80 Steps to Jonah

Mark Jonah Winters (Wayne Newton) is a migrant worker who hitches a ride with Jerry Taggart (Sal Mineo).[3] A car crash kills Taggert,[4] and when the police arrive on the scene Jonah learns he had been riding in a stolen car. He is accused of car theft and, since he believes he cannot prove his innocence, he flees before he can be arrested.

Jonah spends the night sleeping in a field, and awakes to find four blind children, staying at a nearby blind camp. He meets camp housekeeper Nonna (Jo Van Fleet) and camp director Tracy (Diana Ewing), who believe him to be the handyman they were expecting. Jonah begins working at the camp, and gains the trust of the children, whom he can relate to because he had been orphaned as a child. Nonna sees a photo of Jonah in the newspaper and, though she knows he is wanted by the police, does not turn him in.

Eventually the police arrive at the camp, and arrest Jonah. At the police station a drunkard named Wilfred Bashford (Mickey Rooney), who had spoken to Jonah just before he was given a ride by Taggert, is able to corroborate that Jonah had not been the driver of the stolen car. Jonah is freed, and returns to his friends at the camp.[5]

• Wayne Newton as Mark Jonah Winters
• Jo Van Fleet as Nonna
• Keenan Wynn as Barney Glover
• Diana Ewing as Tracy Rutledge
• Mickey Rooney as Wilfred Bashford
• Sal Mineo as Jerry Taggart
• R. G. Armstrong as Mackray
• Slim Pickens as Scott
• Frank Schuller as Witney
• Dennis Cross as Maxon
• Brandon Cruz as Little Joe Wilson
• Erin Moran as Kim
• Teddy Quinn as Richard
• Michele Tobin as Cathy
• Susan Mathews as Velma
• Ira Angustain as Pepe
• Lilly Martens as Nina
• Butch Patrick as Brian Hofstadter
• Lord Nelson as Ralph the Dog
• Coby Denton as Wilks
• Joe Conley as Jenkins
• Fred Dale as Sheriff
• Don Familton as Sheriff
• Holger Bendixen as Fisherman
• James Bacon as Hobo
• Jackie Kahane as himself

• List of American films of 1969

• 80 Steps to Jonah at IMDb
• 80 Steps to Jonah at the TCM Movie Database