Pipe Dreams (1976)

(On Cable TV, July 2021) Clunky yet distinctive, Pipe Dreams feature no less than the very likable soul singer Gladys Knight as a woman heading to Alaska in order to reconnect with her husband. The storyline is thin and not particularly focused, but the film remains interesting due to other factors — Knight herself and the film’s lack of hesitation in featuring her on the soundtrack, and the often-magnificent Alaskan landscape as our protagonist hangs around pipeline fields and small towns. The tone of the film isn’t quite sure of itself and there are many ways the subplots would have been reinforced, but the film isn’t even 90 minutes long and does offer a period piece (which is probably not that outdated) of roughnecks in Alaska in the mid-1970s. I’ve seen better yet more forgettable films than Pipe Dreams this week.