Directed by Michael Anderson. Written by David Zelag Goodman
Starring Michael York, Louis Jourdan, Jenny Agutter, Peter Ustinov
1976, 119 minutes, Color, Rated PG, 2.35:1
Warner Home Video, released 2016
Starring Michael York, Louis Jourdan, Jenny Agutter, Peter Ustinov
1976, 119 minutes, Color, Rated PG, 2.35:1
Warner Home Video, released 2016
It's 2274, and on the surface, it all seems to be an idyllic society. Living in a city within an enclosed dome, there is little or no work for humans to perform, and inhabitants are free to pursue all of the pleasures of life. There is one catch, however: your life is limited and when you reach thirty, it is terminated in a quasi-religious ceremony known as "carousel". Some, known as "runners", try to escape their fate when the time comes, and it's the job of Sandmen to track them down and kill them. Logan (Michael York) is such a man, and with several years before his own termination date, thinks nothing of the job he does. Soon after meeting a young woman, Jessica-6 (Jenny Agutter), he is ordered to become a runner and infiltrate a community outside the dome known as "Sanctuary" and to destroy it. Pursued by his friend Francis (Richard Jordan), also a Sandman, Logan, and Jessica find their way to the outside. There, they discover a beautiful, virtually uninhabited world. Logan realizes that he must return to the dome to tell them what he's found and be set free.
Fair warning, there are massive
spoilers in what follows.
LOGAN'S RUN was a huge movie for me in my youth. I was too young to see it in a theater but I watched it every time it was on television. I loved how colorful the film was, and responded strongly to the concept of the film. When I got older I become more attuned to different elements that the film had to offer--especially Jenny Agutter--and searched out the source novel. When the widescreen laserdisc was released in the 1990's I marveled at how the full letterboxed image made the film easier to follow, and wondered how I ever could have liked it panned and scanned. I watched this film at least once a year for more years than I care to divulge. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I came to understand that my enjoyment of it masked that it was not a particularly good film. In many ways, it lingers in memory not for anything it did but for things it could have done.
LOGAN'S RUN was MGM's big film release of 1976, which isn't as impressive as it sounds since they only produced six movies that year 1. It is notable as a big-budget science fiction film made before STAR WARS 2. Science Fiction films generally did not do big box office in this era, so the fact that a major studio invested as much as they did is surprising. Especially given the precarious financial state of MGM at this time. The money spent on LOGAN ultimately became an issue in post-production when it was determined that it needed to be rated PG to make its money back. This resulted in some scenes being shortened to remove potentially R-rated material.
Ultimately, LOGAN'S RUN is a problematic film but still does enough right to still be of interest almost 50 years later. It shows a future that seems to be influenced by everything from THINGS TO COME, BRAVE NEW WORLD, and especially STAR TREK. The film is packed full of primary colors in the first third and populated by young attractive actors wearing skimpy costumes to boot. Dystopian stories set post-apocalypse are inherently interesting, and this film adds in gleaming technology, explosions, cyborgs, and an expansive dome city to make highlight that it was intended as eye-candy above all else. Yes, there are themes to be had but for the most part, the film relegates them to the background in order to highlight scenes of action. This is not necessarily a bad recipe for a film.
Every citizen has a crystal implanted in their palm that visually shows where they are in the life cycle. This is called a "palm flower" in the book and a "Lifeclock" in the film. It changes color every seven years. It is yellow at birth, blue from ages seven to thirteen, red from ages fourteen to twenty, and then blinks red on their last day ("Lastday") before turning twenty-one. At twenty-one, it turns black. The vast majority of citizens willingly enter "sleep centers" on their last day, where they are gently put to death by gas. Those few that don't turn themselves in are called "runners" and they are hunted and killed by a police force called "Sandmen".
Society is not that different from what we know--people have jobs, for instance--and you can roam across the planet as needed, save for some abandoned areas. Life is meant to be lived to the fullest. Drugs, sex, dangerous activities--this is what life is meant to be. Babies are born in nurseries to real women who are born(?) into this role. However, they are brought up by robot nannies. Runners run towards a place called "Sanctuary" and there are rumors of a runner underground run by Ballard, the oldest man in the world. Everything is run by a huge computer system called the "Thinker".
For a book that was reportedly written very quickly 3, it is remarkably rife with strong ideas and striking imagery. It is a chase story, and once it gets going it is a fast enjoyable read.
A comparison of the novel and film follows (SPOILERS):
George Pal bought the rights to the novel in the late 1960s but was never able to get it off the ground at MGM, where he had a production deal. However, after WESTWORLD and SOYLENT GREEN performed well for MGM in 1973 the studio decided to make the movie themselves and brought producer Saul David (FANTASTIC VOYAGE, IN LIKE FLINT, OUR MAN FLINT) on board to make it happen4. The age that people are put to death was changed to 30 in the film, primarily because it made casting the film easier. The film’s budget was in the range of 9 million dollars. It was filmed in 35mm using the TODD-AO lenses.
It was directed by Michael Anderson who had made a fair number of movies by this time, only a few of which could be categorized as “good”. He had directed the first TODD-AO film, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956) which is admittedly fun, and probably why RUN ended up using the TODD-AO lenses. My personal favorite of his films is the great WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE (1958), which is exciting and mysterious5. I’m also a fan of THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (1966). Around the time of RUN, he helmed DOC SAVAGE: MAN OF BRONZE (1975), which I've never liked, and ORCA (1977), which is dire. The primary adjective I would apply to his films of the 70’s and beyond is “stately”. That is to say, static and lacking energy, which is a fair assessment of LOGAN'S RUN.
L.B. Abbott, who was 20th Century’s Fox head of visual effects for decades oversaw the effects for LOGAN’s RUN, which included miniatures, matte paintings, blue screen compositing, CRI compositing, and some holographic work that was done by The Multiplex Co. Abbott worked closely with production designer Dale Hennessey, who created the sets and also the miniature city.
Michael York was hired to play Logan. Jenny Agutter played Jessica. Richard Jourdan played Francis and Peter Ustinov played the old man. Farrah Fawcett-Majors had a bit role as well. David Zelag Goodman, who had written such things as STRAW DOGS (1971) and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1975) was hired to start over on the script, and he whipped the idea into a filmable state. The film's shooting screenplay used much of the book to provide a framework but changed the details of just about everything. Only the surface details and a few odd situations are used; everything else is either invented from scratch or appears to be borrowed from other science fiction stories.
