Tom McLoughlin Interview at The Modest Proposal

Joseph Maddrey, my producer on The House Between (2007 - 2009) and the writer/producer of Nightmares in Red, White and Blue (2009) has prepared and conducted a book-length interview with director Tom McLoughlin, the talent behind such classic eighties horror films as One Dark Night (1983) and Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI  (1986). 

During his career, McLoughlin has done everything from playing a robot (Captain S.T.A.R. in The Black Hole [1979]) to adapting a Stephen King story to film.

Maddrey's project is currently being excerpted at The Modest Proposal, here, and I wanted to point out the article to readers of this blog who enjoy the horror genre.

Here's a snippet from "Art Imitates Life... and Death: A Conversation with Tom McLoughlin:"

In 1990, you adapted Stephen King's short story "Sometimes They Come Back" to the screen. Are you a Stephen King fan?

I'm a huge Stephen King fan. Obviously he saw the same Twilight Zones we all saw, the same Outer Limits, the same Corman movies—he loved that stuff—and because of his writing talent he was able to take those basic ideas and stories and fill them with the thoughts of his characters. That's his brilliance. He shows us our dreams and our nightmares in [his characters'] thoughts, which allows his readers to have a personal relationship with the stories.

In my opinion, most of the Stephen King movies don't work. You can't get that same experience [of the characters' thoughts], so the filmmakers usually substitute something else. The movies that really succeeded were the ones that had stronger characters—Carrie, The Dead Zone, The Stand. But a lot of the other ones didn't quite get there for me, because you're trying to condense something that's so rich in the books into 90 minutes of screen time. You can sell a title and you can sell the idea, but it's got to be fleshed out differently.

I think that's what Sometimes They Come Back suffered from—lit wasn't fleshed out properly. The writers had to expand a short story, so they put a lot of "the best of Stephen King" moments into it. Like the evil car [from Christine]... a lot of things like that were borrowed from other works to flesh out the story.

I have to admit that when I watched Sometimes They Come Back, I was confused about the nature of the monsters. Are they ghosts or are they the living dead? Do they exist in the flesh or only in the main character's imagination? What are the rules?

When Dino DeLaurentiis offered the project to me, I remember saying to him, "This really doesn't work." The writers had moved on because they were not going to do another rewrite without being paid a fortune, so Dino brought in Tim Kring, the future creator of Heroes. Tim is a great guy and very smart, and we saw eye to eye right away. But whenever you deal with Dino, there are a lot of stipulations—"don't lose this, don't lose that, because I like that..." So we were trying to Frankenstein things together...

Please check out the rest of Maddrey's interview at The Modest Proposal for a very involving and informative read.

The Last Dinosaur now available on DVD

My good friend and fellow blogger, J.D. of  Radiator Heaven, has just made me aware of a new cult-TV movie release and I wanted to pass it on. 

The (amazing) Warner Bros. Archive  is now listing the Rankin-Bass production The Last Dinosaur for sale.

I wholeheartedly recommend this made-for-tv movie if you are a fan of such efforts as The Land that Time Forgot (1975) or the original Land of the Lost (1974-1977). 

The special effects may not win any awards by Jurassic Park (1993) standards, but there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the tele-movie.

From my 2008 review:

"Can a badly dated B movie about rampaging dinosaurs actually be more than just a badly-dated B movie about rampaging dinosaurs? That is the paramount question one must confront during an attentive viewing of the 1977 Rankin/Bass television movie, The Last Dinosaur...

...In the end, the T-Rex survives the catapult, and Wave repairs the polar borer. Wave and Frankie return home, leaving Maston Thrust -- the throwback -- in his real natural environment: the prehistoric world. It is there, finally, in The Last Dinosaur's closing sequence that Thrust meets Hazel's (the cave woman's) come-hither eyes. The camera pertinently cuts to two extended "freeze frames" (a la Jules & Jim): one for each character. This technique establishes the connection between the character.

