Sunday Matinee: James Bond

I'm going to deviate from my usual Sunday Matinee postings and cover an entire series of films today. I grew up with James Bond, both on television and in the theater. I believe the first one I ever saw in the movies was The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), which would have been when I was eight years old.

I will be the first to admit that there is not a lot of deep philosophy in these movies, but damn they were a lot of fun. Nor are they anything like the original Ian Flemming stories, which irritates many purists (including one friend of mine who has never seen a Bond film and flat-out refuses to do so, ever, because he is such a fan of the stories). They are something of a product of their times, of course; we see Live and Let Die (1973) coming out at the height of the "blacksploitation" craze that gave us both Shaft and Blackula. Too, both The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) featured villains who were industrialists and businesssmen, echoing the general mistrust of big business that spiked in the later half of the 1970's. The Russians are, somewhat surprisingly, almost never the real bad-guys. Even in From Russia With Love (1963) the real villain is SPECTRE.

The conventional wisdom is usually that, much like Doctor Who, your favorite Bond actor is the one you first saw. This is true in my case, as the first Bond film I ever remember seeing on television was You Only Live Twice (1967), and Sean Connery remains my favorite 007.

The plots, especially of the early films, are something of a mixed bag. Some of the actions that Bond takes are downright incomprehensible (such as in Goldfinger (1964), where Bond is supposed to pose as a would-be gold smuggler to get inside Goldfinger's smuggling operation, but instead goes out of his way to antagonize him). Also, some of the bad guys' plots are somewhat over-complicated at times (why, for instance, does SPECTRE bother with capturing American and Soviet spacecraft in You Only Live Twice, when they could have simply shot them down with a missile, achieving their same goal with a lot less trouble?).

For all their flaws, though, I still love the pre-Brosnan Bond films. The Pierce Brosnan films and later seem very different in tone and tenor, and tend to fall very flat to me, perhaps owing to the fact that they were all made after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the world was a very different place, and the place of Bond and MI6 wasn't what it once was. They're great fun if you don't try to turn them into something they're not, and I find them eminently re-watchable.

Plus, I like to try to find connections between the films that weren't originally there, as a sort of game. For instance, it appears that Klaus Hergesheimer (from Diamonds Are Forever (1971)) originally had a job with NASA during You Only Live Twice. And while he was with Whyte Aerospace, he worked with Tom Carter from The Spy Who Loved Me, whose reserve USN commission was apparently activated to put him in command of the submarine.USS Wayne. And what the heck was Morton Slumber doing posing as an American diplomat? Was he a SPECTRE agent all along, or did they turn him later on and set him up at the mortuary? The intricacies abound.

Anyway, to finish off this little retrospective, I give you my own Top Ten Bond Films of All Time; many of these are based on how good the villain is (Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, for example, push Diamonds Are Forever over the top). Feel free to give your own list in the comments!

10. From Russia With Love - Connery
9. Dr. No - Connery
8. You Only Live Twice - Connery
7. Live and Let Die - Moore
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Lazenby
5. Thunderball - Connery
4. The Man With the Golden Gun - Moore
3. Goldfinger - Connery
2. Moonraker - Moore
1. Diamonds Are Forever - Connery

Sunday Matinee: Excalibur (1981)

Of all the adaptations of the King Arthur legend, Excalibur is perhaps the least historically accurate. And for all that, it's probably one of the most visually stunning.

Famed among aficionados for the scene where the disguised King Uther has sex with Igrayne while wearing full plate armor, this film sort of takes all the bits and pieces of the Arthur legend and plucks out whatever it damn well pleases to make a story. There are pieces of Thomas Mallory, T.H. White, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Alan Jay Lerner, and a lot more besides to be found here.

The film starts with Uther Pendragon struggling to bring all of England under his rule. Merlin (who, tellingly, refers to himself as "the Merlin" at one point) has worked for years to bring peace to the land, and gives Uther the sword Excalibur to cow the reluctant warlords to accept his rule. Alas, his victory is short-lived, as lust for the lady Igrayne, wife of the duke of Cornwall, leads him to break the hard-won truce. Arthur is fathered, Cornwall is slain, and eventually Uther himself is assassinated, but not after he embeds Excalibur into a boulder, stuck there for decades.

Flash forward a couple of decades, and Arthur, serving as a squire at a tournament where the winner gets to try to pull the sword from the stone, does so accidentally and effortlessly. Merlin re-appears and mentors the young king. Most of the knights oppose his new-found kingship, but his strength and courage wins them over in the end. He weds Guenevere, breaks Excalibur trying to defeat Lancelot (the Lady of the Lake mends the sword and returns it to him, after a frantic Merlin declares that "hope is broken"), and eventually forms the Round Table, once England is brought to peace.

More years pass, and after Lancelot and Guenevere betray Arthur by sleeping together (at which point Arthur loses Excalibur), and Morgana (Arthur's half-sister) not only orchestrates the downfall of Merlin but fathers a son (Mordred) with Arthur, the quest for the Holy Grail, which would heal the now-wounded land, begins. Morgana, it turns out, has suborned or slain the various knights who have stumbled upon her lair, but Percival overcomes them and eventually finds the grail.

Arthur finds Guenevere, Excalibur is restored to the king, and Arthur and his few remaining loyal knights ride out to meet Morgana and Mordred. With Lancelot's unexpected return, Arthur is victorious, albeit sorely wounded, and eventually dies, taken to Albion in a viking-esque funeral scene after Excalibur is finally returned to the Lady of the Lake.

One of the most outstanding features of this film is the performance of Nicol Williamson as Merlin. With his rolling baritone voice and skull-fitting chrome helmet, he embodied the character of Merlin for me for years after seeing him. The score draws heavily on Wagner (the Ring cycle, Parsifal, and Tristan and Isolde), and works very well for such a ponderous movie.

I say "ponderous" here not in an entirely negative connotation. The film has a very "heavy" feel, partly because of the costuming (the armor worn by the knights is a very unhistorical solid iron and later chrome-plated full plate armor), and also because of the almost oppressive feel of some of the locations. Woods are always deep and thick, the castles are cyclopean in their design, and even the parts in the wastelands are dark and claustrophobic. Liberal use of fog adds to the feeling. Wagner's music feels right at home in the setting.

Sunday Matinee: Halloween (1978)

Last week I said there were two movies that actually scared me when I was a kid. John Carpenter's Halloween was the other one, and quite appropriate to today's auspicious date!

This is another movie that doesn't try to include any social commentary; there are no hidden messages or agendas here. The plot is simpicity itself. Fifteen years ago in a small midwestern town, a young boy, for reasons that are not explained in the film (more about that below) kills his sister with a large knife on Halloween night, seemingly without any sort of emotion. Fifteen years later, having been incarcerated in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, he escapes, and his psychiatrist (Dr. Loomis, played by Donald Pleasance) goes on the trail, trying to catch Michael while at the same time trying to convince the authorities just how dangerous he is. Michael, clad in anonymous blue coveralls and wearing a creepy blank mask, stalks the local teenagers and then goes on a killing spree while they are babysitting in various houses on Halloween night. As he tries to kill the last girl (Laurie, played by Jamie Lee Curtis in her first real acting role), Dr. Loomis finally catches up to him, puts a large number of bullets in him, and Laurie is ambulanced off to safety. The camera then turns back to where Michael's body fell... and it is no longer there.