LOGAN'S RUN shows a dystopian future heavily influenced by Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which also influenced George Orwell's 1984 and Ira Levin's This Perfect Day. The concept of a society tightly controlled by all-powerful "others" is a compelling one, and it's only in the fine details that these type of stories differentiate themselves. World is a stinging satire that nevertheless brings the goods as narrative storytelling, 1984 is an oppressive reaction to communism, Day is a well-crafted repackaging of World through the eyes of the 1960's permissiveness. Sex features heavily in both World and Day, but for different reasons.
The central computer of RUN--called the "Thinker" in the novel but left unnamed in the film--is ultimately not much of an evolution from 1984's "Big Brother" or Day's "UniComp". In the film, the computer runs everything without monitoring but is limited enough in function to become fatally tripped up by receiving news it didn't expect. It is slightly suggested in the film that the computer has artificial intelligence.
Does the computer truly run everything? The film seems to indicate that it does. If there is a ruling class that the film doesn't show us, it's not clear what they would do except for perhaps being exempt from the age limit. The television series that followed in 1977 envisioned just that--a council of old people that ran the city. There is no evidence one way or the other in the film of anything similar.
DVD booklet:
1. THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, PART II, LOGAN'S RUN, SWEET REVENGE, NORMAN...IS THAT YOU? and NETWORK.
2. Pure science fiction films were rare in the 1970's, and pure in this context means stories that were not another genre with science fiction elements thrown in. Examples of these types of films would be THE MIND OF MR. SOAMES (1970), NO BLADE OF GRASS (1970), THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971), A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), COLOSSUS: The FORBIN PROJECT (1970), NO BLADE OF GRASS (1970), DOOMWATCH (1972), THE GROUNDSTAR CONSPIRACY (1972), DAY OF THE DOLPHIN (1973) , THE NEPTUNE DISASTER (1973), SOYLENT GREEN (1973), THE OMEGA MAN (1973), WESTWORLD (1973), PHASE IV (1974), THE TERMINAL MAN (1974), ROLLERBALL (1975), SHIVERS (1975), STEPFORD WIVES (1975). All of these films have science fiction elements and themes, but are applied to existing genres such as the thriller, disaster film, western, mystery, and so on.
I consider these films pure science fiction and am aware that they are highly subjective. Films I would count in this category are BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970), ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES (1971), THX-1138 (1971), SILENT RUNNING (1972), Z.P.G. (1972), BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973), THE FINAL PROGRAMME (1973), DARK STAR (1974), ZARDOZ (1974), A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975) and LOGAN'S RUN (1976). With the possible exception of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES and LOGAN'S RUN none of these movies made much of a splash at the box office.
3. Wallace A. Wyss, "Conception," Cinefantastique 5, 2 (1976): 6.
4. Frederick S. Calrke, "Production," Cinefantastique 5, 2 (1976): 16
5. The film's opening half hour is outstanding. Charlton Heston trying to get onboard the ship in a raging storm is an impressive bit of filmmaking. Once he is onboard the atmosphere is suitably creepy and mysterous. Alfred Hitchcock famously worked on trying to adapt the novel to film and gave up because he reasoned that nothing he could come up with to explain what was going on would match the mystery in the opening. He wasn't wrong.
6. Press Kit
7. Frederick S. Clarke, "Production," Cinefantastique 5, 2 (1976): 16
8. Mostly the Lincoln Memorial painting.
9. The film's opening crawl says that there was a war, but apparently, the war wasn't severe enough to destroy the infrastructure needed to build a highly technical domed city. Perhaps society broke down and those who could moved indoors and left everyone else to die. When we see the outside it is full of the ruins of the previous civilization. Dilapidated highways, overgrown cities, and thick forests are on display. There is nothing overtly on display to explain why people moved into domes. The outside seems as though it can still support life. This is one of the reasons why the film can be said to be more interesting for what is not in it. The backstory of why people set up a society whose citizen's voluntarily killing themselves seems to me to be a lot more interesting than anything else in the film.
LOGAN'S RUN was a huge movie for me in my youth. I was too young to see it in a theater but I watched it every time it was on television. I loved how colorful the film was, and responded strongly to the concept of the film. When I got older I become more attuned to different elements that the film had to offer--especially Jenny Agutter--and searched out the source novel. When the widescreen laserdisc was released in the 1990's I marveled at how the full letterboxed image made the film easier to follow, and wondered how I ever could have liked it panned and scanned. I watched this film at least once a year for more years than I care to divulge. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I came to understand that my enjoyment of it masked that it was not a particularly good film. In many ways, it lingers in memory not for anything it did but for things it could have done.
LOGAN'S RUN was MGM's big film release of 1976, which isn't as impressive as it sounds since they only produced six movies that year 1. It is notable as a big-budget science fiction film made before STAR WARS 2. Science Fiction films generally did not do big box office in this era, so the fact that a major studio invested as much as they did is surprising. Especially given the precarious financial state of MGM at this time. The money spent on LOGAN ultimately became an issue in post-production when it was determined that it needed to be rated PG to make its money back. This resulted in some scenes being shortened to remove potentially R-rated material.
Ultimately, LOGAN'S RUN is a problematic film but still does enough right to still be of interest almost 50 years later. It shows a future that seems to be influenced by everything from THINGS TO COME, BRAVE NEW WORLD, and especially STAR TREK. The film is packed full of primary colors in the first third and populated by young attractive actors wearing skimpy costumes to boot. Dystopian stories set post-apocalypse are inherently interesting, and this film adds in gleaming technology, explosions, cyborgs, and an expansive dome city to make highlight that it was intended as eye-candy above all else. Yes, there are themes to be had but for the most part, the film relegates them to the background in order to highlight scenes of action. This is not necessarily a bad recipe for a film.
Book
LOGAN'S RUN was published in 1967 by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. The novel is a quick read, full of action, color and sex. The book was a reactionary response to the youth movement of the late sixties and imagined a controlled world where you were put to death once you reached the age of twenty-one. This is ostensibly to help control the population and resources, but by implication, it's also to ensure that no one gets "old". Live fast, die young is the thing. Beyond this ironic take of the youth movement, it is hard to read a central message at work in the storytelling.
