''Miracle Mile'' is a 1988 American apocalyptic thriller film written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt, and starring Anthony Edwards and

Mare Winningham A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four y ...

. The film depicts the panic surrounding a supposed doomsday brought on by a sudden outbreak of war and its oncoming

nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...

. Both the period and nighttime setting leave characters and the audience uncertain as to whether or not the doomsday claims hold any authenticity. The film takes place in a single day, and mostly in real-time. It is titled after the

Miracle Mile Miracle Mile may refer to: Places in the United States * Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, a district of Los Angeles * Miracle Mile (Coral Gables), a shopping area in Coral Gables, Florida * Miracle Mile (Manhasset), New York, a premium sho ...

neighborhood of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, where most of the events takes place..

Plot

The film opens with the two main characters, Harry (Anthony Edwards) and Julie (Mare Winningham), meeting at the

La Brea Tar Pits La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' in Spanish) has seeped up from the gro ...

, where they immediately fall in love. They spend the afternoon together, and arrange to meet at midnight after her shift at a local coffee shop. A power failure means Harry's alarm fails to wake him and Julie leaves for home. When Harry awakes that night he realizes what has happened and rushes to the shop, arriving at 4 AM. Harry tries to call Julie on a payphone, but only reaches her answering machine, where he leaves an apology. The phone rings as soon as the previous call ends and Harry answers, hearing a frantic man urgently warning that war will break out in less than seventy minutes. When Harry asks who is calling, the man realizes that he has dialed the wrong

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

. He pleads with Harry to call his father and apologize for some past wrong before he is interrupted and presumably shot dead. An unfamiliar voice picks up the phone and tells Harry to forget everything he heard "and go back to sleep" before disconnecting. Harry, confused and not entirely convinced of the reality of the information, wanders back into the diner and tells the other customers what he has heard. As the patrons scoff at his story, one of them, a businesswoman named Landa (

Denise Crosby Denise Michelle Crosby is an American actress and model known for portraying Security Chief Tasha Yar mainly in season one of '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', and Yar's daughter, the half-Romulan Commander Sela, in subsequent seasons. She ...

), places calls to politicians in

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

and finds that they are all suddenly heading for "the extreme Southern Hemisphere". She verifies the authenticity of certain elements of Harry's phone conversation and, convinced of the danger, immediately charters private jets out of

Los Angeles International Airport Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...

to a compound in a region in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

with no rainfall. Most of the customers and staff leave with her in the owner's delivery van. When the owner refuses to make any stops, Harry, unwilling to leave without Julie, arranges to meet the group at the airport and jumps from the truck. Harry is helped and hindered by various strangers, who are initially unaware of the impending apocalypse. In the process he inadvertently causes several deaths and is deeply shaken by that, yet still he goes on. When he finds Julie and later tells her, she notes that there is no confirmation of the attack. Desperate to reach the airport and not having a car, Harry finds a helicopter pilot and tells him to meet them on the roof of the Mutual Benefit Life Building, where Landa ordered a helicopter and a large amount of supplies to be delivered. Julie has also tried to find a pilot on her own, and in the moments it takes to find her, Los Angeles descends into violent chaos. There is still no confirmation any of this is real, and Harry wonders if he has sparked a massive false panic in the example of

Chicken Little "Henny Penny", more commonly known in the United States as "Chicken Little" and sometimes as "Chicken Licken", is a European folk tale with a moral in the form of a cumulative tale about a chicken who believes that the world is coming to an end ...

. However, when he uses a phone booth to contact the father of the man who called him (using the number of the booth and the area code the man was trying to use), he reaches a man who says his son is a soldier. Harry tries to pass on the message he was given, but the man hangs up before Harry finishes. When they reach the top of the Mutual Benefit building they find the pad empty, with only Landa's drunk co-worker on the roof. Any doubts about a false alarm are eliminated when a missile can be seen streaking across the sky. As they fear the end, the helicopter suddenly returns with the pilot badly wounded but fulfilling his promise to come back for them. After they lift off from the roof, several warheads hit and the nuclear electromagnetic pulse from the detonations causes the helicopter to crash into the La Brea pits. As the helicopter sinks and the cabin fills with natural asphalt tar, Harry tries to comfort a hysterical Julie by saying someday their fossils will be found and they will probably be put in a museum, or maybe they will take a direct hit and be turned into diamonds. Julie, accepting her fate, calms down and takes comfort in Harry's words, and the movie fades out as the tar fills the compartment. A final explosion seems to imply a direct hit has taken place.