There are a lot of things that make this one of the "perfect" horror films. The music, composed by John Carpenter as a money-saving feature because of the film's miniscule budget, is instantly memorable, sets the tension in the film to maximum, and yet doesn't seem to get in the way of the film itself. The low budget led to decisions that were originally made in the interests of cost-cutting, but in the end turned out to be just right for the artistic feel of the film. Notably, the lack of extras on the streets. While the three babysitters are walking to and from school, the streets are empty, adding subliminally to the feeling that they are already cut off from the rest of the world, and thus vulnerable. Most of the film is entirely mundane. We see them walking down the street, talking like any teens would talk, and yet we know that there's a killer stalking them. The music is always there in the background, ratcheting up the tension, and we are just waiting, waiting for the Bad Things to start happening.

Almost all of the actors are unknowns (even Jamie Lee Curtis, who comes from a famous Hollywood family, had only been in a handful of television shows before the film), adding to the small town, girl next door feel. Donald Pleasance was the only "big name" actor, and he gives a wonderfully creepy performance. When your doctor is doing everything he can to shoot you, know know something's wrong...

But what really makes this film is Michael Myers himself. He's a cipher, clad in coveralls and with a mask (the creepy blank face mask was, famously, a William Shatner mask from a local hardware store). He has no motive. He is just pure evil, killing for the sake of it. He has infininte patience, seemingly fooling all of the other doctors by pretending to be completely unresponsive for a decade and a half, just awaiting his opportunity to escape and go on a rampage. He drives himself forward through sheer force of will; he's not some musclebound superman, but just an ordinary mortal who is simply so driven in his mission to kill that he overcomes being stabbed, shot, tossed off roofs, and more. This is a vital aspect of the films that I think is lost in the later sequels (where some sort of supernatural demonic-possession story is glossed onto the backstory) and in the recent remake (where Michael is presented as a very muscular and imposing physical figure).

And one of the most extraordinary things about this film is that is accomplishes its goals with almost no gore. No copious amounts of blood are needed. This film presents a perfectly reasonable mundane portrait of middle America and then puts in a mundane, non-supernatural peril. And the resulting suspense makes this a perfect horror film.

Sunday Matinee: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

One, two, Freddy's coming for you.
Three, four, better lock your door.
Five, six, grab your crucifix.
Seven, eight, gonna stay up late.
Nine, ten, never sleep again.
One, two Freddy's coming for you

three, four better lock your door

five, six grab your crucifix
seven, eight gonna stay up late
nine, ten he's back again.

There are two films that actually scared the bejezus out of me growing up. 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street was one of them. The 1980's were the era of "dead teenager films", where anyone over the age of 14 who dared to get intimate with anyone else was just daring some deranged killer with a machete to off them. But Wes Craven came up with something truly original in the genre, and together he and Robert Englund created a character that was iconic from the instant he hit the screen.

The plot is pretty simple. Students at the local high school are being killed in their sleep. The M.O. is that of Freddy Krueger, who molested and killed kids in the town years before. But it couldn't possibly be him, because he's dead...

Several gruesome killings later, we learn that it was the outraged parents of the town who took matters into their own hands and, after Krueger had been let off on a technicality, burned him to death. Now, he has returned from the grave to wreak his vengeance. He is finally thwarted by the heroine simply turning her back on him, ignoring him and thus depriving him of energy. Everyone is then brought back to normal (or, more, a sort of idealized normal). The film ends with the heroine and her friends, seemingly now awake from the nightmare, driving off. But suddenly the top begins to close on the car, and the colors are those of Freddy's characteristic sweater...

This is such a wonderful film in so many ways. The dream sequences are alternately surreal and realistic, just like real dreams. One of the things that really got me was when the heroine was trying to run up the stairs, and her feet sink into the staircase, slowing her to a crawl. I'd actually had that dream, and it really added to the immersion value of the film. They masterfully confuse you as to what is dream and what is reality, and the film ends ambiguously; was the whole thing a dream? Was it a dream within a dream?

The film also explores some pretty weighty issues, if only as subtext. How horrible does someone need to be before vigilantism is justifiable? It's implied, but never outright stated, that Freddy molested the kids he killed. Remember, this was at the height of the "Satanic Panic" of the mid-1980's, when daycare centers were being investigated for allegations of systematic child molestation. At one point, the heroine's parents put bars on the windows to prevent her from sneaking out (which, of course, end up preventing her from escaping Freddy's clutches).

The cast has some unexpected surprises; Johnny Depp was here as a pretty forgettable boyfriend who ends up getting his guts strewn across a bedroom, and John Saxon plays the police chief. And of course under that burn-victim makeup is John Englund, who had just played Willie in the television mini-series V and V: The Final Battle.

All in all, an instant classic addition to the horror genre, driven by wonderful characters and smart writing that blurs the line between dream and reality. There were innumerable sequels, including a television series, and of course the original was recently remade, but the 1984 film is just one of those must-see horror flicks.

Sunday Matinee: Escape from New York (1981)

There are three elements that make up a film (or a novel, for that matter); story, characters, and setting. John Carpenter's Escape from New York is a film where the story is just a convenient excuse to get the awesome characters into the equally-awesome setting.

It's the year 1997. The United States, China, and the Soviet Union have been at war for several years, and the U.S. has become a crime-ridden cesspool. There's only one Federal prison in the entire country; Manhattan. The entire island has been surrounded by a wall, the bridges are mined, the waterways patrolled by helicopters that tend to shoot first and ask questions later, and every sentence is a life sentence. The prisoners have complete liberty within the confines of the jail, but they cannot leave.

Into this setting, the President (played by Donald Pleasence) has been taken hostage by the prisoners in New York after Air Force One is hijacked and crashed into the streets. The United States Police Force (headquartered on Liberty Island; lovely little touches like that are strewn throughout the film) is unable to force him out, and he must be rescued because of some Macguffin with a time limit. In steps Snake Plissken (played by former Disney squeaky-clean boy-genius Kurt Russell), who is given a minimum of equipment, flown to the top of the World Trade Center, and told to bring the President out before the deadline or die trying. Story? What story? Just get Plissken into the city and have him start meeting and beating the locals!

And meet and beat he does; we see absolutely fascinating snippets of what life within the prison is like. Some streets have lights, there is some sort of almost normalcy as a musical review is put on by and for the inmates, and there are even some working automobiles, including a taxi driven by "Cabbie" (Ernest Borgnine). There are various factions amongst the prisoners, but the head honcho is The Duke (Isaac Hayes). Plissken starts to track down the President, stumbling across his old partner in crime, "Brain" (Harry Dean Stanton), who had betrayed him at one point in the past. Brain has a girlfriend, Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau) whose only purpose in the film seems to be to add curves and high-beams to the bleak landscape of rubble-strewn Manhattan. Not that anyone's complaining, you understand...