Every citizen has a crystal implanted in their palm that visually shows where they are in the life cycle. This is called a "palm flower" in the book and a "Lifeclock" in the film. It changes color every seven years. It is yellow at birth, blue from ages seven to thirteen, red from ages fourteen to twenty, and then blinks red on their last day ("Lastday") before turning twenty-one. At twenty-one, it turns black. The vast majority of citizens willingly enter "sleep centers" on their last day, where they are gently put to death by gas. Those few that don't turn themselves in are called "runners" and they are hunted and killed by a police force called "Sandmen".
Society is not that different from what we know--people have jobs, for instance--and you can roam across the planet as needed, save for some abandoned areas. Life is meant to be lived to the fullest. Drugs, sex, dangerous activities--this is what life is meant to be. Babies are born in nurseries to real women who are born(?) into this role. However, they are brought up by robot nannies. Runners run towards a place called "Sanctuary" and there are rumors of a runner underground run by Ballard, the oldest man in the world. Everything is run by a huge computer system called the "Thinker".
For a book that was reportedly written very quickly 3, it is remarkably rife with strong ideas and striking imagery. It is a chase story, and once it gets going it is a fast enjoyable read.
A comparison of the novel and film follows (SPOILERS):
Movie
L.B. Abbott, who was 20th Century’s Fox head of visual effects for decades oversaw the effects for LOGAN’s RUN, which included miniatures, matte paintings, blue screen compositing, CRI compositing, and some holographic work that was done by The Multiplex Co. Abbott worked closely with production designer Dale Hennessey, who created the sets and also the miniature city.
Michael York was hired to play Logan. Jenny Agutter played Jessica. Richard Jourdan played Francis and Peter Ustinov played the old man. Farrah Fawcett-Majors had a bit role as well. David Zelag Goodman, who had written such things as STRAW DOGS (1971) and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1975) was hired to start over on the script, and he whipped the idea into a filmable state. The film's shooting screenplay used much of the book to provide a framework but changed the details of just about everything. Only the surface details and a few odd situations are used; everything else is either invented from scratch or appears to be borrowed from other science fiction stories.
Analysis
Ultimately, RUN's innovation is money, as in the filmmakers spent much of it to visualize their world. Otherwise, the film's central conceits are executed in a decidedly lazy manner. The film is inconsistent with how controlled the population is, for example. While true that everyone dies at 30, the population otherwise seems free of mind-controlling drugs, Soviet-style imposed structure, or hardships that make life unbearable. It seems like a utopia with a catch, but aside from the fact that there are runners, the film does not do a good job of showing that the citizens are all that unhappy. The novel was also inconsistent in this regard but masked it much more successfully through action.
The central computer of RUN--called the "Thinker" in the novel but left unnamed in the film--is ultimately not much of an evolution from 1984's "Big Brother" or Day's "UniComp". In the film, the computer runs everything without monitoring but is limited enough in function to become fatally tripped up by receiving news it didn't expect. It is slightly suggested in the film that the computer has artificial intelligence.
Does the computer truly run everything? The film seems to indicate that it does. If there is a ruling class that the film doesn't show us, it's not clear what they would do except for perhaps being exempt from the age limit. The television series that followed in 1977 envisioned just that--a council of old people that ran the city. There is no evidence one way or the other in the film of anything similar.
Life in the city is comfortable but controlled, which is largely ignored by the general population because they spend much of their time using recreational drugs and having sex. Dome life is envisioned as going to a mall where everything is free, which was perhaps more interesting and attractive in the 1970's than it is now. The Sandmen are the elite of this society. Clearly feared, they take their jobs of killing runners seriously. Which begs the question--if the Sandman are so capable why not just organize a massive posse and go look for Sanctuary? Why charge one lonely Sandman with the task and have him operate without anyone else knowing about it? It seems inefficient. I suppose that perhaps the computer has been trying this tactic for a while, and that Logan is just one of many who happened to be luckier than most.
The notion that the current residents no longer remember how they got there is compelling (and something of a science fiction trope), but even then the film is inconsistent with it. Logan says he remembers that the fish used to feed the city, so that implies a certain amount of awareness. He also has a pretty good understanding of how things work in the city. Maybe the Sandmen have more knowledge than the typical city-goer. Then again, maybe it is just lazy writing.
The film's resistance to offering any type of explanation for how things work or came to be is frustrating. Food in the city is only shown once or twice throughout the film, and never clearly. However, publicity materials for the film state that the inhabitants of the city are vegetarians6. We don't know whether there are workers who grow and prepare the food. We also don't know that there AREN'T food workers. Since Logan knows that they used to eat fish (and presumably animals), why the switch in diet? Did the fish and animals die out? If so, who organized the switch? The computer?
Life in the domes promises luxury and we see hundreds of people milling about in all of the crowd shots. But what are they doing? We know that at least some people have jobs, so there is some sort of structure inherent in dome-life. There are sandmen, of course, but we also see a doctor and receptionist at the New You office. We also see a cleanup crew flying in their "stick" vehicles. We also see a large contingent of support staff at the sandman headquarters. But how many of the masses we see walking about have jobs? How many jobs could there be in a dome?
The book described cities all over the world connected to each by tube trains. The movie only shows one city in which the buildings are connected by tubes and seems to imply a world where nothing exists outside of the dome. Is there more than one dome? The movie doesn't tell us.
The notion that the current residents no longer remember how they got there is compelling (and something of a science fiction trope), but even then the film is inconsistent with it. Logan says he remembers that the fish used to feed the city, so that implies a certain amount of awareness. He also has a pretty good understanding of how things work in the city. Maybe the Sandmen have more knowledge than the typical city-goer. Then again, maybe it is just lazy writing.
The film's resistance to offering any type of explanation for how things work or came to be is frustrating. Food in the city is only shown once or twice throughout the film, and never clearly. However, publicity materials for the film state that the inhabitants of the city are vegetarians6. We don't know whether there are workers who grow and prepare the food. We also don't know that there AREN'T food workers. Since Logan knows that they used to eat fish (and presumably animals), why the switch in diet? Did the fish and animals die out? If so, who organized the switch? The computer?
