

Reverend Brooks leads his small Iowa town in a contest to stop smoking for a month. But some tobacco executives don't want them to win, and try everything they can to make them smoke. If townspeople don't go nuts from wanting a cigarette, or kill each other from irritation and frustration, they will win a huge prize.
Writing
Norman Lear's razor-sharp satire before his TV reign
Acting
Dick Van Dyke against type as a stressed reverend
Practical Effects
Pre-CGI crowd chaos done with actual crowds

Director
Norman Lear
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Norman Lear's only theatrical feature as director before revolutionizing sitcoms. The studio buried it because they feared tobacco industry retaliation.
Released months before the first Surgeon General report on secondhand smoke, the film predicted how Big Tobacco would fight public health campaigns for decades.