Eventually, Plissken gets captured, ends up in an arena fighting the Duke's champion warrior, and ends up finding and rescuing the President and fleeing from the Duke's pursuit with Brain and Cabbie in tow. His prepared escape route wrecked (a plane on the roof of the World Trade Center), Plissken et al make their way to the 5th Street Bridge, which has been seeded with land-mines. Fortunately, Brain has a map, which works most of the way. Plissken gets the President out, the President kills The Duke, and Plissken's life is saved from the explosives that have been implanted in his body. But ha-ha! Plissken has the last laugh, having swapped out the critical Macguffin cassette tape with another, making the whole enterprise for naught.

Like I say, this film is not in any way about the plot. It's about Plissken himself, a perfectly wonderful character borne as much of Carpenter's sharp writing as Russell's growling muted performance. His interactions with Brain, Cabbie, and even the President are perfectly captured, not to mention his meeting with the police chief who sends him into the prison on the rescue mission in the first place. Carpenter did the music for this one himself, just as he had done with Halloween (and would again do with They Live), and while it's not John Williams, it suits the dark and moody tone of the film exceptionally well. It's one of those on my "if it's on the satellite, I'll take the time to watch it" list.

There was an unfortunate sequel, "Escape from L.A.", but it had none of the charm of the original, and got caught up in heavy-handed social commentary in a style that works best when such is kept to subtle nods, and big-ticket action sequences that felt completely tacked on (Plissken surfing... ugh...). There are also rumors of a remake, but I can but hope they never come to fruition. (Although one rumor pegs it as a prequel, with Carpenter as Executive Producer, so it might not be as bad.)

Sunday Matinee: Forbidden Planet (1956)

Forbidden Planet is often described as a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, and has a reputation as being one of the first "serious" science fiction movies. When compared to fare such as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, or Them!, that's probably true, but I think contemporaries such as Destination Moon, This Island Earth, and of course The Day the Earth Stood Still, stand up well against it.

The plot is relatively simple. Earth space cruiser C-57D is on a mission to see what happened to an expedition to planet Altair IV, the spaceship Bellerophon, launched some 20 years earlier. They arrive to discover Dr. Morbius (played by Walter Pidgeon) alone on the planet, save for his daughter, Altaira (played by a scrumptious Anne Francis), and Robby the Robot, whom he "tinkered together" soon after arriving on the planet. The rest of the Belerephon crew were destroyed by a "planetary force" that mysteriously spared Morbius and his wife, now deceased of natural causes.

Eventually, Captain Adams (played by a still-a-leading-man Leslie Nielsen) and crew discover one of the secrets that Morbius has been hiding; a prehistoric super-race called the Krell who lived on Altair IV and built a nearly godlike civilization while the ancestors of humanity were still hiding from the dinosaurs. He shows them the "Krell wonders", and also the device that boosted Morbius's IQ to allow him to create Robby. The C-57D is attacked by an invisible monster that hearkens back to the original destruction of the Bellerophon, and there is a signature scene with the beast charging through the ship's force fields and being lit up by blaster fire.

Eventually, the truth comes out; that the Krell had completed a device that would transmit their very thoughts into action, and were destroyed in an orgy of destruction as their subconscious minds were given free reign. Morbius's subconscious has done the same, first destroying the Bellerophon after the crew elected to leave the planet that he loved, and later attacking the C-57D after his jealousy of his daughter was inflamed by the attentions of the crew to her. Morbius dies after setting the Krell machine to self-destruct, the monster is vanquished, and the crew (plus Altaira and Robby) departs.

This was a hugely significant and influential film in a myriad of ways. It was the first serious science fiction film for MGM, and had a first-rate cast whose acting raises the tenor of the film incredibly. The special effects, even though done in 1956, stand up today, even though CGI wasn't even conceived of at that time. Robby the Robot became a staple seen in science fiction films and television shows for decades (including the Twilight Zone and Lost in Space). The uniform designs for the Earth crewmen, with their enormous shoulder pieces and ribbed V-shaped chests, were the standard for the next decade at least. Check out many of the Twilight Zone episodes set on spaceships, and you'll see what I mean. The Earth ship is a flying saucer! And the scenes of the Krell machine, with its miles-deep chasms, narrow walkways, and self-repairing machinery, were a direct influence on the design of Babylon 5's machine in the heart of Epsilon III.

One of the things that stands out about this film, aside from the outstanding acting, writing, and effects, is the use of humor, and the little touches of inter-personal relationships that don't really serve to advance the plot directly, but contribute to our sympathy with the characters, and thus our sense of involvement in the film as a whole. The scene where the cook gets Robby to produce gallons of bourbon, for example, and the early fumblings between Altaira and some of the crew. This was an iconic film in many different ways, visually as well as thematically, and set the stage for future films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Sunday Matinee: Flash Gordon (1980)

I never did get a chance to see it in the theater, but once Flash Gordon hit HBO and Cinemax, I was hooked. It's more than a little campy, but it's everything a sci-fi action adventure film should be. It's big, it's loud, and it's colorful (both literally and in terms of the characters). And it's just a whole ton of fun, impossible to take seriously, and nobody faults it for that.

NY Jets quarterback "Flash" Gordon (Sam J. Jones) and travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) are kidnapped by disgraced scientist Hans Zarkov (Topol) and taken into space to discover what's behind the sudden shift in the moon's orbit, which will soon bring it into collision with Earth. They make it to the planet Mongo, where they are brought before Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow). After an entertaining fight, Gordon is executed, then revived by Ming's daughter, Aura, and taken to Arboria, the moon of Mongo ruled by Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton). He's imprisoned, escapes, and is captured, along with Barin, and taken to the flying city of the Hawkmen, ruled by Prince Vultan (Brian Blessed). There, Barin and Gordon are forced to fight, end up killing Ming's #2 man, Klytus, and the Hawkmen are forced to flee before the Imperial fleet arrives to blow the city to atoms. Left to die in the city by Ming, Gordon finally escapes and convinces Barin and Vultan to work together to overthrow Ming. They stage an attack on Mongo city just as Ming is to wed Dale. Gordon kills Ming, and the Earth is saved. Whew!

This movie has a lot of great things going for it. The cast is first-rate. Brian Blessed made a career out of this performance, and Max von Sydow looks more like Ming the Merciless than the comic strips or the original serials from the 1930's. The production, although it looks a little dated 30 years later (where we are used to dark, grimy, and worn sets, costumes, and props), is glorious in its own way, with lots of bright primary colors and metallic trim. In this respect, it's not unlike Buck Rogers, which came out the year before, and was also based on a 1930's serial.

One of the most outstanding elements of this film is the soundtrack, performed by Queen. Yes, the guys who gave us Bohemian Rhapsody and Fat Bottomed Girls provide the rocking vocals and bass for this film, and it's so over the top that it fits perfectly. The film strikes a tone of being campy, but not absurdly so, and there is enough menace in Ming and Clytus, and characters such as Vultan are so well chiseled, that the whole thing just works. Once again, nothing great and deep here, but it's a hell of a ride, and if you've not seen it before, you should give it a whirl.

