts throughout the movie, Biff Rivers reiterates troubling news out of the capital, “The threat of war is even more imminent today than it was yesterday.” A sentiment heard so often that everybody has seemingly tuned it out. In the 60s, nuclear alert was almost a yearly occurrence, and the end of the 70s brought the Three Mile Island disaster and the multiple NORAD false alarms.
There’s also mention of an ongoing gas war in the opening of Human Highway. Suppliers throughout the Linear Valley compete in gouging customers, and Young Otto is no different, immediately doubling gas prices at the station. In late 1973, OPEC increased the price of crude oil by 70%, and Arab exporters imposed an embargo on the U.S. in response to supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War. A temporary shortage led to widespread panic in America; gas lines, rationing, and urging the country to conserve energy. This is where the seeds of today’s ethanol industry were planted. Human Highway folded in unending commercial slogans for the Bird Gas company “It’s good for the planet because birds make it!” An on-the-nose parody of the push to use “corn gas” ethanol because it reduces greenhouse emissions.
Neil’s movie also serves as a warning to nostalgia blinding us for what’s happening in real time. The 70s saw the rise of 50s nostalgia with films like American Graffiti, Grease, and tv shows like Happy Days and Sha Na Na. This fixation on preserving glossy memories of Aunt Bea’s apple pie was a distraction to politicians playing fast and loose with national security. Best summed up in Booji boy’s soliloquy about an ostrich with its head in the sand. The soundtrack remarks on this as well, with Neil Young’s song “I Feel Like Going Back” playing in the dream sequence. And though it doesn’t officially appear on the soundtrack, K-GLO radio mentions The Nukies winning the previous year’s talent show with their own song “Shrivel Up”. An actual Devo song from ’78, it’s a strange and discordant tune about getting older and your body falling apart.
“It’s a god-given fact that you can’t go back. No, you can’t go back.”
Go with the Glow and Go on About Your Regular Lives!
For the last 40 years, lovers of this weird film have wondered why it never got big on the Midnight movie circuit. I believe there’s still hope and ample opportunity for audience participation, with laser pointers and nuclear fallout PPE if you want to go the way of Rocky Horror. Personally, I’d really like to see a stage adaptation of Human Highway. I think it could translate well and if nothing else, the film would make an excellent double feature with Richard Elfman’s Forbidden Zone. Neil Young’s lampoon of corporate devotions and patriotic slogans blended with commercial jingles has become our everyday, all-day reality. The imminent threat of war and economic collapse paired with ravaging natural resources and commodifying whiteness are just as valid today as they ever were. If you continue watching the final credits of the film, you’ll notice at the very end, “Watch out for Human Highway 3!” I reckon you could say this is what we are all waiting for…and I don’t mean a film sequel.
A director’s cut and a laserdisc scan are both available on The Internet Archive.
