New Beverly Nights: ’70s Future Shock
In the interest of supporting and promoting a Los Angeles institution and in encouraging others to do the same for their local revival movie theaters, here’s the first of what I hope becomes a semi-regular LiC feature: New Beverly Nights, wherein I will sample some of the cinematic double-feature bounty The New Beverly Cinema serves up to LA audiences on a nightly basis.
As I reported at the end of April, The New Beverly is celebrating its 30th anniversary as a revival theater with a month long recreation of its first calendar from May 1978. The entire program is lovingly dedicated to New Beverly founder Sherman Torgan by his son Michael who has kept the place going since Sherman died unexpectedly last July.
First up: Soylent Green and Westworld.
Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson get to the bottom of Soylent Green
Soylent Green (1973) *** 1/2It’s an average, sweltering, Greenhouse Effect enhanced New York day in the year 2022. The population is 40 million. Fresh food is a luxury for the rich who keep live-in female companions known as ‘furniture’ (bra technology has apparently been lost to history) while average citizens subsist on rationed cakes of vegetable protein manufactured by the Soylent Corporation. Frequent food shortages lead to rioting among the lower classes who are controlled by armies of helmet clad police and giant bulldozers. At night, garbage trucks come to haul off the corpses of the recently dead.Such is the world for Charlton Heston’s Robert Thorn, a cynical, casually corrupt police detective; square of jaw, jaunty of cap and scarf, and buried under a backlog of murder cases. Edward G. Robinson is Sol, Thorn’s partner and friend who is old enough to remember what things used to be like before it all went to hell: “People were rotten, but the world was beautiful.”For Thorn, the investigation of the murder of a man named Simonson begins as any other, but when he discovers that this man was a member of the board of directors of Soylent, he finds himself in the middle of a mystery that would make Upton Sinclair vomit on his shoes.These days, Soylent Green elicits more chuckles than chills, particularly to a paying audience nursed on sarcasm and ironic distance, but it holds up surprisingly well. Its environmental message seems especially appropriate these days when even George Bush admits there just might be something to this whole Global Warming deal.Of course Charlton Heston turns the scenery into his own one-man all-you-can-eat salad bar, but it largely works. His Thorn is surprisingly anti-heroic. He’s a thug who just happens to be on the right side of the law, but he’s also a product of his environment and ultimately not as heartless as he appears. Liegh Taylor-Young is fetching and a little sad as Shirl, Simonson’s ‘furniture’ with whom Heston falls in love, but best of all is the last screen appearance by Edward G. Robinson. It’s not a revolutionary performance, but he owns his scenes and it’s nice to see the old guy go out with a bang. His last scene, though not as talked about or quotable as the denouement for Heston, is actually more moving and memorable.
Soylent Green is not a perfect movie, but it’s a fun return to the pessimistic ’70s.
Yul Brynner eyes his prey in Westworld
Westworld (1973) ****
The vacation of the future…today! Imagine an adult theme park full of lifelike robots designed to allow you to live out your every fantasy in settings ranging from the Old West, to ancient Rome to medieval times, all for $1000 a day (mind you, that’s in 1973 dollars). I’m thinking Women Who Think I’m Hot World would be much more popular, but whatever tickles your monkey.
Anyway, it’s supposed to be a completely controlled environment where the humans can do whatever they want and the humanoid robots will never hurt them. However, when a scientist admits that some of the machines were designed by computers and that the humans aren’t even sure how they work, well that’s where I start looking into a mellow beachside vacation in Tortuga or the Maldives or something else a little less life threatening.
Westworld stars James Brolin and Richard Benjamin who sign on for some boozing, whoring, shooting and fighting in the Old West. What they get is a run-in with a steely eyed, black clad gunslinger that looks an awful lot like Yul Brynner. Soon, little things start to go wrong and the tension builds. In the end, Brolin and Benjamin find themselves running for their lives with Brynner hot on their trail.
Though it feels a little low budget with a look that suggests it was largely filmed on a studio backlot, this befits the artificial theme park setting and the overall impression is of a film that accomplishes much with little.
Written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton, Westworld is sort of an early version of another novel he’d eventually write: Jurassic Park. Switch out robotics for genetics and gunslingers for dinosaurs and you have a theme park out of control and many of Crichton’s favorite basic themes: A fear of technology, a sense that we can’t really control the world the way we think we can and the idea that we can’t improve on Mother Nature.
Crichton isn’t the director that Spielberg is, but he’s helped along by a terrific cast. Brolin is fine, but between the two, Benjamin is the standout playing the meeker and more tentative character. Coming out of a recent divorce, he seems to be hoping to recapture a bit of his masculinity by living out this macho fantasy not knowing that, in the end, he’s going to need more than he thought he had in the first place.
Though he doesn’t have a lot of screen time, Brynner’s gunslinger is unforgettable and has haunted me since childhood. Looking snakelike with his bald head and shining eyes, he’s relentless, single-minded and unstoppable. His very walk is cool and dangerous.