Life in the domes promises luxury and we see hundreds of people milling about in all of the crowd shots. But what are they doing? We know that at least some people have jobs, so there is some sort of structure inherent in dome-life. There are sandmen, of course, but we also see a doctor and receptionist at the New You office. We also see a cleanup crew flying in their "stick" vehicles. We also see a large contingent of support staff at the sandman headquarters. But how many of the masses we see walking about have jobs? How many jobs could there be in a dome?
The book described cities all over the world connected to each by tube trains. The movie only shows one city in which the buildings are connected by tubes and seems to imply a world where nothing exists outside of the dome. Is there more than one dome? The movie doesn't tell us.
Interiors of the city were handled by filming at various locations such as the Dallas Trade Mart, the Texas area, and sound stages. The interiors very much look like a mall, and it is hard not to see them as such. Still, the scope of the crowd scenes in the early part of the movie are reasonably impressive.
In the film's opening scenes we are shown the dome city and it is an obvious miniature. We never see the dome exterior during the daytime, and as photographed we never get a good look at the landscape surrounding the domes. It's bad when we are shown the outside, but it gets even worse when we see the inside. Perhaps it was not as bad when projected on a large screen, but I doubt it. There is so little detail on the buildings that it looks even smaller than it was in actuality. The city miniature was huge--over 80 feet. It should have been able to have the level of detail to support being shown on screen for so long, but it doesn't. A "snorkel" lens was used to get the camera to appear as though it was moving through the city and this did not help sell the illusion.
In the book when a person's time is up they are expected to report to "Sleep Centers" where they are gently put to sleep. As this idea was used prominently in SOYLENT GREEN, perhaps the makers felt that they needed to come up with something different. "Carousel" is a quasi-religious ceremony where people on Lastday take part in a stylized ritual that ends with them being blown up before a mass of screaming spectators. Carousel also introduces the idea of reincarnation, which does not exist in the novel. It is understood by the masses that a certain percentage of people that go through the ritual are reborn and get to live another 30 years. Kind of like a lottery.
Regardless of what it means, from a visual standpoint, the Carousel sequence is a stunning set-piece. The participants stand in a circle and slowly start floating up through the air, all the time with the crowd cheering them on. When they reach a certain height they suddenly explode in flames. And the crowd goes wild. We never actually see whether they are vaporized, fall back to the floor, or continue rising, but it's a safe assumption that they are dead. Again, all the while the crowd is cheering madly. This was done live on set using a huge wire rig, and at the time was reportedly the most complex wire effect ever attempted for a film.
Carousel exists without explanation in the film, so we don't know what it really means to their society. It is part of the city's religion? This is certainly hinted at with the mis-en-scene of the action: The participants are garbed in stylized costumes that are vaguely religious in look, with masks and form-hiding cloaks. When they first appear on screen we are not even sure that they are human. They are synchronized, practiced, and lyrical in their movements as if this a ceremony deeply ingrained in their culture. Or is it just an excuse to have a night out on the town for those watching. Too bad there is no real explanation for what goes on. According to the screenwriter, the lack of backstory for the city was intentional, as it was felt that the best science fiction stories didn't explain everything7.
Carousel leads right to an extended chase sequence where Logan and Francis hunts and kill a runner. It is here that we get our first extended look at the wonderful guns used by the sandmen. In the novel, the guns used by sandmen are described as chrome-plated six-shooters with special cartridges--Tangler, nitro, vapor, ripper, needler, and Homer. Each cartridge does something different, with the Homer being a heat-seeking charge that can burn out a nervous system. The film's gun is capable of only one type of charge, and the barrel spurts flames in four directions around the barrel when fired. Whatever is hit explodes in flames. In a film where style is much more important than the content, the gun is a fascinating addition.
The film then follows Logan back to Sandman headquarters, where we get a glimpse of the day to day work of being a sandman. On the previously mentioned runner hunt, Logan found a metal object on the runner. This object, called an ankh, was an invention of the screenwriter and is not in the book. The symbol is an Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol that roughly symbolizes "life". In the film, having the symbol indicates that one is part of the runner underground. Logan must be required to turn in everything obtained from runners--again, something not explained in the film--and when he does the central computer flags it and initiates a new directive for Logan. He is informed that there are 1056 unaccounted for runners and that he must infiltrate the underground and report back any information he finds on Sanctuary. It is logical to the computer that if there are unaccounted runners then Sanctuary must be real. To ensure that he tries diligently to find Sanctuary, the central computer modifies his lifeclock so that he is on LastDay. With that, he is sent out to find Sanctuary.
Unfortunately, from here the film's narrative drive falters drastically. While there are high points still to come, the film never will regain the sweep and energy it had up to this point. Some of this has to do with the screenplay, but much more is the fault of the static direction. Exposition is clumsily handled in LOGAN's RUN, with the sequences involving the underground's suspicion of Logan particularly painful. The shooting script features more of this, but it was mercifully omitted from the final film.
Logan gets Jessica to take him to New You #483, which is the same place that his last runner went to on last day. Farrah Fawcett-Majors is in this sequence in the thankless role of Holly.
There are still some notable sequences. The Love Shop sequence is bewildering in a great way, for it is full of mostly naked people writhing in blatantly sexual ways. For a PG-rated film, the sequence sticks out in a jarring, what-the-fuck-am-I-seeing kind of way. It's very visual, but also something of a throwaway as it merely serves as a backdrop for showing our leads escaping from the bad guys through a hidden door. There is no explanation for how the runner underground knows about a door that the central computer does not know about. But the sequence is a great opportunity to bring up one of the film's main selling points, namely that it is amazingly sleazy for a film of its rating.
Granted, the '70s were a different period and there are numerous examples of PG films that raise an eyebrow or two when looked at through today's politically correct lenses. For example, JAWS (1974) famously went out with a PG rating that had it's own custom warning ("May be too intense for younger viewers"). ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976) and A BRIDGE TOO FAR (1977) both used the f-word and ended up with PG ratings. PRESIDENT'S MEN actually used the word several times, while poor MANHATTAN (1979) used it once and got an R-rating. THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976) featured an amazing array of profanities uttered by pre-teens and that was PG-rated.