Sunday Matinee: Hawk the Slayer (1980)

Right at the crest of the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons there was a minor wave of swords-and-sorcery films that were, more or less, blatant attempts to cash in on the trend. 1980's Hawk the Slayer was, in my opinion, one of the better efforts.

Unlike some of the other films in my Sunday Matinee series, this one doesn't offer much of anything in the way of social commentary. Or, for that matter, fine acting or special effects. But when it hit Cinemax, this fourteen year old was entranced, and watched it literally hundreds of times. It was, almost literally, a D&D game brought to life.

The evil Voltan (played by Jack Palance; just imagine Jack Palance deliberately trying to over-act, and you'll have an inkling of what he's like in this film) has kidnapped an abbess, and is demanding a ransom from the church for her return. The church cannot, by policy, pay the ransom, but suggests that the warrior Hawk, who has been an agent of good in the past, may be able to assist. Hawk re-assembles his band of adventurers with the help of a witch (whom he has saved from being burned at the stake); we have the dwarf, the giant, the elf, and the one-handed crossbowman who was sent to fetch the hero in the first place. Each has a short scene that sets the stage for who he is, and really works for giving a background to the characters.

Seeking the money to pay the ransom, the heroes attack Sped, a slaver on the River Shale (and a thoroughly disgusting character that nobody is sorry to see get his head staved in). Voltan's son, Drogo, learns that they have the ransom money and attempts to get it for himself, but is slain in the process, sending Voltan into a fit of rage. The party heroes are betrayed by one of the nuns, seeking to win the return of the abbess by letting Voltan into the strongly-defended abbey. We are treated to a flashback of backstory, wherein Voltan and Hawk are revealed to be brothers, with the evil Voltan killing the bride-to-be of the saintly Hawk. Eventually, Voltan slays the dwarf, Hawk slays Voltan, and all is set right with the world.

This film defines the B-movie of the 1980's. The soundtrack is cool, but repetitive. The special effects are unbelievably cheesy (we are treated to a barrage of luminescent ping-pong balls as a magic spell at one point), and half of the effects budget must have been spent on fog machine rental. Jack Palance is, well, Jack Palance on steroids, but there is a surprising amount of talent in this movie, including veteran character actor Roy Kinnear as the innkeeper.

What really makes this movie are the interactions between the characters. They are really well portrayed as a group that has a history. The elf is aloof, but deadly with his bow (infamously, there are scenes where he jumps over the same log over and over and over, shooting bad guys each time) and is a sort of mentor for Hawk, and the dwarf and the giant have a continuous battle of wits and insults, but all good-naturedly, leading up to the touching scene of the giant weeping over the dwarf's death. There is a lot of humor throughout the film, and it is used to good effect. But the star, John Terry, makes Keanu Reeves look positively flamboyant by comparison.

Nothing but fluff, and B-grade fluff at that, but it's still a lot of fun. Oh, and it turns out there's finally a sequel in the works! 30 years late, but still welcome.

Sunday Matinee: Roots (1977)

This one might seem a little out of place, being a TV mini-series rather than a straight film, but it made such an impression on me when I was 11 years old that I feel need to include it; Alex Haley's Roots. This really was the first really huge mini-series, and set the stage for other "television movie events" such as The Thornbirds, The Blue and the Grey, and V. It was such an event that watching Roots was our homework for the days it was on, back in 6th grade.

The series tells the story of a family of Africans originally brought to the United States as slaves, and who experience a lot of history in the process of becoming free. It begins in Africa with Kunta Kinte (played by future Star Trek star LeVar Burton in his debut role), who is captured by slavers and brought to America. There, he has a great deal of trouble accepting his new role, is seen as rebellious and attempts escape. He is befriended by another slave, Fiddler (played by Louis Gosset Jr.), who teaches him not only English but the role of the slave. One of the most famous scenes in the entire mini-series focuses on Kunta Kinte being forced to respond to the name he has been given; Toby. An adult (now played by John Amos), eventually he is maimed after yet another escape attempt and eventually settles into his lot, marrying Belle and fathering another slave, Kizzy.

Kizzy (played by Leslie Uggams), now a teen, seems to be genuinely friends with her white owner's daughter, Missy Anne (Sandy Duncan), who even teaches her to read (which is forbidden). The secret is revealed eventually, and she is sold off to another owner, Tom Moore (Chuck Connors), who rapes her and fathers a son by her; George.

When George (played by Ben Vereen) grows into manhood, he is the constant companion of Moore, being skilled at the art of chicken fighting and earning the nickname Chicken George. Because of his skills at chicken fighting, he is sent to England, where he eventually earns his freedom and returns to America, where his son, Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown), is a blacksmith. Of course, the white slave holders are less than impressed with George's papers of manumission, and there are some great scenes between him and them. The Civil War breaks out, and eventually George, Tom, and their families are freed. Reconstruction sees the appearance of the Ku Klux Klan, and eventually the families move to Tennessee to start a new life, and the series ends.

The cast for this production is simply incredible. Aside from those named above, Lloyd Bridges, Edward Asner, Robert Reed, Vic Morrow, George Hamilton, Burl Ives, O.J. Simpson... the cast is a virutal who's who of late 1970's acting talent. The story is completely engaging (even for an 11 year old, which should tell you something), and although there is a bewildering number of characters, each is drawn so well and distinctly that even as a kid I had no problem following who was who. The writing and dialog are impeccable, and there is action, humor, and most especially drama in a fine mix.

I had the opportunity to re-watch the series last year, and it aged very well indeed. The story and characters were still as powerful and compelling as they were some thirty-odd years ago. As a youth, the series made me appreciate a chapter of American history that had hitherto been unknown to me, and as an adult I found the story of that family to be especially poignant and compelling. There was a Roots The Next Generations, but it paled in comparison with the larger-than-life story of slaves struggling to be free, and unfortunately while such comparisons are inevitable, they doomed the sequel to looking pale indeed by the light of its predecessor.

If you've never seen this series, do yourself the favor and seek it out on Netflix or Youtube.

Sunday Matinee: Colossus, The Forbin Project (1970)

I've got to say, for all that I love Colossus: The Forbin Project, I have to wonder how it ever got made. It's rather... procedural. When I was growing up, and one of two kids in my entire school learning about computers myself by staying after school and working on the teletype machine connected to the district's HP9000 timeshare mainframe, scenes of magnetic tapes spinning and words being spelled out in 12x9 lights was awesome... But how the hell did anyone think this would draw in the crowds? In hindsight, though, it plays out a little like "Telefon" or "The Day of the Jackal"; there's no denying the suspense builds and builds, and there is simply no relief.

The film portrays the activation of Colossus, a computer system designed by Dr. Charles Forbin (played by the always-outstanding Eric Braedon). Colossus is designed to take complete and autonomous control of the United States' nuclear weapon stockpile, in order to respond to any Soviet attack without the need for human intervention. The Soviets, however, seem to have created their own version of Colossus, which they call Guardian, in secret. Together, Colossus-Guardian soon prove that they have vastly outperformed their creators' expectations. Together they are, in fact, what we today would call an artificial intelligence, and conspire to bring the entire planet under their control with the aid of the combined nuclear arsenals of the USA and USSR. In order to assure their continued communication, they each launch one of their missiles when the line is cut. An oil complex in Russia is vaporized before it can be restored. These adding machines aren't joking.