Cast

* Anthony Edwards as Harry Washello *

as Julie Peters *

John Agar John George Agar Jr. (January 31, 1921 – April 7, 2002) was an American film and television actor. He is best known for starring alongside John Wayne in the films ''Sands of Iwo Jima'', '' Fort Apache'', and '' She Wore a Yellow Ribbon''. In h ...

as Ivan Peters * Lou Hancock as Lucy Peters *

Mykelti Williamson Mykelti Williamson (born March 4, 1957) is an American actor best known for his roles in the films ''Forrest Gump'', ''Con Air'' and ''Ali'', and the television shows ''Boomtown'', '' 24'', and '' Justified''. In 2016, he portrayed Gabriel Maxso ...

as Wilson *

Kelly Jo Minter Kelly Jo Minter (born July 14, 1966) is an American actress. Minter made her acting debut as "The Pilot" in an after-school short movie of the same name in 1984. She made her film debut as Lorrie in ''Mask'' (1985). She subsequently portrayed Den ...

as Charlotta *

Kurt Fuller Kurt Fuller (born September 16, 1953) is an American character actor. He has appeared in a number of television, film, and stage projects. He is best known for his roles in the films ''No Holds Barred'' and ''Ghostbusters II'' (both 1989), ''Way ...

as Gerstead *

Brian Thompson Brian Earl Thompson (born August 28, 1959) is an American actor. His career began with a small role in the 1984 film ''The Terminator''. He played the villainous "Night Slasher" in the 1986 film '' Cobra''. His first named role was on ''Werew ...

as Helicopter Pilot *

as Landa *

Robert DoQui Robert DoQui (April 20, 1934 – February 9, 2008) was an American actor who starred in film and on television. He is best known for his roles as King George in the 1973 film ''Coffy'', starring Pam Grier; as Wade in Robert Altman's 1975 fi ...

as Fred the Cook *

O-Lan Jones O-Lan Jones (born May 23, 1950) is an American actress, composer, and theater producer. She played religious fanatic Esmeralda in ''Edward Scissorhands''. Early and personal life Jones was born in Los Angeles, California. Her first name comes ...

as Susie the Waitress * Claude Earl Jones as Harlan *

Alan Rosenberg Alan Rosenberg (born October 4, 1950) is an American actor. Rosenberg is perhaps best known for his character Eli Levinson which appeared in both the series '' Civil Wars'' and the popular '' L.A. Law''. From 2005 to 2009, he was president of the ...

as Mike * Danny De La Paz as Roger the Transvestite *

Earl Boen Earl Boen () is an American retired film, television and voice actor, best known as criminal psychologist Dr. Peter Silberman in ''The Terminator'' (1984), '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' (1991), '' Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines'' (2003) and ...

as Drunk Man in Diner *

Raphael Sbarge Raphael Sbarge (born February 12, 1964) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Jake Straka on ''The Guardian'' (2001–04), Jiminy Cricket / Dr. Archibald Hopper on ''Once Upon a Time'' (2011–18) and Insp ...

as Chip ''(voice on phone)'' *

Lucille Bliss Lucille Theresa Bliss (March 31, 1916 – November 8, 2012) was an American actress, known in the Bay Area and in Hollywood as the "Girl With a Thousand Voices". A New York City native, Bliss lent her voice to numerous television characters, in ...

as Old Woman in Diner *

Diane Delano Diane Delano (born January 29, 1957) is an American character actress. She is known for her numerous roles in films and television, such as Sergeant Barbara Semanski on the CBS television series ''Northern Exposure'' and Roberta "Bobbi" Glass on ...

as Stewardess *

Edward Bunker Edward Heward Bunker (December 31, 1933 – July 19, 2005) was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, convicted felon and an actor. He wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films. He wrote the scripts for—a ...