What this "extended moment" represents, essentially, in terms of film grammar, is that Maston has indeed found his suitable mate; one who will always acknowledge his male superiority and not travel outside the bounds of the traditional male/female roles he clearly prefers. Not coincidentally, it was Hazel who -- sometime earlier in the film -- went to Maston's bed (in a cave) and returned to him his rifle site...a device by which he could "see" better. What she was doing with that site, actually, was giving Thrust the means to see her; perhaps. An option other than the "modern" woman, Frankie who has not been so steadfast.

So what are we to make of all this? Well, for just a moment, consider the mid-1970s, the era this film emerged from. This was the epoch of the ERA (which was up for a vote in the House of Representatives in 1971; and in the Senate by 1972). This was the epoch of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision (1973), and the battle for a woman to have a say in reproductive rights (a battle joined in earnest with the wide distribution of the birth control pill in 1960).

This was the age of feminism on blazing intellectual and political "second wave" ascent. Prominent feminists in the culture included Gloria Steinem (a founder of the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971), Shulamith Firestone (author of The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution [1970]), Germaine Greer (The Female Eunuch [1970]), and Kate Milett (Sexual Politics [1970]).

The old fashioned dominant white male -- the Don Draper of AMC's Mad Men, for instance -- had to reckon with a tectonic shift in culture and, for the first time, charges of sexism. Accordingly, The Last Dinosaur is about the last gasp of honest, unadulterated American machismo (and chauvinism) as a pointedly anti-feminist response.

At film's conclusion, Frankie says compassionately of the T-Rex, "It's the last one." Thrust's response is illuminating. He says: "So am I." He positions himself as the last of his species then, the last "macho man." Thrust is an unapologetic hunter (and therefore enemy of animal rights activists), an unapologetic womanizer (as seen by his treatment of his one-night-stand; whom he literally tells to suck on a bullet...) and so the film establishes that he cannot survive as "the last one" in a modern, equal-rights culture. Therefore, The Last Dinosaur strands Thrust in a world more to his liking -- literally a prehistoric world. It is there, with a pointedly un-liberated cave-woman as his mate, that he will spend the rest of his days.

Frankie, by contrast, is a liberated contemporary woman of the disco decade. She experiences a taste of life as a prehistoric domestic woman (a metaphor for marriage?) and doesn't much care for it. She adheres to modern values ("After all we've been through, I'd like to think that we're still civilized enough to be compassionate."), and more importantly -- in her seduction of Thrust for her own means and ends, proves herself a heroine in the true spirit of Germaine Greer. Where Greer worried that "women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality," Frankie freely expresses (and revels) in her sexuality with both Wave and Maston Thrust. She is attracted to both men, but ultimately whom she chooses as a mate (Wave) is her choice, not that of either man. She hightails it back to the 20th century, leaving Thrust, the last of his breed, behind.

I write often here about the ways a film's form (the choice of shots, the selection of soundtrack, etc.) can and should reflect a form's thematic content. Look - for just a moment - beneath the rubbery monsters in The Last Dinosaur, and you'll see what I did: that the film's themes are reflected by the film's shape. In particular, The Last Dinosaur finds methods to associate Thrust with machismo (and then tie that machismo to a fading, dying age). From the selection of his name (we all know what thrusting regards, don't we?), we understand something about Maston. His conveyance - the polar "borer" is another phallic reference (one literally knocked around by Thrust's competitor in "size" for dominance, the T-Rex).

And the film's oddly-captivating theme song explicitly equates Thrust with "the last dinosaur." In fact, the entire film is scored (by Maury Laws) in counter-intuitive but highly-effective fashion: as a kind of folksy, tragic (and yet highly sentimental) requiem for a man who has outlived his time, and his usefulness. The only place for Thrust and his views is...the past.

I've already commented on the deployment here of freeze frames, and how they are utilized to explicitly (and visually) establish the burgeoning connection between Thrust and Hazel, yet there are other visual flourishes as well. For instance, when the group is defeated by the dinosaur and their polar borer taken away (a castration for Thrust?), the film cuts to an impressive (and slow...) pull-back that lets the reality of their entrapment (and alienation from their environment) settle in.