But this movie is something else. Some of the sleaziness in RUN was inherent in the material--one can do whatever they want in the city after all--but much of it seems to derive from the male-centric sexist viewpoints of the filmmakers. Consider that only men are sandmen, so therefore the only authority figures are male. What role do women serve in this society? Jessica is shown to be somewhat atypical in her viewpoints, for Logan is surprised when she questions humans being raised in nurseries without their mothers and the concept of LastDay. If her feelings were more common, Logan presumably would not have been so surprised by them.
The Love Shop sequence was one of the sequences altered to get a PG rating. There are some behind the scenes stills that better show the debauchery inherent in the scene, notably what appears to be a behind the scenes still from the November 1976 edition of Playboy. This still shows some more aggressive sexual activity that isn't even hinted at in the film.
Once in the enclave of potential runners, he activates a homing beacon because he believes he has found Sanctuary. This alerts the sandmen to their location. The sandmen show up with guns blazing and start killing everyone in sight. There is no investigation, no looking for an explanation, nothing resembling "police" work. Dozens are killed due to our hero's actions--when he activated his homing beacon, he knew what was going to happen and did it without a second thought. From a story standpoint, this scene is the only one that hints at why there would be an underground movement to get people out of the city. Aside from all that, the fact is that this sequence shows our hero--Logan--doing something reprehensible. He has been playing Jessica up to this point, pretending to run but all the while working for the man, or more correctly, the machine. What's more, it's never made clear whether Logan comes clean with Jessica.
Before being slaughtered, the runners point Logan and Jessica to a final door they must pass through. They are told that once they go through it, they will not be able to return, indicating that it is impossible, or at least difficult, to enter the city from outside. Jessica at this point elects to go with Logan, even though she still has several years until LastDay. Afterward, Francis is shown also going through the door. His motivation for doing so is never made clear. In fact, Francis' behavior from this point on is going to become odder and odder. One can surmise that he suffers a breakdown but, again, it's never explained why.
Once through the door, they start making their way downward, entering areas that are more unused the farther they go. They pass water tanks full of fish. Logan mentions casually that he had heard that the city was powered by the sea and that people used to eat animals. Jessica finds this concept disgusting. This makes one wonder how much the inhabitants really know about their society.
Logan and Jessica manage to elude Francis and end up on an elevator that takes them even further down under the city. They emerge into an area that looks to be just under the point of freezing. Ice is everywhere, and more interestingly someone has carved animals out of the ice. Birds, penguins, and bears--amongst others--are shown. Our duo find some furs to keep themselves warm. Before donning them, they remove their own clothes. Jessica is seen naked from the waist up, and the casual nudity is again shocking in a film rated PG. There is a jump from this scene to the next and it is likely that there was originally a full-frontal nude shot of her. Box makes his entrance.
Box is a cyborg--half man, half machine. He is made of chrome and shiny steel and likes to pass the time carving ice sculptures. He also has made a habit of handling the runners that make it to him. Box mentions that his job is to freeze the food that came to him--"Fish, and plankton. And sea greens, and protein from the sea". When it stopped coming, he started to freeze what did come to him, namely the runners. Box shows Logan the nearly thousand frozen people, prepared and waiting to be used as food. The frozen runners are all nude and their depiction is again a bit of a shock for a PG-rated film.
They encounter an old man, played by Peter Ustinov in an idiosyncratic and enjoyable performance. Ustinov is dotty and unpredictable and provides some humanity that the film sorely needs. He plays the oldest man, well "in the world" seems a bit of a stretch since we don't see much of the outside, but he is clearly the oldest man that Logan and Jess have ever seen. He explains that he used to live with his family but that they have long since died. His father knew much more about the history of the world, but Ustinov's character doesn't remember a lot of it. When he tells them about the concept of marriage, of course, Logan and Jess want to be married. He also talks about how there used to be more people. Maybe these people moved away and are holed up on the west coast somewhere9.
And then Francis shows up, which is really a bit of a stretch. Logan and Jess likely took a meandering path to Washington D.C. To expect that Francis took the exact same path, or was able to track them in the outdoors is hard to accept. When he does show up, he is like a crazed animal. His main issue is that Logan betrayed him personally by taking up with a runner. A more sophisticated reading of the situation might indicate that Francis has more than brotherly feelings for Logan, but I personally doubt it. I think Francis acts the way he does purely because the third act needed conflict.
Logan kills Francis and while ruminating afterward makes the decision that he must return to the city. His specious reasoning for doing so is to give all of the people the opportunity to live a full life. On the face of it, this makes a certain amount of sense. The City folk were told the outside was dead and dangerous, and while certainly dangerous it doesn't appear dead at all. One could argue then that the reason for the city is invalid--resources are plentiful so with a little ingenuity perhaps more people can live longer lives.
In the book when a person's time is up they are expected to report to "Sleep Centers" where they are gently put to sleep. As this idea was used prominently in SOYLENT GREEN, perhaps the makers felt that they needed to come up with something different. "Carousel" is a quasi-religious ceremony where people on Lastday take part in a stylized ritual that ends with them being blown up before a mass of screaming spectators. Carousel also introduces the idea of reincarnation, which does not exist in the novel. It is understood by the masses that a certain percentage of people that go through the ritual are reborn and get to live another 30 years. Kind of like a lottery.
Regardless of what it means, from a visual standpoint, the Carousel sequence is a stunning set-piece. The participants stand in a circle and slowly start floating up through the air, all the time with the crowd cheering them on. When they reach a certain height they suddenly explode in flames. And the crowd goes wild. We never actually see whether they are vaporized, fall back to the floor, or continue rising, but it's a safe assumption that they are dead. Again, all the while the crowd is cheering madly. This was done live on set using a huge wire rig, and at the time was reportedly the most complex wire effect ever attempted for a film.
Carousel exists without explanation in the film, so we don't know what it really means to their society. It is part of the city's religion? This is certainly hinted at with the mis-en-scene of the action: The participants are garbed in stylized costumes that are vaguely religious in look, with masks and form-hiding cloaks. When they first appear on screen we are not even sure that they are human. They are synchronized, practiced, and lyrical in their movements as if this a ceremony deeply ingrained in their culture. Or is it just an excuse to have a night out on the town for those watching. Too bad there is no real explanation for what goes on. According to the screenwriter, the lack of backstory for the city was intentional, as it was felt that the best science fiction stories didn't explain everything7.