as Nightwatchman *

Peter Berg Peter Berg (born March 11, 1964) is an American director, producer, writer, and actor. His directorial film works include the black comedy ''Very Bad Things'' (1998), the action comedy ''The Rundown'' (2003), the sports drama '' Friday Night Lig ...

as Band Member *

Richard Biggs Richard James Biggs II (March 18, 1960 – May 22, 2004) was an American television and stage actor, known for his roles on the television series ''Days of Our Lives'' and ''Babylon 5''. Early life Born in Columbus, Ohio, Biggs attended the Un ...

as Brian Jones *

Jenette Goldstein Jenette Elise Goldstein (born February 4, 1960) is an American actress. She is known for starring as Private Vasquez in the sci-fi horror film '' Aliens'' (1986), which won her the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also played Diam ...

as Beverly Hills Chick #1

Production

Before ''Miracle Mile'' was made, its production had been legendary in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

for ten years. In 1983, it had been chosen by ''American Film'' magazine as one of the ten best unmade screenplays. Steve De Jarnatt wrote it just out of the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Leade ...

for

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...

with the hope of directing it as well. The studio wanted to make it on a bigger scale and did not want to entrust the project with a first-time director like De Jarnatt. ''Miracle Mile'' spent three years in production limbo until De Jarnatt optioned it himself, buying the script for $25,000. He rewrote it and the studio offered him $400,000 to buy it back. He turned them down. When he shopped it around to other studios, they balked at the mix of romance and nuclear war and the film's downbeat ending. At one point, it nearly became the script for the eventual separately made '' Twilight Zone: The Movie''. Before Anthony Edwards was cast, production nearly began with both

Nicolas Cage Nicolas Kim Coppola (born January 7, 1964), known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. Born into the Coppola family, he is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Gu ...

and

Kurt Russell Kurt Vogel Russell (born March 17, 1951) is an American actor. He began acting on television at the age of 12 in the Westerns on television, western series ''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (TV series), The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'' (19 ...

. Of the script, Edwards said, "It scared the hell out of me. It really made me angry too ... I just couldn't believe that somebody had written this." John Daly of Hemdale Films gave De Jarnatt $3.7 million to make the film. Edwards later recalled:

That was a script that everybody wanted to make, but they wanted him to change the ending. It was this great adventure, but they wanted it to have a happy ending. But he stuck it out, and luckily he stuck it out long enough that I was old enough to play the part. aughs. So I got to do it, and we did it at a time when there really was no green screen for special effects. You had to shoot what was there. It's amazing how dated that film looks now, because of our ability to do things technically now. I mean, it really looks antiquated. Mare Winningham is one of the greatest actresses ever. It was eight weeks of night shooting, though, so you'd be driving home from work at, like, 6 in the morning, having had a wrap beer, and then you're suddenly going, "Oh my God, what do people think of somebody having a beer at 6 in the morning whenever everyone else is on their way to work? aughs./blockquote>The following locations in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
were used: Johnie's Coffee Shop;
La Brea Tar Pits La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' in Spanish) has seeped up from the gro ...
;
Miracle Mile District Miracle Mile is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California. It contains a stretch of Wilshire Boulevard known as Museum Row. It also contains two Historic Preservation Overlay Zones: The Miracle Mile and the Miracle Mile North HPOZ ...
;
Pan-Pacific Auditorium The Pan-Pacific Auditorium was a landmark structure in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, California. It once stood near the site of Gilmore Field, an early Los Angeles baseball venue predating Dodger Stadium. It was located within sight of bot ...
in the Fairfax District.

Soundtrack
''Miracle Mile'' is the thirty-sixth major release and twelfth soundtrack album by
Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...
. Monty Smith in Q Magazine described it as an "euphonious mixture of gloomy melodic synthesizers and hypnotically insistent drum machines".

Track listing

Personnel
*
Edgar Froese Edgar Willmar Froese (; 6 June 1944 – 20 January 2015) was a German musical artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group Tangerine Dream in 1967. Froese was the only continuous member of the group ...
*
Paul Haslinger Paul Haslinger (born 11 December 1962) is an Austrian musician and composer. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Life and career Early life Haslinger was born and raised in Linz, Austria. He attended high school at Kollegium Aloisi ...

2017 release
The complete score in film sequence order was released in 2017 representing the score as delivered by Tangerine Dream to the director, essentially as heard in the film’s mix with tracks 14 through 23 containing music effects.