The humans, of course, attempt to stop the machines. The members of the Colossus programming unit try to overwhelm the computer with data. Not completely understanding just how far it has progressed, they fail miserably, and the ring leaders are executed. The designer of Guardian is ordered killed, while Forbin is placed under essential house arrest and continual monitoring by Colossus. Continual, that is, except when he is seeing his "mistress"; a member of the Colossus programming team pressed into service as a means of getting information to the conspirators without Colossus' knowledge.

At one point, the military attempts to disarm the nuclear missiles under the guise of changing their targets as ordered by the computers. But, of course, Colossus is one step ahead of them, and detonates one of the warheads as a warning. (I had the extreme pleasure of meeting William Schallert, who plays CIA director Glauber, at a science fiction convention once. I mentioned my love of the film Colossus, and he quipped that he was probably the only character in film history who had been assassinated by an H-bomb. He was a really nice guy in person.)

The film ends with Colossus firmly in control, explaining to Forbin that he will eventually come to replace awe of Colossus with love. The film then just ends, with humanity under the electronic thumb of the computer, backed up by the threat of nuclear annihilation. It's very much a product of its time; a cautionary tale about the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war, and the rise of technology and the dehumanization wrought by computers.

One thing this film did do was introduce me to the trilogy of novels upon which it was based; Colossus, Colossus and the Crab, and The Fall of Colossus. The latter two books get a little more "out there" as Martians come to help rid the Earth of the machine menace, only to prove themselves a bigger threat than Colossus itself. But as a whole the books are excellent, and explore questions of human nature, the impetus of religion (a cult establishes itself dedicated to the worship of the computer, with Forbin as its reluctant chief), and the nature of intelligence itself.

Sunday Matinee: A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Hi, hi, hi, my little droogies!

This bit of ultra-violence came on my gazzies when it viddied on HBO and Cinemax back when I was just a young veck.

Oh, hell, I can't continue this post in nasdat, no matter how much I would like to. A Clockwork Orange was one of those films that, if my parents knew what the hell I was watching when I was 13, would have gotten the cable turned off in our house. And, if you've been following this series at all, you'll know that there is a lot of deep thinking behind the gratuitous sex and violence, it's somewhat iconic in popular culture, and that it made something of an impression on my young mind.

The film follows Alex, a young hoodlum in an undefined, but assumedly near-future Britain, who leads a small gang of "droogs" on nightly rampages of theft, rape, assault, rape, and on at least one occasion, manslaughter. We are treated to Alex, Pete, Georgie, and Dim roughing up a rival gang (caught in the midst of gang-raping a "weepy young devotchka"), beat up an old drunk on the street, and then stealing a car and "doing the old 'surprise visit', which was sure for a laugh'", in which they cripple a man and rape his wife in front of him. Jolly!

The next day, Alex is visited by Mr. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris), his "purse-collective advisor" (read: probation officer), who advises him to stay to the straight and narrow. Alex's been missing more than a little school, it seems, and the police are on to his activities. "You can count on me, sir," Alex assures him. "As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer."

After an encounter with two girls at a record store, who return with Alex for a twosome (remember, this is 1971-- quite shocking-- and even in 1979, it was shocking enough to see two nekkid girls on tv!). His droogs await him, and seem to have plotted something of a revolt. George is now to be the leader, and Dim "his mindless, grinning bulldog." Fortunately for Alex, "wonderful music came to my aid", and he lashes out, slicing into Dim and knocking George off a wharf. Chastened, the two are brought to heel, and suggest a "man sized crast". Alex agrees, ends up killing a woman in a house (with a 4' statue of a penis) and gets hit on the head with a bottle of milk by his former friends for his troubles.

Now in prison, Alex volunteers for the Ludovinko Treatment, which reprograms offenders to be violently ill at the thought of violence. He thinks he's gaming the system to get out early, but Alex really is reprogrammed. The mere thought of violence or sex sends him to the floor in violent retching. Released, he finds he cannot go home, as his parents have rented his room to someone else and the government has confiscated his possessions. The bum he had earlier accosted recognizes him, and he and his compatriots fall upon Alex, who can no longer defend himself. Finally, the police come to his aid; newly-minted officers George and Dim, who proceed to nearly kill Alex and drop him in a wilderness. Alex makes his way to an almost-familiar home; the home of the writer whose wife he had raped, who eventually recognizes him, drugs him, and, having found out that Alex had been conditioned not only against violence and rape, but also Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (incidentally), tries to kill him by blasting the music into Alex's room. Alex tries to kill himself, the government reverses the treatment through surgery, and Alex is finally "cured", with a display of ultra-violent images at the very end of the film to give us proof.

Yikes, this is one hell of a downer of a movie! You'd be hard pressed to find something as cynical as this. Aside from the striking visuals, however, is the musical score. One of the things we learn about Alex is that he is a fan of classical music (particularly Beethoven), and that plays into the plot of the film more than once. But it is also the soundtrack of the film, and possibly the most memorable aspects of it; I actually set up a tape recorder in front of the television back when HBO played the soundtracks of the films between 2 AM and 10 AM, when they didn't actually broadcast, just to record that music. My initial love of classical music comes from that film, and I'm not ashamed to say it, even if some of it is done on synthesizer and has a very futuristic tone to it. This is one of those films where the soundtrack is a character unto itself.

The message of the film is vast, touching on free will and the nature of totalitarian states (one throwaway line is "we must deal with these common criminals on a purely curative basis; soon we'll need all this prison space for purely political offenders"). I personally find quite ironic the fact that the prison chaplain is the one person who points out that the treatment that Alex undergoes does not make a man good; it simply robs him of choice. And that is true; Alex is physically incapable of violence. But does that make him a good person, "completely reformed"? Obviously not, and also oddly vulnerable in a society so consumed with violence. The themes of vengeance are also somewhat obvious.

On the whole, this is one of those films that needs to be watched more than once. Watch it once or twice to get the imagery out of your system-- it's jarring and disturbing, and it's intended to be. Only then can you take the time to appreciate the really deep themes of free will, the futility of the striving towards redemption, and the utterly cynical world-view that the film portrays. Show that to your 13 year old.

And, of course, this is one of those films that has made quite an impression on popular culture.

Sunday Matinee: Westworld (1973)

Michael Crichton never met a technology he ever liked.

His books and films are filled with alarmist bashing of the potential of robotics (Westworld), cloning (Jurassic Park), brain implants (The Terminal Man), time travel (Timeline), genetic splicing (Next), and biological warfare (The Andromeda Strain). Okay, maybe I'll give him that last one, but as a Transhumanist myself I've got to say that he's not been the most technophilic of writers.

That being said, he makes a pretty good movie most of the time, and Westworld is one of them. This one is still shown on late-night television, and it's well worth the watching. With the obvious exception of Jurassic Park, this is probably the best Crichton film out there (although I'm a big fan of 1981's "Looker" as well).