Carousel leads right to an extended chase sequence where Logan and Francis hunts and kill a runner. It is here that we get our first extended look at the wonderful guns used by the sandmen. In the novel, the guns used by sandmen are described as chrome-plated six-shooters with special cartridges--Tangler, nitro, vapor, ripper, needler, and Homer. Each cartridge does something different, with the Homer being a heat-seeking charge that can burn out a nervous system. The film's gun is capable of only one type of charge, and the barrel spurts flames in four directions around the barrel when fired. Whatever is hit explodes in flames. In a film where style is much more important than the content, the gun is a fascinating addition.
The film then follows Logan back to Sandman headquarters, where we get a glimpse of the day to day work of being a sandman. On the previously mentioned runner hunt, Logan found a metal object on the runner. This object, called an ankh, was an invention of the screenwriter and is not in the book. The symbol is an Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol that roughly symbolizes "life". In the film, having the symbol indicates that one is part of the runner underground. Logan must be required to turn in everything obtained from runners--again, something not explained in the film--and when he does the central computer flags it and initiates a new directive for Logan. He is informed that there are 1056 unaccounted for runners and that he must infiltrate the underground and report back any information he finds on Sanctuary. It is logical to the computer that if there are unaccounted runners then Sanctuary must be real. To ensure that he tries diligently to find Sanctuary, the central computer modifies his lifeclock so that he is on LastDay. With that, he is sent out to find Sanctuary.
Logan gets Jessica to take him to New You #483, which is the same place that his last runner went to on last day. Farrah Fawcett-Majors is in this sequence in the thankless role of Holly.
There are still some notable sequences. The Love Shop sequence is bewildering in a great way, for it is full of mostly naked people writhing in blatantly sexual ways. For a PG-rated film, the sequence sticks out in a jarring, what-the-fuck-am-I-seeing kind of way. It's very visual, but also something of a throwaway as it merely serves as a backdrop for showing our leads escaping from the bad guys through a hidden door. There is no explanation for how the runner underground knows about a door that the central computer does not know about. But the sequence is a great opportunity to bring up one of the film's main selling points, namely that it is amazingly sleazy for a film of its rating.
Granted, the '70s were a different period and there are numerous examples of PG films that raise an eyebrow or two when looked at through today's politically correct lenses. For example, JAWS (1974) famously went out with a PG rating that had it's own custom warning ("May be too intense for younger viewers"). ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976) and A BRIDGE TOO FAR (1977) both used the f-word and ended up with PG ratings. PRESIDENT'S MEN actually used the word several times, while poor MANHATTAN (1979) used it once and got an R-rating. THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976) featured an amazing array of profanities uttered by pre-teens and that was PG-rated.
But this movie is something else. Some of the sleaziness in RUN was inherent in the material--one can do whatever they want in the city after all--but much of it seems to derive from the male-centric sexist viewpoints of the filmmakers. Consider that only men are sandmen, so therefore the only authority figures are male. What role do women serve in this society? Jessica is shown to be somewhat atypical in her viewpoints, for Logan is surprised when she questions humans being raised in nurseries without their mothers and the concept of LastDay. If her feelings were more common, Logan presumably would not have been so surprised by them.
The Love Shop sequence was one of the sequences altered to get a PG rating. There are some behind the scenes stills that better show the debauchery inherent in the scene, notably what appears to be a behind the scenes still from the November 1976 edition of Playboy. This still shows some more aggressive sexual activity that isn't even hinted at in the film.
Before being slaughtered, the runners point Logan and Jessica to a final door they must pass through. They are told that once they go through it, they will not be able to return, indicating that it is impossible, or at least difficult, to enter the city from outside. Jessica at this point elects to go with Logan, even though she still has several years until LastDay. Afterward, Francis is shown also going through the door. His motivation for doing so is never made clear. In fact, Francis' behavior from this point on is going to become odder and odder. One can surmise that he suffers a breakdown but, again, it's never explained why.
Once through the door, they start making their way downward, entering areas that are more unused the farther they go. They pass water tanks full of fish. Logan mentions casually that he had heard that the city was powered by the sea and that people used to eat animals. Jessica finds this concept disgusting. This makes one wonder how much the inhabitants really know about their society.
Logan and Jessica manage to elude Francis and end up on an elevator that takes them even further down under the city. They emerge into an area that looks to be just under the point of freezing. Ice is everywhere, and more interestingly someone has carved animals out of the ice. Birds, penguins, and bears--amongst others--are shown. Our duo find some furs to keep themselves warm. Before donning them, they remove their own clothes. Jessica is seen naked from the waist up, and the casual nudity is again shocking in a film rated PG. There is a jump from this scene to the next and it is likely that there was originally a full-frontal nude shot of her. Box makes his entrance.
Box is a cyborg--half man, half machine. He is made of chrome and shiny steel and likes to pass the time carving ice sculptures. He also has made a habit of handling the runners that make it to him. Box mentions that his job is to freeze the food that came to him--"Fish, and plankton. And sea greens, and protein from the sea". When it stopped coming, he started to freeze what did come to him, namely the runners. Box shows Logan the nearly thousand frozen people, prepared and waiting to be used as food. The frozen runners are all nude and their depiction is again a bit of a shock for a PG-rated film.
But why did food stop coming to Box? Are the seas dead? We see fish in the tanks so that seems unlikely. Or was it decided by whoever was (is?) running the city that it was no longer needed? Or even more intriguingly, was there some sort of breakdown and it was simply forgotten about?
But I digress.
So, while Sanctuary is a real place in the novel, it does not seem to be a real place in the movie. I say "seem" because, again, the movie doesn't tell us enough to say definitively. Certainly, every runner that made it to Box got no further, but there may have been alternate ways out of the city and thus an alternate path to Sanctuary. Logan ends up having to fight box, shoots him, and then the walls which cause the whole frozen lair to fall apart. The scene crossfades to a shot of Logan and Jessica making their way out of the ice without showing how the end of the box sequence. Why is this action sequence faded out before it is finished? I suspected that the fade was introduced to cover something in a deleted scene, but the fade is indicated in the script. What kind of movie were the filmmakers intending to make? Instead of decisively moving to the next story point, the fade diffuses the story momentum. The fact that this is in the script indicates that perhaps the film was doomed before it was even shot.
