''A Place Called Today'' is a 1972 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by Don Schain. The film stars J. Herbert Kerr Jr.,

Lana Wood Lana Wood (born Svetlana Lisa Gurdin; March 1, 1946) is an American actress and producer. She made her film debut in ''The Searchers'' as a child actress and later achieved notability for playing Sandy Webber on the TV series '' Peyton Place'' a ...

Cheri Caffaro Cheri Caffaro is an American actress who appeared mainly in low-budget exploitation films in the 1970s. Career In 1960, a fifteen-year-old Pasadena resident, she won a ''Life''-magazine-reported Brigitte Bardot look-alike contest, beating a tw ...

, Richard Smedley, Timothy Brown and Peter Carew. The film was released on June 7, 1972, by

Embassy Pictures Embassy Pictures Corporation (also and later known as Avco Embassy Pictures as well as Embassy Films Associates) was an American independent film production and distribution company, which was active from 1942 to 1986. Embassy was responsible ...

. The film is also known as ''City in Fear''.

Plot

During a political campaign for mayor elections in an American town, white and black militants attack each other violently, leading to the kidnapping of Cindy, the mistress of one of the candidates.

Cast

*J. Herbert Kerr Jr. as Randy Johnson *

as Carolyn Schneider *

as Cindy Cartwright *Richard Smedley as Ron Carton *Timothy Brown as Steve Smith *Peter Carew as Ben Atkinson *Woody Carter as Black Radical *Leo Tepp as Alexander Cartwright *Cucho Viera as White Radical *Howard Zeiden as Doug Gilmore *Humphrey Davis as John Higgins *Mary Rio Lewis as Mrs. Johnson

Reception

In his list of the 10 worst films of 1972,

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', wrote of ''A Place Called Today'', "This is my sentimental choice as the most horrible film of the year, one of the two soft-core porn films of 1972 that, starred Cheri Caffaro (Mrs. Don Schain) as a singularly unqualified enchantress, a role that amounts to a kind of character part for her. The film also has to do with a furiously complicated and crooked election campaign involving a crooked black politician, a crooked white politician, and a pretty white revolutionary (Lana Wood) who obviously divides her time equally between participating in politics and applying eye make-up."

References

External links

* 1972 films American drama films 1972 drama films Embassy Pictures films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films {{1970s-US-film-stub