My review cannot be taken objectively inasmuch as I wrote and produced it and directed 95% of it. This was a low budget movie first released in theatres in 1972, but it has excellent photography, a good and original musical score with country legend Marty Robbins singing two songs (offscreen). The film was shot entirely on location in California, Arizona, New Mexico Texas and Mexico for less than $300,000, still, "low budget" even in 1970. Even though it was a low budget film, several years later, ORION pictures distributed it for many years on TV, and it got good audience reaction when first released in theatres. The production sound mixer went on to gain five Oscar nominations, and an assistant cameraman, Ed Begley Jr., said he never wanted to act. In spite of a good cast,I would rate this film as "fair," but not bad, especially considering the low budget. It was even a union crew. Leonard Maltin calls this film a "bomb" and describes the plot as a blackmail plot but there was no blackmail plot at all, so we know Maltin never saw it and probably relied on the inaccurate summary of some high school dropout to provide the description. It was never released on video until early 1998 and then only in truck stops where it outsold all other recent hits by far, wherever it was displayed, partly due to the fact that all the trucker scenes were technically accurate, and co-star Charles Napier, in his first PG film, actually learned to drive a tractor trailer for his role.Sorry, folks, no gratuitous violence or sex scenes except a little teaser in the beginning, and no cursing. If I had known that Maltin would provide a completely inaccurate plot summary I would have put in filthy words and stupid violence in order to elevate Moonfire to the level of all the really inane so-called trucker movies with unbelievable plots.
Review of Moonfire