Also, what happened to the thousand people that were frozen? One has to assume that they thawed out and rotted away nice Logan destroyed everything. Although never made clear, my assumption is that these people were frozen alive and are now dead. Their being in some sort of suspended animation is also possible, but unlikely if they were destined to be food. The film does not tell us either way.
As Logan and Jessica make their way out of Box's lair they emerge into the open air, finally free from the city. It is at this point that the movie goes off the rails. In truth, it went off the rails once Box explained that he had been freezing all of the runners which meant there was no Sanctuary and likely no third act forthcoming. However, given the momentum of the scene, it doesn't really sink in until Logan and Jess start to stumble around in the outdoors. As they make their way it becomes more and more apparent that there is no place for them, or the movie, to go.
One interesting thing to note is that the film's music by Jerry Goldsmith changes at this point. Prior to Logan and Jess being outdoors, the music had an "electronic" feel, with heavy use of synthesizers. Once outside, Goldsmith switches to a full orchestra and it's quite effective.
They eventually make their way to the ruins of Washington D.C., which is visualized as having returned to be being a swamp. The images of national monuments overrun by vegetation are compelling, even if the matte paintings used are not 100% effective8. Still, with the change in Goldsmith's score and the scope of the visuals, it remains an effective set piece.
But I digress.
Also, what happened to the thousand people that were frozen? One has to assume that they thawed out and rotted away nice Logan destroyed everything. Although never made clear, my assumption is that these people were frozen alive and are now dead. Their being in some sort of suspended animation is also possible, but unlikely if they were destined to be food. The film does not tell us either way.
As Logan and Jessica make their way out of Box's lair they emerge into the open air, finally free from the city. It is at this point that the movie goes off the rails. In truth, it went off the rails once Box explained that he had been freezing all of the runners which meant there was no Sanctuary and likely no third act forthcoming. However, given the momentum of the scene, it doesn't really sink in until Logan and Jess start to stumble around in the outdoors. As they make their way it becomes more and more apparent that there is no place for them, or the movie, to go.
One interesting thing to note is that the film's music by Jerry Goldsmith changes at this point. Prior to Logan and Jess being outdoors, the music had an "electronic" feel, with heavy use of synthesizers. Once outside, Goldsmith switches to a full orchestra and it's quite effective.
They eventually make their way to the ruins of Washington D.C., which is visualized as having returned to be being a swamp. The images of national monuments overrun by vegetation are compelling, even if the matte paintings used are not 100% effective8. Still, with the change in Goldsmith's score and the scope of the visuals, it remains an effective set piece.
They encounter an old man, played by Peter Ustinov in an idiosyncratic and enjoyable performance. Ustinov is dotty and unpredictable and provides some humanity that the film sorely needs. He plays the oldest man, well "in the world" seems a bit of a stretch since we don't see much of the outside, but he is clearly the oldest man that Logan and Jess have ever seen. He explains that he used to live with his family but that they have long since died. His father knew much more about the history of the world, but Ustinov's character doesn't remember a lot of it. When he tells them about the concept of marriage, of course, Logan and Jess want to be married. He also talks about how there used to be more people. Maybe these people moved away and are holed up on the west coast somewhere9.
And then Francis shows up, which is really a bit of a stretch. Logan and Jess likely took a meandering path to Washington D.C. To expect that Francis took the exact same path, or was able to track them in the outdoors is hard to accept. When he does show up, he is like a crazed animal. His main issue is that Logan betrayed him personally by taking up with a runner. A more sophisticated reading of the situation might indicate that Francis has more than brotherly feelings for Logan, but I personally doubt it. I think Francis acts the way he does purely because the third act needed conflict.
Logan kills Francis and while ruminating afterward makes the decision that he must return to the city. His specious reasoning for doing so is to give all of the people the opportunity to live a full life. On the face of it, this makes a certain amount of sense. The City folk were told the outside was dead and dangerous, and while certainly dangerous it doesn't appear dead at all. One could argue then that the reason for the city is invalid--resources are plentiful so with a little ingenuity perhaps more people can live longer lives.
And yet one should not forget Logan's actions up to this point. He never told Jessica that he initially lied about being a runner, and he condemned everyone at the enclave doing his duty. He only runs because he wanted to keep Jessica out of danger, which is nice, but hardly altruistic when faced with the rest. Is it possible that he wanted to return to the city to finish his job? Oh, he denied this giving Jessica a speech about how noble his intentions are, but it rings hollow when examined closely.
Logan's decision to return to the city makes no logical or emotional sense, save for his wanting to fulfill his job, and at this point why should he care about that? It's also possible that Logan realizes how hard it would be for them to live outside (more on that later). What does he expect by going back? That everything will change, and he'll be able to return to the city and live to be old? Since we never really find out, I'm going with that.
Logan, Jessica, and the old man head back to the city. On the way, the old man gives names to some of the things they have seen. When they arrive at the city, Logan absurdly finds a relatively easy way back inside. He and Jessica arrive somewhere under the city and are able to find their way back into the main living areas. City seals indeed. Carrousel is on that night, so he has a big crowd to try and convince, but they aren't having it. And they can't really be blamed, for he and Jessica are looking much the worse for wear by this point. Soon, the sandmen arrive to take them back to the central computer.
This starts the almost offensively illogical climax of the film. Logan is debriefed by the computer using some sort of mind-scanning process. From a visual standpoint, there is some novelty to this sequence as fully three-dimension holograms were created of Michael York speaking some lines of dialogue. However, the holograms' effectiveness is somewhat muted as they are only presented in two dimensions, and only from one angle.
Logan's decision to return to the city makes no logical or emotional sense, save for his wanting to fulfill his job, and at this point why should he care about that? It's also possible that Logan realizes how hard it would be for them to live outside (more on that later). What does he expect by going back? That everything will change, and he'll be able to return to the city and live to be old? Since we never really find out, I'm going with that.