Between the two movies, I was surprised at how well Westworld held up to my memories.
But don’t take my word for it, here’s what Christian Divine had to say about the evening.
Filed under: Retro, Reviews
Related Posts: - Happy Birthday New Beverly
- Charlton Heston, Actor: 1924 - 2008
- Dargis on Heston
- New York Times Magazine Breaks Through
- Sherman Torgan, New Beverly Cinema: 1944-2007
Well, I personally don’t know what to think until Christian Divine has his say. But that’s me.
Christian is good people. I can vouch for him.
Tell him he owes me 20 bucks.
I haven’t seen either of these in many years, but Soylent Green always freaked me out with the idea of people being scooped up into open garbage trucks and Westworld has that utterly creepy performance from Yul Brenner.
I’m so glad that the preposed remake of Westworld, with Ahnold reprising his Terminator role in place of Brenner, never got off the ground. Not only was it a painfully obvious concept, but the idea of Ahnold trying to one-up Brenner’s performance by doing a somewhat meta self-mocking take on his own robotic acting just seems like too much.
Funny how Crichton’s take on man-made technology gone awry has had such a profound effect on filmgoers over the years. Andromeda Strain remains a great, overlooked movie and lord knows Jurassic Park is actually a pretty good story/movie, warts and all.
I am ignoring Sphere and Congo, but they don’t really cover the same ground anyway.
That Christian guy owes me two dollars. I want my two dollars.
These are two fine films with which to begin a look at ’70s Future Shock. Neither is perfect by any means, but they’re both pretty excellent genre movies. I’m particularly a fan of Soylent Green, as it’s directed by the considerably underrated Richard Fleischer.
I can’t seem to remember what Soylent Green is, though. Isn’t it made out of old tires or something?
Never has the term “steely-eyed” been more appropriate for Yul Brenner in Westworld.
The sequel, Futureworld, with Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner and a returning Brenner, was a movie I found nifty when I was really young, but unlike the two movies reviewed here I haven’t seen that one in a long, long time.
These days, Soylent Green seems strangely prophetic.
I live nowhere near this theater, so I’ll have to wait for a festival in one of the NY arthouses that plays it or revisit it on DVD.
Both of these are played on TCM from time to time; my DVD recordings of them are both from that channel. Greatest thing on TV, that network.
I have to pay extra for TCM where I am, Alexander, so, alas, I do not have this channel. Hell, I can barely afford basic cable but at least I have 80 channels of (mostly) crap with it instead of just 5.
I completely forgot about Futureworld, which I remember seeing many, many years ago but can’t recall much about. Love Peter Fonda, but he’s no match for the nerdy-lovable Richard Benjamin.
That Westworld poster is creeping me out every time I load the LIC homepage. Yul Brenner with robot jaw is one of my childhood fears.
I didn’t see The Magnificent Seven until many years later (I think Craig introduced me to it…and Seven Samurai) but I’ve never gotten past the idea that my notion of the character is warped by the semi-parody that is Westworld. I think being mildly tramautized by Westworld first actually made his original performance much more gratifying, even if I liked Vaughn, Coburn, and Bronson’s performances more.
I’ve not watched Soylent Green, but did very much enjoy Westworld for all the reasons described by Craig, Alexander, and Joel. I’m glad that Brynner’s character wasn’t reprised by Ahnie, it would have been too ironic for an actor made by computers (Commodore 64s) to replace a human one.
Eighty television channels, Alison! You are lucky. We were so poor when I was a kid we lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t’ mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi’ his belt.
FUTUREWORLD is absolutely awful. But here, check out this scene for yourself and see how cleverly they brought Yul back:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z3-liEsr974&feature=related
LOL, sartre. Pobrecito.
Aha, Christian, oh well, there’s no accounting for taste when you’re six or seven years old. All I could really remember from it before seeing that YouTube clip was Peter Fonda talking to himself when he’s holding a gun about how bad of a shot he is. “You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn…” Some movies are best left alone after a certain period.
Wow, I don’t know…that clip was pretty awesome. The bits with the ninja doctors and the red rope were definitely awe-inspiring.
It always tickles me to see the wall to wall computers with flashing colored lights in these older Sci-Fis.
And location shooting in what was likely a rented power plant or substation. You gotta love old-school ingenuity…or cheese, depending on your point of view.
“And right next to these large hydraulic generators, we have our computers operated by men in white lab coats.”
I have to say, I’ve never noticed that tagline at the bottom of the Westworld poster before - “Where nothing can possibly go wo r n g!”
I faintly remember Futureworld. Barely.
I kind of wish the New Beverly could’ve gotten a hold of Logan’s Run, but Westworld was a fine alternative.
Jeff, I’d never noticed it either until I was standing outside the theater waiting for the ticket booth to open.
Joel, it was a little odd seeing this as an adult because in a way it was like exorcising the boogie man, or looking under the bed and seeing there were no monster’s there. Yul Brynner Acid Face wasn’t quite like my overactive kid’s imagination remembered it…though the crispy Yul Brynner corpse was still pretty good.