The film revolves around the futuristic resort of Delos, where robotic fantasies come to life in one of three immersive environments; Medieval World, Roman World, and Western World. Each is a marvel of technology and ingenuity, as the environment is rendered down to the smallest detail, and populated with completely lifelike robots. These are the protagonists in the game, being the foes in sword fights in Medieval World, gun fights in Western World, and so forth, that the guests (paying a then-princely $1,000 a day) can overcome and thus draw the fullest experience from the whole. You can shoot the robots, run them through with swords, and it's all safe and foolproof. The guns, for instance, won't fire at anything with a high body temperature such as a person (although they never do seem to explain how the swords in Medieval and Roman World have similar safeguards).

Enter Peter and John (played by Richard Benjamin of "Quark" fame and James Brolin, respectively), two friends who come to the resort purely as a vacation, John being a repeat customer showing Peter the ropes. They have chosen Western World as their destination, although the film does go into some of the experiences of one of the guests of Medieval World, while the Roman World is left relatively unexplored. (Which is a pity, as of the three, I would personally have chosen Medieval World, and then Roman World, and only lastly Western World.)

The two explore the western town, authentic in every detail, and Peter ends up gunning down a Gunslinger (played by Yul Brynner in a role that was soon to become iconic). They share in the debaucheries of the place, kill the same Gunslinger again, Peter gets arrested and John ends up busting him out of the jail, and everything seems perfect. It's like playing a live action version of Boot Hill without the duct tape of a regular LARP.

However, we are also treated to what goes on behind the scenes at Delos. The robots are serviced every night in an underground control facility, and we are told that some sort of epidemic of "central malfunctions" has been plaguing the entire resort, cause unknown. You can see what's coming next.

The next time the pair meet up with the Gunslinger, things don't go quite according to the game. John is shot down in the street, and the Gunslinger ends up going after Peter. The entire resort goes haywire (for no reason that's really adequately given, other than Crichton's standard message that "the technology is too complex and anything that complex must, eventually, go berserk and kill innocent people by virtue of its complexity and the fact that it makes me uncomfortable"). The guest we've been following in Medieval World gets a sword thrust through him by the Black Knight. The music changes, and the entire tone of the film takes a 90 degree turn. (It's honestly a very effective setup; the delineation between "Delos is fine" and "Delos is a deathtrap" is jarring, as it should be, marked very effectively by discordant piano music, and things that were passed off as minor are suddenly revealed to be Very Bad Things.)

Peter, pursued by the Gunslinger, tries to escape Western World, where he meets a technician who lets him know that the entire resort has broken down and gives him some fleeting bits of advice on how to foil the Gunslinger before the technician is, himself, gunned down. Peter flees through Roman World and eventually makes his way to the underground control center where he finds all of the technicians dead-- asphyxiated in the control room, as the door was locked shut when they tried to cut the power to the resort to stop the rampaging robots, who are going on battery power.

Via the underground, he makes his way to Medieval World, finds a young damsel in distress who turns out to be a robot, and finally puts the Gunslinger to rest, but not after a couple of nice "oh, he's not quite dead yet" moments that seem to be the basis for the much later films Halloween and The Terminator. Peter survives, but he's one of the few lucky ones who do.

I don't pretend that this film has any of the social commentary (other than the blatant anti-technological commentary already noted) of some of the other films in this series, but I've got to say this is one of the most flat-out *fun* ones. To this day I would love to go to a (properly) functioning Delos-type resort, and I think eventually we will see this type of resort actually up and running. Compare to the Lary Niven novel "Dream Park", where the same sort of effect was achieved with a combination of robotics, holograms, and other technology. It's also the first film where I actually *noticed* the music; the change over to the piano/violin chords as the Gunslinger pursues Peter into Roman World was the first thing that made me aware of just how important the music was to a film.

There was a pretty bad sequel, Futureworld, which had the Delos folks trying to take over the world by replacing world leaders with robots, but it had none of the charm of the original. Apparently, there was also a short-lived television series "Beyond Westworld", but I know nothing of it beyond its mention on Wikipedia, and I cannot help but suspect it was pretty damn dreadful.

Sunday Matinee: Knightriders (1981)

Much like Rollerball, George Romero's Knightriders is one of those movies that is deceptive. It looks like a mindless action film, because there are guys jousting on motorcycles. But the violence is just a device; the film is actually packed with philosophy. And when it hit HBO and Cinemax back when I was 15, it was an enormous influence on me. To this date I count it among my favorite films of all time, primarily because it makes you think.

The plot centers on a traveling show called "Fight or Yield", which features knights who joust against one another in the hinterlands of Ohio and western Pennsylvania. It is run by Billy, "Sir William the King" (played by Ed Harris), who has set up this Arthurian fantasy, and who has placed himself in danger repeatedly by challenging Morgan, the Black Knight (played by Tom Savini), who is the best jouster in the troupe, but who lacks the real moral authority to lead them. "I was never into all this king Arthur crap," he says at one point. "I'm just in it for the bikes." Merlin is his conscience, played by the late Brother Blue (a particularly wonderful performer, not only in this role but also on the streets of Cambridge as a story-teller).

And that, in my estimation, is the whole point of the film. The world that Billy has created is a bubble in reality, where the ideals of Tennyson's vision of Arthur's Round Table is fully realized. Reality is continually impinging on that dream, and eroding it, both from within (Morgan's attitude towards the ideals that underlie the whole group) and from without (when Sir Allen, the second-best jouster in the group, brings in a townie, Julie, played by Babylon 5 actress Patricia Tallman; also when Tuck, a faux monk, brings in a photographer as his girlfriend).

The conflict comes when Morgan agrees to go off with a number of the other jousters to establish another group, called "Knightriders", at the urging of a sleazy entertainment promoter played by future Jurassic Park actor Martin Ferrero. The group flies apart as its inner stresses are released, and Morgan and his people go off to experience the decadence of Washington D.C., while Billy's group sits and stews, and Allen and a few others go off on their own to sort things out.

Eventually, both Allen and Morgan realize what Fight or Yield was really all about. Not the jousting, not selling trinkets or corn, but the ideals of the Round Table. They agree to fight for control of the original group, as long as Billy agrees to abide by the outcome and will "sit on his ass" so he won't get hurt again. Morgan wins, and Billy leaves, ultimately to take his own humiliating vengeance on a corrupt cop who had abused his authority at the expense of Billy and one of his men, and give a child a very special gift. Billy ends up dying in the throws of a hallucination where he seems himself riding on a white charger, mowed down by a truck as he is actually riding his motorcycle.

If this movie can be summed up in a single phrase, it is "the struggle between the world and our personal ideals". As Billy says, "I'm not trying to be a hero! I'm fighting the Dragon!", with the Dragon being the world. Eventually, those who do not recognize the struggle are eventually brought around, and those who cannot accept the struggle are rejected.

It's a powerful statement about the potential for one individual to impress his own vision of reality upon the world, and what happens when that vision and the world collide. As with many of these films in my Sunday Matinee collection, it was a heady collection of ideas in my formative years, and one whose influence I can positively identify in some projects I've undertaken in later years. If you are unfamiliar with this film, I heartily recommend it. Make no mistake; there's action, but it goes hand in hand with the message.