This starts the almost offensively illogical climax of the film. Logan is debriefed by the computer using some sort of mind-scanning process. From a visual standpoint, there is some novelty to this sequence as fully three-dimension holograms were created of Michael York speaking some lines of dialogue. However, the holograms' effectiveness is somewhat muted as they are only presented in two dimensions, and only from one angle.
When Logan finally reports back at the end, the computer can't accept that Sanctuary doesn't really exist. Because there are unaccounted-for runners, the computer seems to get caught in a loop trying to make sense of it. This is, of course, silly. The runners are accounted for--Box froze them--so there isn't a mystery. That logic gap aside, it ultimately proves too much, and the poor thing starts to break down. When Logan grabs a gun and shoots a few monitors, it sets off a chain reaction that ultimately brings the entire system down. Given the time the movie was made, this isn't as ridiculous as one might think. In the 1970s most computer systems were directly wired to the central processor--think mainframe terminals as an example. Still, as a dramatic resolution, it is unsatisfying. The computer breaking down facilitates the climax but is not really directly related to everything that came before it.
One has to ask again why Sanctuary was jettisoned from the film, for without it the film is merely two dopey acts without a real third act. Once they reach Box and dispense with the concept of Sanctuary, the film becomes meandering and a lot less interesting. Instead of an organic ending to the story, the filmmakers instead rely on special effects and explosions.
One has to ask again why Sanctuary was jettisoned from the film, for without it the film is merely two dopey acts without a real third act. Once they reach Box and dispense with the concept of Sanctuary, the film becomes meandering and a lot less interesting. Instead of an organic ending to the story, the filmmakers instead rely on special effects and explosions.
Logan has defeated the oppressive computer, which destroys the city. One has to ask at this point what this accomplished and who it benefited. The film has put forth several ideas relating to the individual and their responsibility to the society they belong to and developed none of them. Yes, the city puts people to death at the age of 30, and we see an active underground that thinks that is a bad idea. But we also see a far greater number going along with it willingly. In fact, deleted scenes for the film go even further and show a crowd cheering when a sandman kills a runner. Whose morality dictates what happens here? Logan feels that people should be able to live their own lives, and he makes the decision to try and change the minds of the majority. When that fails he brings about the destruction of the entire society, which very few in the city were probably hoping for. This would be less problematic if the film didn't present its ideas in such a black and white manner. Why does the city care if a few runners want to leave? Why not just let them go? Logan wants to live his life with Jessica, why doesn't he just stay outside with her? His decision to go back is illogical and only makes sense if you are making a grander statement about fighting fascism, which the film emphatically does not do.
Granted, it does not appear that Logan meant to destroy the city. In this way, he is perhaps less morally culpable than when he brought about the death of the runners earlier when he alerted HQ to the runner enclave. But the film also makes it quite clear that he is pleased as punch with this outcome.
In truth, the film's climax is a tragedy. The majority if not all of the residents of the city have only known a life where everything was provided for them. Without the central computer to run everything, how will people survive? Will food still be created? Is there power? The city is within walking distance of Washington D.C., and if we take what we see in the film at face value we can say it is to the north of D.C. That means that unless global warming has eliminated winter, the "winners" are about to face a northeast winter. These people have never done anything for themselves. One can envision a long hard winter with insufficient food. How long will it take for them to turn on each other?
One could argue that the old man will help them learn how to fend for themselves. Perhaps. I think it more likely that they will all be dead in two years.
Back in the day, MGM Home Entertainment did a great job of producing content for their video releases. While the Blu-Ray they released was of far higher quality than the DVD (which appeared to use the laserdisc master), it dropped the booklet, which was too bad. The "Letter From the Director" originally appeared on the special edition laserdisc.
Notes:
2. Pure science fiction films were rare in the 1970's, and pure in this context means stories that were not another genre with science fiction elements thrown in. Examples of these types of films would be THE MIND OF MR. SOAMES (1970), NO BLADE OF GRASS (1970), THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971), A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), COLOSSUS: The FORBIN PROJECT (1970), NO BLADE OF GRASS (1970), DOOMWATCH (1972), THE GROUNDSTAR CONSPIRACY (1972), DAY OF THE DOLPHIN (1973) , THE NEPTUNE DISASTER (1973), SOYLENT GREEN (1973), THE OMEGA MAN (1973), WESTWORLD (1973), PHASE IV (1974), THE TERMINAL MAN (1974), ROLLERBALL (1975), SHIVERS (1975), STEPFORD WIVES (1975). All of these films have science fiction elements and themes, but are applied to existing genres such as the thriller, disaster film, western, mystery, and so on.
I consider these films pure science fiction and am aware that they are highly subjective. Films I would count in this category are BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970), ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES (1971), THX-1138 (1971), SILENT RUNNING (1972), Z.P.G. (1972), BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973), THE FINAL PROGRAMME (1973), DARK STAR (1974), ZARDOZ (1974), A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975) and LOGAN'S RUN (1976). With the possible exception of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES and LOGAN'S RUN none of these movies made much of a splash at the box office.
3. Wallace A. Wyss, "Conception," Cinefantastique 5, 2 (1976): 6.
4. Frederick S. Calrke, "Production," Cinefantastique 5, 2 (1976): 16
5. The film's opening half hour is outstanding. Charlton Heston trying to get onboard the ship in a raging storm is an impressive bit of filmmaking. Once he is onboard the atmosphere is suitably creepy and mysterous. Alfred Hitchcock famously worked on trying to adapt the novel to film and gave up because he reasoned that nothing he could come up with to explain what was going on would match the mystery in the opening. He wasn't wrong.
6. Press Kit
7. Frederick S. Clarke, "Production," Cinefantastique 5, 2 (1976): 16
8. Mostly the Lincoln Memorial painting.
9. The film's opening crawl says that there was a war, but apparently, the war wasn't severe enough to destroy the infrastructure needed to build a highly technical domed city. Perhaps society broke down and those who could moved indoors and left everyone else to die. When we see the outside it is full of the ruins of the previous civilization. Dilapidated highways, overgrown cities, and thick forests are on display. There is nothing overtly on display to explain why people moved into domes. The outside seems as though it can still support life. This is one of the reasons why the film can be said to be more interesting for what is not in it. The backstory of why people set up a society whose citizen's voluntarily killing themselves seems to me to be a lot more interesting than anything else in the film.
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