Slow-motion photography is utilized during the climax, to squeeze out the suspense. And even though the titular dinosaur is clearly but a man in a rubbery suit, the film doesn't make the same mistake as many monster movies do. It remembers to often shoot the beast from an extreme low angle (rather than eye level...) to forge a sense of power and menace. I've ribbed the antiquated special effects here quite a bit, but I must state this too: some of the composites between live actors and (admittedly-fake looking dinosaur) are absolutely exceptional. The composites hold up gloriously, even if the monster costumes don't. Hopefully you can see this from some of the photos I've posted. I defy you to find the matte lines.

I could have written this review entirely about The Last Dinosaur's consistent literary allusions to Melville's Moby Dick had I wanted to, but I felt that the battle of the sexes angle was much more trenchant to an understanding of the film's heart.

The Last Dinosaur, for all the hammy performances, creaky zooms, cheesy effects and portentous dialogue, serves as a relatively unique social commentary about the end of a roiling era; about the twilight of the macho white man's cultural dominance. As this film points out, he was rapidly becoming an endangered species who - in the 1970s (and before Reagan, anyway...) - was finding himself more and more out-of-step with modern Western culture (where sensitive Alan Alda would soon be held up as a paragon of type). But make no mistake, the film doesn't glorify Maston Thrust. He's not a role model. The film exiles him to pre-history because he can't change; because he can't grow. Still, as Thrust himself seems to realize, he'd rather rule in Hell than serve (or be caged...) in 20th century heaven.

So hell yeah, The Last Dinosaur is an old fashioned, retro monster movie, but in playing on more than one thematic level (and with a modicum of good film style) it certainly fits my definition of B movie (low budget) classic. This is every bit the film I wanted Dinosaurus! (1960) to be just a few weeks ago. An effort that - though undeniably dated and passe - nonetheless has some red meat on those dinosaur bones."

Back from Space:2011 at Hampden-Sydney College

Well, we just pulled up to the old Muir homestead here in North Carolina, after a long weekend in Virginia and a morning on the highway.

But yesterday, I spent a delightful day at the gorgeous Hampden-Sydney College campus, meeting with faculty and students, guest-teaching a few classes, and then presenting my afternoon lecture, Space: 2011 - American Culture and the Final Frontier.

I started the day by sitting in on an Honors Seminar about Star Trek, and discussing my status as a kind of "lapsed Trekker." 

We spoke about Star Trek as a possible "faith," and I described the context in which I discovered Star Trek as a kid, back in the 1970s.     The teachers in this seminar were absolutely amazing, and I only wish I had been able to attend a seminar like this as an undergraduate twenty years ago. 

And yes, I'm that old.

Following the Trek seminar, I attended a film studies course, and was thrilled to discuss with the students the four Alien films, and the various decades in which they first appeared.  This was another really terrific class, headed by an extraordinary teacher with deep knowledge about film and film history.  I'm only sorry I couldn't be present to listen in on the upcoming lecture on No Country for Old Men.

Then, I headed into a general Astronomy class in the Gilmer Building and discussed with the students the scientific errors featured in some famous science fiction movies and television programs, and debated the line between scientific accuracy and imagination/artistic license. 

In this talk, I opened with the Han Solo "parsec" line from Star Wars, and then introduced Isaac Asimov's three criteria for errors in science fiction productions (from his editorial, "Is Space:1999 More Fi Than Sci?"): errors of dramatic necessity, errors out of commercial consideration, and errors out of ignorance.  We talked about Space: 1999, Star Trek, Battle LA, and much more.  Again, I enjoyed getting to spend time with this particular professor, who is a brilliant guy and a great gentleman to boot.

At about noon, I sat in on a two-hour lunch with another dedicated and stimulating group of students and professors.  We talked everything from philosophy in science fiction and Robert Heinlein to Land of the Lost, to the role of women in Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Then, come the end of the day, at 4:30 pm, I presented my public lecture about American culture and outer space TV series.  I opened with a quote from Solaris (1972) about humans not really wishing to see something alien in space, but instead  hoping to countenance "mirrors." 

