By Steve Bergsman
The house manager of the beautifully restored movie palace, the Paramount, in Bristol, Tennessee, is very strict about her position. No matter the Broadway show or how famous the musician, she never breaks to sit with the audience to watch as if she were a civilian. However, in the coming months, the Paramount would be showing classic films, and for one movie she said she was going to break her own rule and just sit and watch. What could it be, "Gone With the Wind"?
No, the house manager was looking forward to watching "Thunder Road." Decades before "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was the mainstay of late-night moviegoers "Thunder Road" was the late-night standard for drive-ins from one end of the country to the other — but especially in the South.
"Thunder Road" was the epitome of cheap, teen-oriented films known back in the day as a "drive-in movie." It was about a famous moonshine-runner during the Depression, when alcohol was illegal and the best that could be had was made by Appalachian backwoodsmen. The moonshine-running corridors of the region were known as Thunder Road, hence the title of the movie.
When I was in Knoxville, I picked up a self-driving guide called "White Lightning: Thunder Road to Rebels Trail," noting that "Rebels careened around the curves of Thunder Road transporting illegal homemade corn whiskey under the cover of darkness." At the center of the brochure was a map of the four-state (Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina) corner of Appalachia known for its moonshine, and the Thunder Roads were delineated. These old dirt roads are now main travel corridors and highways and are no longer dangerous and unknown.
The stops today are neither stills nor forest hideaways but rather state parks, historic homes, unique eateries, churches and cemeteries, museums and even wineries. These Appalachian roads lead to the General Longstreet Museum (Russellville), the Andrew Johnson Tailor Shop (Greeneville), Clinch Mountain Overlook (Tennessee), Bush Beans Visitor Center (Dandridge), Jefferson Country Courthouse (Dandridge), town of Cumberland Gap (Tennessee) or the Little Congress Bicycle Museum (Cumberland Gap).
Look for Tennessee state routes 33 and 25, which were the routes heaviest trafficked by moonshiners and the actual byways nicknamed Thunder Road. This was because of the loud, low rumbles of the booze-running vehicles that were heavily modified to outrace the authorities.
Knoxville has embraced Thunder Road because of the spectacle crash of a notorious Kentucky moonshiner named "Tweedle-o-twill." According to a local historian, Thunder Road emptied into Knoxville along what is today called Kingston Pike. It was the tale of Tweedle-o-twill that formed the basis for the movie.
According to historians, Thunder Road was also the code name assigned to the undercover operation to nab moonshiners because in the Appalachian foothills Thunder Road was a term coined "to identify the nighttime route from Harlan, Kentucky, to Knoxville."
Robert Mitchum, who starred in the movie, also co-wrote the theme song — and sang it, as well. The ending lyrics go this way: "Roaring out of Harlan, revving up his mill / he shot the gap at Cumberland, and screamed by Maynordsville / with G-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead / the mountain boy took roads that even angels feared to tread. / Blazing right through Knoxville, out on Kingston Pike / then right outside of Beardon, there they made the fatal strike."
The historian found a witness to the crash and wrote this account: "After clearing the first roadblock Tweedle-o-twill roared down Kingston Pike, unaware that a second roadblock, a row of cars, bumper to bumper, was aligned at the intersection of Morrel Road and Kingston Pike ... rocketing around the bend, he lost control, sending his car into a dirt bank."
Today, Kingston Pike is a main commercial road lined for miles with retail stores and gas stations. The actual intersection of the crash is now a mall. But here's an interesting note: The movie was not filmed in Knoxville but in Asheville, North Carolina, along Weaverville Road. This stretch of blacktop is also not so country anymore. However, there is one famous stop included in the movie that still exists, the Log Cabin Motor Court, which is open for business. Built in the 1930s, the individual log-cabin-style bungalows are scattered on a winding path at the base of a knoll.
I drove into the motor court and noticed a group of adults sitting on a porch early in the evening, drinking — not moonshine but bottled beer and wine. I'm told the cabins are now wired for Wi-Fi, but it must have looked pretty rudimentary when Mitchum hung out there thinking about Thunder Road: "Son, his daddy told him, make this run your last. / Your tank is filled with hundred-proof, you're all tuned up and gassed."
WHEN YOU GO
For more information: www.visitknoxville.com
The Paramount: www.paramountbristol.org
Log Cabin Motor Court: www.ashevillecabins.com
Steve Bergsman is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
The Paramount in Bristol, Tennessee, was the venue for "Thunder Road," the 1958 movie that starred Robert Mitchum. Photo courtesy of Steve Bergsman.
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