Looking for a film with people frozen in a car

October 24, 2012 8:40 PM

I saw this film on television in the 70s when I was young; it was broadcast sometime before 1979. Some people are stranded after a snow storm. At one point they discover a car in the snow, and when they look inside the car they see the people in it were frozen to death. I think someone cried out, "Oh, no, it's the professor!" (or something like that). At another point in the film they come across a cabin in the woods and try to open a can of something they find, but they have no can opener. The film was in color, so please don't suggest something in black & white. It may have been made for TV or it may have been an actual film; I remember there being a lot of commercials for it because we had just had the great "Blizzard of 1978" in Boston. Any help finding this film would be great! One person suggested to me it might be "The Untamed" directed by Archainbaud, but it is not that. PLEASE HELP!
posted by cmp4Meta to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

Was it Once Upon a Starry Night? It sounds like a trapper goes off to look for a couple that was in a car buried by an avalanche. The trapper idea might fit with the cabin in the woods and so on.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 10:59 PM on October 24, 2012

Hey, I'm Alive!

Sally Struthers and Ed Asner lost in the Yukon. I don't know why this was stuck in my brain, but I remember how wierd it was that Gloria and Lou Grant did a movie together.
posted by exparrot at 6:12 AM on October 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

A Storm Named Maria is 20 years older than your timeline, however, I remember our teacher showing it to us in school in the mid-1970s. The main reason that I'm thinking this movie is a possibility is because I distinctly remember a scene near the end where a car was uncovered from beneath a huge pile of snow and there were frozen people inside. Is it possible that this was re-broadcast in 1978?

(PS I remember watching Hey, I'm Alive! and I don't recall the characters finding a car or a cabin, but I could be wrong.)
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:10 AM on October 25, 2012

Response by poster: Well, Once Upon a Starry Night seems to be an episode of Grizzly Adams - they didn't have cars in that show as it was set in the nineteenth century - were you joking? Doesn't appear to be Hey, I'm Alive! either, as that deals with a plane crash in a remote area without any civilization. I'm looking for Storm Named Maria - can't find any clips online, but sounds like a possible candidate.
posted by cmp4Meta at 12:38 PM on October 25, 2012

Response by poster: As far as I can tell, Storm Named Maria is more of a documentary, but correct me if I am wrong: http://tviv.org/The_Wonderful_World_of_Disney/A_Storm_Called_Maria
posted by cmp4Meta at 12:47 PM on October 25, 2012

It was sort of a documentary and was based on a real storm, but it did have a plot and different "characters" that were followed throughout the episode. I recall that the time building up to the storm was shown - weather reports and warnings, and then the snow began and not everyone took the warnings seriously....and I think the people found in the car at the end were some of the characters that we'd seen from the beginning and throughout the film, folks that had ignored the warning and hadn't sought shelter soon enough. Something like that.
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:51 PM on October 25, 2012

Response by poster: Sounds like it could have been Storm Called Maria given the detail of people frozen in a car - which nobody else seems to have been able to help with. I've looked high and low across the internet and can't find a copy of Storm Called Maria anywhere. Is anyone able to point me in a direction to find a copy please?
posted by cmp4Meta at 7:33 AM on October 27, 2012

Best answer: found it: it was Snowbound (1978)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1429767/combined
posted by cmp4Meta at 3:12 PM on November 25, 2012