In other words, films and television shows are mirrors on our times, our fears, our hopes and our potential. 

Then we went decade-by-decade, discussing the historical and cultural contexts of Star Trek, Space:1999, Battlestar Galactica, V, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica (remake) and V (remake). 

There was some great back and forth in the discussion, with audience members asking terrific questions about the artistry of video games, the different nature of American versus British sci-fi TV, and even a query about how "on the nose" recent productions like BSG and V seemed in comparison to the more allegorical, subtler shows of yesteryear.

To cap off the day, Kathryn, Joel and I were treated to a wonderful dinner with two amazing professors who I am very proud to call friends, where the discussion ranged from Star Trek and Space:1999 to Red Dwarf, The Starlost and even Buck Rogers.

So I enjoyed my day at Hampden-Sydney College tremendously, and was highly impressed by the caliber and intensity of the students (some of whom were tackling a philosophy paper related to identity and the Farscape episode "Eat Me"), as well as the kindness, generosity and expertise of the teaching faculty.

All in all, it was a pretty spectacular day, and one I won't soon forget.

The Cult-TV Faces of: The Native American

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"Don't give me any of that intelligent life crap, just give me something I can blow up."

- Dark Star (1974) 

Now Available for Pre-Order: Dexter and Philosophy (2011)

I'm proud to announce I have an essay entitled "The Killing Joke" featured in Open Court's upcoming Dexter and Philosophy book, due for publication on June 1st.  

This book on Dexter is the latest in the "Popular Culture and Philosophy" series, and is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com, here. 

This is actually my second occasion working with Open Court since I also had two essays featured in 2008's Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy. 

There, I had the pleasure of writing about both the original BSG and the recent remake, particularly their opposing moral approaches to storytelling.  I conducted an interview with the editors of that volume for the blog, here.

In my opinion, Dexter is one of the best TV series on the air right now (if not the best), so it was a great pleasure and a lot of fun to be involved with this new book.  

So if you like Dexter (and you like philosophy too, I guess...), go ahead and check this one out, you won't be disappointed.

Don't Forget: Space 2011 - American Culture and The Final Frontier, on March 21st

Just a quick reminder and heads-up to everyone: I'll be lecturing at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia from 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm this coming Monday, March 21st. 

The subject of the 90-minute talk is how space-adventure TV programs from Star Trek through SGU reflect their times, and mirror the national and international Zeitgeist.  

This talk is free and open to the public, as well as students and faculty.

For more about the program, check it out here. 

I'd love to meet some readers of the blog while I'm at this speaking engagement in Va., so if you are in the area and can make it to the talk, please stop by. 

I'll also  be selling copies of Exploring Space:1999, An Analytical Guide to Battlestar Galactica, A Critical History of Dr. Who and my other books starting at 6:00 pm, immediately after the show.

I hope I'll see some of you there.  If not, don't worr: I'll be taking my sci-fi and horror seminars on the road in months to come, and will be posting more about that schedule here soon.

CULT TV-MOVIE REVIEW: Shadow on the Land (1968)

"These are the symbols of democracy.  A democracy we take as for granted as the water we drink.  But democracy is a living thing; its skeleton an ideal; its bloodstream dissent; its tissue comprised of all the people who inhabit it.  All the people.

But what happens if the life of democracy is paralyzed by fear, or greed, or simple laziness, and the country is yielded up, or co-erced, or persuaded into accepting a dictatorship, a leader whose word alone is all of law? 

The skeleton of democracy is destroyed, its bloodstream, dissent, is bound in the barbed wire of concentration camps.  And the leader's special police...terrorize the bulk of the people into acceptance.  And the flag of the Internal Security Forces -- the symbol of fear and darkness -- will fly over our land."

- A Voice of "God" narration, from the opening of the TV-movie, Shadow on the Land (1968).

