If you’ve ever tried to track down a copy of the 1970 film End of the Road, you know it’s basically like hunting for a ghost. It isn't just another forgotten flick from the era of "New Hollywood." It’s something much weirder. Honestly, the film is a jagged, psychedelic, and deeply nihilistic piece of art that almost ended several careers before they even really got started.
Based on John Barth’s 1958 novel, the movie stars a young Stacy Keach as Jacob Horner. He's a man who literally freezes. Not from the cold, but from an existential paralysis so thick he can't even pick a seat in a train station. Enter "The Doctor," played by James Earl Jones in a performance that is—to put it mildly—completely unhinged.
What exactly happened in End of the Road 1970?
Most people who stumble upon this movie today are looking for that specific brand of 70s grit. They get way more than they bargained for. The plot follows Horner as he undergoes "Mythotherapy" at a bizarre clinic run by The Doctor. This leads him to a small college town, an affair with a colleague's wife, and a climax that remains one of the most controversial scenes in American cinema.
It was rated X. Not for sex, though there's plenty of nudity, but for a graphic, clinical abortion scene that felt less like a movie moment and more like a documentary. Even today, it’s hard to watch. It’s brutal.
Aram Avakian directed it. He was primarily an editor—he worked on Jazz on a Summer's Day and Lilith—and his editing background is all over this film. The jump cuts are aggressive. The color palette is garish. It feels like a fever dream that won't break. Terry Southern, the guy who co-wrote Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider, helped with the screenplay. You can feel his cynical, biting wit in every frame, but it’s stripped of the humor that made Strangelove bearable. This is just raw.
The James Earl Jones factor
Let's talk about James Earl Jones. Most people know him as the voice of Mufasa or Darth Vader. In End of the Road 1970, he is a terrifying whirlwind. He wears a white lab coat and screams about "Scriptotherapy" and "the absolute." It’s a performance that should be talked about alongside the greats of that era, yet it’s buried under the movie’s "cult" status.
He’s the catalyst for the entire disaster. He tells Horner that he needs to stop being a "person" and start being a "mask." It’s a deeply cynical take on identity.
The movie basically posits that we are all just performing roles, and if we stop, we cease to exist. That’s why Horner freezes in the first place. He sees through the bullshit of social roles and finds... nothing. Just an empty void. It’s pretty heavy stuff for a Friday night rental.
Why it disappeared from the public eye
You might wonder why a movie starring Stacy Keach, James Earl Jones, and Harris Yulin isn't on every streaming service. Well, it's complicated. For decades, it was caught in a rights limbo. It didn't help that the film was essentially a "career killer" for Avakian. Critics didn't just hate it; they were offended by it.
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The New York Times was particularly harsh. They saw it as pretentious and ugly. And yeah, it is ugly. Intentionally so. But that ugliness is the point. It was trying to capture the psychic breakdown of America at the tail end of the 60s. The dream was over, the war in Vietnam was a meat grinder, and the "peace and love" generation was starting to realize that maybe they hadn't changed anything at all.
The legendary cinematography of Gordon Willis
If there is one reason to seek out End of the Road 1970, it’s Gordon Willis. This was his first major credit as a Director of Photography. Before he became "The Prince of Darkness" who shot The Godfather and Annie Hall, he was experimenting here.
The lighting is strange. The compositions are tight, almost claustrophobic. You can see the seeds of his future genius in the way he handles shadows and skin tones. Even when the script gets too "theatrical" or the editing gets too frantic, the visuals hold your eyes hostage. He manages to make a small college town look like a purgatory.
Is it actually a "good" movie?
That's the million-dollar question. "Good" isn't really the right word for End of the Road 1970. It’s an experience. It’s a relic of a time when studios were so desperate to capture the "youth market" that they’d hand over millions of dollars to lunatics and poets.
It’s messy. It’s arguably over-directed. The ending is so bleak it makes Easy Rider look like a romantic comedy. But it’s also undeniably bold. It tackles the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and the absurdity of the American education system while throwing in some of the most surreal visuals of the decade.
The 2012 restoration and the shift in perspective
For years, the only way to see it was on bootleg VHS tapes that looked like they’d been buried in a backyard. Then, in 2012, Steven Soderbergh stepped in. He’s a huge fan of the film and helped facilitate a restoration.
When it resurfaced, the conversation changed. People started seeing it as a lost masterpiece of the American underground. It was featured in the documentary Witch's Brew, which looked at the dark underbelly of 70s cinema. Suddenly, Avakian wasn't just a failed director; he was a visionary who was too ahead of his time.
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What most people get wrong about the ending
People usually focus on the shock value of the finale. The abortion. The death. The silence. But the real "horror" isn't the physical act; it's the aftermath.
Horner ends up right back where he started. He hasn't grown. He hasn't learned a lesson. He’s just more broken than before. The film suggests that there is no "road" to travel. You're just stuck in the mud. It’s a total rejection of the "road movie" trope that was so popular at the time.
How to approach watching it today
If you're going to dive into End of the Road 1970, don't expect a traditional narrative. It moves in fits and starts. Here is what you need to keep in mind:
- Context matters: Remember this was filmed during the height of the Vietnam War and the Nixon era. That paranoia is baked into the film's DNA.
- The Novel vs. The Movie: John Barth’s book is more of a "comedy of manners" gone wrong. The movie strips away the humor and leaves only the "gone wrong" part.
- Trigger Warnings: It’s 1970, and the filmmakers weren't interested in being subtle. The medical scenes are extremely graphic for the time.
- Look at the background: Avakian fills the frame with weird props and snippets of news broadcasts. It’s a collage of American culture at its most chaotic.
The legacy of a forgotten X rating
The X rating eventually killed its commercial chances. Back then, X didn't just mean "porn"; it meant "not for polite society." It meant most newspapers wouldn't run ads for it. Most theaters wouldn't touch it.
It’s a shame, because End of the Road 1970 captures a very specific type of intellectual despair that you don't see in movies anymore. Everyone is so smart, yet nobody knows how to live. Everyone is talking, but nobody is saying anything that matters.
Actionable steps for the curious cinephile
If you actually want to experience this piece of cinematic history, here is the best way to do it:
- Seek out the Warner Archive Blu-ray: This is the version Soderbergh helped with. It’s the only way to see Gordon Willis’s work as it was intended. The colors pop and the grain is preserved.
- Read the Barth novel first: It helps to understand the "rules" of Horner's world before seeing them shattered on screen.
- Watch it as a double feature: Pair it with The Swimmer (1968) starring Burt Lancaster. Both films deal with the crumbling of the American suburban dream and the psychological breakdown of the leading man.
- Pay attention to the sound design: The use of discordant music and overlapping dialogue was revolutionary for 1970 and paved the way for directors like Robert Altman.
End of the Road is a film that demands you look at it, even when you want to turn away. It’s not "fun," and it’s certainly not "easy." But it is one of the most honest reflections of a country losing its mind ever put to celluloid. If you're tired of the sanitized, predictable stories of modern cinema, this is the antidote. Just don't expect it to make you feel good.
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The true value of this film lies in its refusal to blink. It stares directly into the sun of 1970s nihilism until it goes blind. And in that blindness, there’s a weird, distorted kind of truth.
To dig deeper into the world of 70s counterculture cinema, look for the works of Monte Hellman or the early films of Brian De Palma. They share that same DNA of restless, angry, and beautiful experimentation. Exploring the "lost" films of the X-rated era often reveals more about the history of American thought than any blockbuster ever could. Stop looking for the hits and start looking for the scars.