How to Beat the High Cost of Living, 1980

I never really watched this thing. It was filmed here in Eugene, Oregon, some of it just down the street from me. Maybe seeing my own city in a movie wasn't that big a thrill when I could step outside and see the real thing, but now, 40 years later, it's fun to watch. The only movie shot in Eugene that was also set in Eugene.

When Fred Willard passed away, I wrote about the time I saw him sitting in an RV in the Taco Time parking lot. I thought he must have filmed a scene earlier at the Texaco station, but it turned out he had a scene at Taco Time that must have been filmed that evening. He sits at an outside table talking with Susan St James.

There was a scene at the Texaco across the street also filmed at night. In the background, you could see the Taco Time and a Baskin Robbins.

This was around the time that Baskin Robbins was robbed at gunpoint by a man who went on to become the I-5 Killer. I was in a class in school with the girl who worked there the night of the robbery. She didn't seem shaken by it. She told the teacher about it that morning, said something to the effect that the robber seemed like a jackass. The teacher was angry that they would have a teenage girl working alone at night, and she was right about that.

In a reverse shot, I think you can see the motel where the I-5 Killer was living.

Starring Jane Curtain, Jessica Lange and Susan St. James, with Eddie Albert, Dabney Coleman, Richard Benjamin, Art Metrano, Sybil Danning, Ronnie Schell, Cathryn Damon and Garrett Morris.

A guy I once knew slightly was listed in the closing credits. He never mentioned it. He told me he was an ordained Unitarian minister but didn't mention being in a movie.

They use payphones. In one scene, Jane Curtain's electricity has been shut off, but she's still able to use her telephone. Both these things would be impossible today.

I don't know if the plot made any sense. There was a big ball full of money in the shopping center and if you guessed how much money was in it, you'd win a prize. Three financially strapped petit bourgeois women set out to rob it.  Sort of a poor man's Fun with Dick and Jane (1977).

They keep talking about how terrible the economy is. Things actually looked pretty good back then. In the scenes in the shopping center, half the stores aren't belly up like they are now.