Sunday Matinee: Soylent Green (1973)

Okay, let's get it out of the way; "soylent green is people." Yes, we know.

I was (and am) a huge Charleton Heston fan, and Soylent Green was one big reason (The Ten Commandments, Planet of the Apes, Ben Hur, and The Omega Man being among the others...). The film is one of the social commentary science fiction sub-genre that the early 1970's seemed to pump out in profusion, and arguably the most famous.

It begins as a police procedural set in an interesting dystopian future in the year 2022; overpopulation is at epic proportions, what we would call normal economics has completely broken down, ecological disaster is looming if not already upon us, and society is on the verge of collapse. The teeming masses are unemployed and homeless, living in hallways or abandoned cars, while the few live in luxury, surrounded by guards and surveilance systems. Food riots are common and suicide is legal and encouraged. In this world is detective Thorn (Heston), a dedicated but hardly idealistic cop trying to solve the many murders to which he is assigned, if for no other reason than to keep his job in the face of the 20 million unemployed in New York who would jump at the chance to get it.

Thorn is assigned to the murder of one William Simonson, a former member of the board of directors of the Soylent corporation, which supplies food for billions of people. In the course of looting Simonson's home (during the course of the investigation, naturally) he not only finds real beef (!) and other food, but a pair of classified reports which he brings home to his "police book" Saul (played exquisitely by Edward G. Robinson in his final role). He quickly discovers that this is no ordinary murder, and his superiors are being pressured to drop the investigation from powers at the highest levels of the government. Thorn resists, and attempts are made on his life, which only serves to strengthen his resolve to get to the bottom of the case.

The aging Saul, meanwhile, has decided that the time has come for him to "go home"; that is, visit one of the assisted suicide facilities. Thorn attempts to stop him, but is too late. He hears Saul's dying confession about the contents of the classified reports; the oceans are dead, and the new "Soylent green" is not made from plankton as is commonly believed, but from human corpses. Thorn infiltrates a Soylent factory where he finds proof, and as he is killed by the conspiracy that has aimed to keep the secret, he famously declares the truth to all those in the church in which he meets his end. Soylent green is people.

This is another film with an abiguous ending, allowing the viewer to superimpose his own desires upon it. Will Thorn's revelation be heeded, causing the Soylent corporation and the government to be toppled from their places of power? Or is the world already too far gone, and will the cynicism of the teeming masses generate naught but a collective shrug, as they line up for their daily quota of Soylent green wafers?

The characters are very well-defined in the film, which makes it more than a mere platform for displaying how awful modern society can become if allowed to move along its present (1973, anyway) trajectory. We really care what happens to Thorn (and most especially to Roth; there's a subtext of homoeroticism there that isn't explored, but left to ambiguity), and his passion that Roth not have died in vain is very well portrayed.

Of course, at the time, I was more interested in the intricacies of the world itself. I was captivated by the presentation of New York, with its border on Philadelphia, population of 40 million, and omnipresent crowds. The scene where the food riot is broken up by police "scoops" (massive earth-movers which literally scoop up the rioters and dump them in the back of the truck, presumably to be taken into custody) is one of those iconic scenes that really sticks with you. All in all, it's a message-heavy film with good characterization, and that's the element that brings is above the average.

Sunday Matinee: Becket (1964)

My childhood wasn't all filled with science fiction. One of my favorite films growing up was 1964's Becket, starring Richard Burton as Thomas Becket and Peter O'Toole as king Henry II. It showed on Cinemax, and I had a VHS copy of it that I watched so many times I had memorized the film by the time I went to college.

Based on a 1959 play by Jean Anouilh, the film chronicles first the close friendship, and eventual hateful ending, between Thomas Becket and the English king Henry II. Becket is seen as sharing in many of the king's lusty adventures, ever the watchful friend and accomplice, the film very effectively sets up the two as being inseparable, with Becket being the only close friend Henry actually has. Becket is made Chancellor of England, to the consternation of the Norman nobility (Becket being a Saxon, and no love being lost between the two English races). The close friendship is also resented by the Queen (who unfortunately is given a completely forgettable part in this film, considering she is Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the most notable figures in all of Medieval history). Becket is not only envied for his friendship with the king, but also for his fierce intellect and political acumen. The king calls him "the only intelligent man in England" at one point, and Becket's talents are used to blunt the aspirations of the Church to exercise independence from the king's laws.

When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, Henry hits on the notion of appointing Becket as his successor, thus making "Canterbury for the king." Becket protests, but the king insists, and the stage is set for their break. For, as he ascends to the Archbishopric, Becket decides that his honor requires that he actually fulfill the office to the best of his abilities. Where he once took the side of the crown in the struggle between king and Church, he now finds himself on the other side of the fight. And it is a betrayal that Henry can never forgive.

The struggles between Becket and Henry become more and more tense until Becket is forced to flee to France, eventually traveling to Rome to seek the Pope's support. There is a nice scene between Becket and Louis, king of France (played by John Gielgud), following a complete snubbing of Henry's ambassadors by the French king. Eventually, Becket is placed into exile at a monastery, and then returns to England after a compromise is reached between the two former friends. But it is the anguish on Henry's face, when he realizes things will never be as they were, and where the trajectory of events will inevitably lead, that makes the politicking great cinema. It's not just empty posturing about the enforcement of obscure laws. It's about the final destruction of a friendship, and eventually, the friend himself.

The film ends with, of course, the death of Becket following the most famously ambiguous royal command in history; "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

What really makes this film is the acting. Richard Burton is, well, Richard Burton, and you can never get a bad performance out of him. But Peter O'Toole is beyond his usual brilliant self as Henry, at home bellowing orders at the top of his lungs, and equally so selling the king as a lovable rascal and rogue. O'Toole reprised the role for 1968's The Lion in Winter, which is in and of itself a terrific film, where it is great to see Henry back to bellowing and shouting at his family and everyone else around him. (And, I should point out, the magnificent Katherine Hepburn does a virtuoso performance as the aforementioned Eleanore of Aquitaine.)

Sunday Matinee: Logan's Run (1976)

I actually had the opportunity to see 1976's Logan's Run in the theater when I was visiting cousins out in Omaha. (Yes, I'm that old.) Based on a novel by William F. Nolan, the film takes place in a future where an idyllic society dwells in a magnificent domed city, last remnants of the human race who have forgotten what "outside" even is. The population is devoted to a hedonistic lifestyle, with all its needs and desires catered to.

At the Love Shop, one can participate in a never-ending orgy enhanced by psychedelic (and probably psychotropic) substances. At the New You, one can have their face or even their entire body redesigned, in case they get bored with what they have. (That, I should point out, is a very Transhumanist idea; the concept of morphological freedom is central to Transhumanism.) One can put ones self "on the circuit", to be instantly transported into the living quarters of others who are looking for casual (and, it is presumed, completely safe) sex. There is no intimation of limits on food or other forms of leisure.

But to quote the film's trailer, "there's just one catch..."

