End of the Road (1970 film)

End of the Road
Directed by	Aram Avakian
Written by	Terry Southern Aram Avakian Dennis McGuire
Starring	James Earl Jones Stacy Keach Dorothy Tristan Harris Yulin
Cinematography	Gordon Willis
Edited by	Aram Avakian Robert Q. Lovett
Music by	George Avakian Teo Macero[1]
Production company	Max L. Raab Productions
Distributed by	Allied Artists
Release date	February 10, 1970 (1970-02-10)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

End of the Road is a 1970 American comedy drama film directed, co-written, and edited by Aram Avakian and adapted from a 1958 novel by John Barth, and stars Stacy Keach, James Earl Jones and Harris Yulin.

The film was given an X rating for an abortion scene and other frank scenes, including one in which a naked man rapes a chicken. The film won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival.^[2]

A nine-page Life Magazine article was published on Aram Avakian and End of the Road on November 7, 1969. Avakian was also interviewed at length in Playboy and Esquire. End of the Road is a ground-breaking early indie picture. Many of the cast and crew went on to have distinguished careers.

The film gained a cult following at art movie houses across the U.S., where audiences would speak aloud the lines while they watched the midnight screenings. In 2012, it was released again (on DVD) from a brand new original print struck from a pristine negative by Warner Brothers as part of a series of re-discovered cinematic treasures in their archives. The director Steven Soderbergh rediscovered the film, spearheaded its revival, and made a companion documentary, An Amazing Time: A Conversation About the End of the Road.