Track listing
CD1: The Complete Film Score CD2: The Soundtrack Album

Personnel
*
Edgar Froese Edgar Willmar Froese (; 6 June 1944 – 20 January 2015) was a German musical artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group Tangerine Dream in 1967. Froese was the only continuous member of the group ...
*
Paul Haslinger Paul Haslinger (born 11 December 1962) is an Austrian musician and composer. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Life and career Early life Haslinger was born and raised in Linz, Austria. He attended high school at Kollegium Aloisi ...

Reception
''Miracle Mile'' received generally positive reviews among critics. The review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reported that 91% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 32 reviews and the consensus: "''Miracle Mile'' brings about its small-scale doomsday tale with achingly rich bleakness and hypnotically nightmarish fervor."
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
praised the film, claiming it had a "diabolical effectiveness" and a sense of "real terror". In her review for the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', Rita Kempley wrote: "It seems e Jarnatts not committed to his story or his characters, but to the idea that he is saying something profound—which he isn't." Stephen Holden, in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', wrote: "As Harry and Julie, Mr. Edwards and Ms. Winningham make an unusually refreshing pair." In his review for the ''
Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', Jay Carr called it: "... a messy film, but it's got energy, urgency, conviction and heat and you won't soon forget it." British film and television critic
Charlie Brooker Charlton Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is an English television presenter, writer, producer and satirist. He is the creator and co-showrunner of the sci-fi drama anthology series ''Black Mirror'', and has written for comedy series such as ''Bras ...
, in an article for the BAFTA web site written in September 2008, awarded ''Miracle Mile'' the honor of having the "Biggest Lurch of Tone" of any film he had ever seen.

Awards
Wins: *
Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival The Sitges Film Festival ( ca, Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, links=no) is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Spain, specialized in fantasy and horror films, of which it is considered one of the world's foremost in ...
: Best Special Effects; 1989. *
Saturn Award The Saturn Awards are American awards presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The awards were created to honor science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, but have since grown to reward other films be ...
: Saturn Award for Best Classic Film DVD Release; 2016. Nominations: *
Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival The Sitges Film Festival ( ca, Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, links=no) is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Spain, specialized in fantasy and horror films, of which it is considered one of the world's foremost in ...
: Nominated, Best Film, Steve De Jarnatt; 1989 *
Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
: Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic, Steve De Jarnatt; 1989. *
Independent Spirit Awards The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards), founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with Poly(methyl m ...
: Best Screenplay, Steve De Jarnatt; Best Supporting Female, Mare Winningham; 1990.

See also
*
List of apocalyptic films This is a list of apocalyptic feature-length films. All films within this list feature either the end of the world, a prelude to such an end (such as a world taken over by a viral infection), and/or a post-apocalyptic setting. Pre-1950 * '' The ...
*
List of films about nuclear issues This is a list of films about nuclear issues: Documentary films * ''Ashes to Honey'' * '' The Atom Strikes!'' * ''The Atomic Cafe'' * ''Atomic Ed and the Black Hole'' * ''Atomic Power'' * '' The Bomb (2015)'' * ''Chernobyl Heart'' * ''Command an ...
*
List of nuclear holocaust fiction This list of nuclear holocaust fiction lists the many works of speculative fiction that attempt to describe a world during or after a massive nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or ...
*
Nuclear weapons in popular culture Since their public debut in August 1945, nuclear weapons and their potential effects have been a recurring motif in popular culture, to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the "atomic age". Images of nuclear w ...
*
Survival film The survival film is a film genre in which one or more characters make an effort at physical survival. It often overlaps with other film genres. It is a subgenre of the adventure film, along with swashbuckler films, war films, and safari films. S ...

References

External links
* * * * {{Mojo title, miraclemile
''Miracle Mile''
soundtrack sample by
Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...
at
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

''Miracle Mile''
film trailer at
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
1988 films 1988 independent films 1988 romantic drama films 1988 thriller films 1980s disaster films American disaster films American political thriller films American romantic drama films Apocalyptic films Films about nuclear war and weapons Films scored by Tangerine Dream Films set in Los Angeles Films about World War III 1980s English-language films 1980s American films