Damnation Alley

Damnation Alley is a 1977 post-apocalyptic film, directed by Jack Smight, loosely based on the novel of the same name by Roger Zelazny.

Roger Zelazny's original story of Damnation Alley was changed considerably in the final script. Zelazny was quite pleased with the first script by Lukas Heller and expected it to be the shooting script. However, the studio had Alan Sharp write a different version that left out many of the elements of Zelazny's book. Zelazny did not realize this until he saw the movie in the theater. He disliked the movie, but assertions that he requested to have his name removed from the credits are completely unfounded, since he did not know there was a problem until after the movie had been released.^[4]

Budgeted at US $17 million (a large budget at the time), Damnation Alley was helmed by veteran director Jack Smight, who had scored two consecutive box office hits in the previous two years (Airport 1975 and Midway). Filming began in July 1976 in the Imperial Valley of Southern California (near Glamis), as well as locations in Meteor Crater, Arizona, Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Mojave Desert in California.