In order to maintain the perfect balance of this society, when you turn 30, you must submit yourself to the ritual of Carousel. Each human is fitted with a crystalline "life clock" in their palm at birth, which passes through different colors as you age; yellow, green, and finally red. When it turns black, you have reached 30 and must die. Carousel is your chance at reincarnation; the exact mechanisms or criteria are not specified, but the notion is that everyone has at least some chance at being reborn.

Those who balk at the prospect of rebirth on Carousel, however, are "runners", who have developed an entire sub-culture aimed at protecting one another and helping runners escape the city to Sanctuary (a "pre-Catastrophe code word for a place of refuge", we are told). Our hero, Logan 5 (played by now-veteran actor Michael York) is a Sandman; one of the elite police who hunt down runners and terminate them.

Logan is selected by the city's controlling central computer to infiltrate the runner organization, find Sanctuary, and destroy it. He befriends Jessica 6, whom he believes to be a member of the organization, but eventually betrays his mission, not only because he falls in love with Jessica, but also because the computer has robbed him of the remaining three years of his life, in order to turn his life clock blinking, signaling he is ready for Carousel. Together, he and Jessica escape the city (pursued by Logan's best friend Francis 7), come to the realization that there is no Sanctuary (all of the previous runners had been killed by the cyborg Box), find one of the few remaining humans in "outside" (the Old Man, in an incredible performance by Peter Ustinov), return to the domed city and manage to overthrow the computer and bring the population "outside".

Much as I love it, the film is very dated visually. The costumes and hair styles fairly scream the mid-70's, and the special effects shots are, in retrospect, pretty awful. The establishing shots of the domed city look like a model train set (which, as you see the tube-traveling maze-cars, they are), and there is some blue screen effects when Box's cave is destroyed that just looks terrible. But in 1976, when I was 10, and most critically before Star Wars set a new standard for special effects; for a brief window, this was unbelievably good stuff.I must say though, that the vine-covered image of the Lincoln Memorial is terrific, and easily as iconic as the Statue of Liberty from the end of Planet of the Apes.

This film has some obvious social commentary, and some that is not so obvious. The obvious is the heavy-handed message about the dangers of the "youth culture" that had so taken control of America with the tsunami-like influence of the Baby Boom. When the film was released, those Baby Boomers were just hitting 30 themselves; the message of "if we let these kids have their way, this is what society would end up like" is palpable. Just about the only film I can think of that addresses the issue even more overtly is 1968's Wild in the Streets. The SS-like uniforms of the Sandmen play into the idea that what seems like a Utopia is, in fact, a Dystopia; the promise of unlimited freedom is shown to indeed have a limitation that overwhelms any benefit that the system might provide for its people. This is the Tyranny of the Twenty-somethings.

But the film also has some much more subtle messages to give. There is Cathedral; a dome that is locked down and abandoned, home to nothing more than a band of renegade social misfits (the "cubs"). They are violent and abandoned, using the drug "muscle" (whose nature is left unexplored in the film, but which is mentioned in some detail in the original novel on which the film was based). The fact that Cathedral is a wasteland into which the outcasts are condemned is a nice way of showing that religion has been completely abandoned in the society of the domed city, but also a reminder that it must have once played some role (doubtless at the founding of the city) or else the Cathedral dome itself would not exist.

Apparently the city is not completely work-free; some level of service is still required of at least some folks. There are the folks who work at the New You, for instance, the guys who fly around melting dead runners into slag, and of course the Sandmen themselves. They don't really go into the mechanics of that, though; does everyone need to do a stint working?

There was also a pretty bad (as I recall; it's been a LONG time since I've actually seen it) television show based on the series, and as I mentioned the film was based on a novel. I actually read the novel when the film came out, and boy is it different. The world outside is much more populated and active than the film version, and Sanctuary actually exists. There was also something with a Gettysburg Civil War reinactment or something, but it's been years...

For all that the effects are dated, I still love this film. The acting is pretty decent (well, except for Farah Fawcett, who has a cameo as Holly-- it was 1976 after all) and the story still compels. I could see taking elements of this for a game of Paranoia or something of that ilk. Or maybe a Mutant Future game where the players come across the domed city and gain entrance somehow. "How old are you?" takes on a much more sinister aspect in that scenario... Oh, and naturally, there's a remake said to be in the works. Le sigh.

Sunday Matinee: Rollerball (1975)

I thought I'd start a new series (but no telling how assiduously I'll follow my intent to post one of these every Sunday) on some of the films that influenced me during my more formative years; before and just as I was coming into RPGing. They won't all have direct bearing on my gaming per se, but these are the films I grew up with, at the same time I was learning RPGs.

First up is Rollerball, from 1975. I was around 10 when this started coming on cable, and I watched it every chance I got. The plot is simple; in a future world where corporations run everything, one of the chief forms of entertainment is the sport called rollerball. It's a brutal, fast-paced game where the point is to get a steel ball into a goal while skating (or riding motorcycles) around a track, and smashing an opposing player in the face is tacitly encouraged. Jonathan E (played by James Caan) is the undisputed master of the game, leading every season in scoring, knocking out opposing players, and having a legion of devoted fans.

It is this last part that worries the powers-that-be in the Energy Corporation (which owns the Houston team for which Jonathan plays), and they attempt to force him to retire, so that the game can be restored to its original purpose; "to show the futility of individual effort". Eventually the rules of the game are changed so that it essentially becomes an everyone-tries-to-kill-Jonathan fest. The film ends ambiguously, with Jonathan prevailing against the entire New York team, but with many questions unanswered. Will the Energy Corporation take more direct action against Jonathan? Will his show of defiance spark some sort of revolt against the corporate society?

This is a movie that, despite the action and violence which appealed to my 10-year-old self, is very much a thinking person's film. It raised a lot of questions in my young mind regarding society and economics, summed up by Mr. Bartholomew (played by John Houseman):

"Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it's ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions."

Heady stuff for a 10-year-old!

The production seems a little dated today (especially the computers and the clothing styles), but the message of the film holds up excellently. There are a lot of great subtle touches. For instance, the names all reflect an implicit sort of caste system that exists within corporate society. There are Executives, and everyone else. Executives are always referred to as Mr. so-and-so. The non-executives are always referred to by their first name (or nickname, in the case of Jonathan's best friend and protégé Moonpie, played by John Beck, who ends up beaten into a coma by the Tokyo team as a warning to Jonathan about what could happen to him if he doesn't do as he's told). Most significantly, Jonathan, by virtue of his star status, occupies a twilight realm between the two castes. He alone is referred to by a first name and last initial.

The scene where Jonathan journeys to Switzerland to get answers to his questions about how corporate society got to be where it is, is fascinating. It turns out that the repository of knowledge, the liquid-computer Zero, is little more than a babbling idiot. The "world's filing cabinet", which the Executives used to use to assist in making their globe-spanning decisions, is incapable of answering the simplest query (and has completely lost all information on the entire 13th century, which makes the chief scientist of the center mourn not for the loss of knowledge, but rather express annoyance at the lack of organization it reveals). Even the Executives don't bother to come any more.

If you look beyond the action and violence of the rollerball game itself, the film is an insightful look into how the mid-1970's envisioned a world run entirely by corporate interests would look.