The stirring words printed above are accompanied on screen in Shadow on the Land by impressive views of national landmarks that we Americans hold dear: the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument. 

Yet these words are also accompanied by images that terrify every American citizen, regardless of political stripe or political party:  a giant  black "X" marked through our country's Constitution; red arm-bands decorating the uniforms of  a gestapo-like police force.

This TV-movie created by Sidney Sheldon and written by Nedrick Young contemplates something that we all fervently hope is absolutely impossible: the rise of a fascist, totalitarian dystopia in America.  It's a 1960s TV variation on Sinclair Lewis's classic 1935 literary work, It Can't Happen Here.

In Shadow on the Land, The United States has been a dictatorship for some forty years, ever since the country's Leader exploited a national emergency ("riots in the ghetto" according to the screenplay) to seize total control of the nation and declare martial law.  The people, in essence, gave the Leader "a blank check."

Over the years since the takeover, "discipline" has replaced "freedom" in America as an ideal.  Dissenters -- part of an organized resistance group called "Society of Man" -- are sent to detention camps where they are they are beaten and tortured.  The police force, the ISF, is ubiquitous and well-armed.

As the drama commences, an ISF officer, Colonel Andrew Davis (Jackie Cooper) is arrested by authorities for stealing documents pertaining to the Leader's new top-secret initiative, "Operation Hammer."  

Davis is hauled off to Detention Camp 12, and tortured for information.  The resistance movement attacks the camp and rescues Davis in an extremely violent sequence with overturned cars, soldiers electrocuted on fences and bullet-ridden corpses.  This night-time action scene is impressive as such on its own, but there's one important moment of undeniable real power here as well.

In particular, two nameless Society of Man fighters attempt to bring down the ISF flag and fly our Stars and Stripes instead.  The first man is gunned down viciously (on-screen). 

Without thought, a second man jumps into the breach and raises the flag...and is also gunned down with extreme-prejudice, right before our eyes.  But the flag goes up; Old Glory reigns. 

This moment goes by quickly, and without comment, but it certainly makes a powerful statement.  These two men died to make a symbolic gesture that few people would ever see (in this context).  They didn't die freeing other men, or retreat to fight the good fight another day.  No, they gave up their very lives in service of a representation of liberty. 

As I was sitting on my comfortable sofa watching this scene -- my beautiful wife on one side of me, and my 91 year-old uncle on the other side of me -- I tried to imagine myself in those men's shoes.  Giving up my life -- everything I hold dear -- for the simple but powerful and universal idea of freedom.  We've seen people doing this very thing, or something quite like it, in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Fighting to the death for the cause of freedom.  But as Americans, we really haven't had to do that.  We're fighting two wars, but we haven't had to give up our sons or daughters to wage them.  We haven't even had to endure tax hikes, or conserve oil.

How many Americans of today, I wonder, would sacrifice their personal futures just to see the U.S. flag raised?  I'm no better or more noble than anyone else.  And when I realized that, while watching this old TV movie, I was a little shaken.  What would you and I do if you lived in the America portrayed in Shadow on the Land?

Shadow on the Land delvers further into this courageous concept.  A high-ranking Colonel in the ISF, Shep McCloud (Marc Stanger) is actually working for the Resistance, and he delivers a wounded Davis to Davis' brother, a priest at the local Midnight Mission, played by Gene Hackman. 

This priest believes that all of life is a trial, one leading to death, and doesn't want to help his own biological brother.  He says that he "renders unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and that "God" should decide.   But Shep insists...and he's a tough man to refuse.

In fact, Shep needs a lot of help, from both the priest and from a lovely ISF psychologist, because Operation Hammer could mean an end to the Society of Man.  On this very night -- Christmas Eve -- the Leader plans to stage a "false flag" operation, one equated to the the Reichstag fire in the teleplay. 

Specifically, ISF soldiers will dress as resistance fighters and attack a power plant control room in California, plunging the state into darkness and cold.  This terrorist act, the Leader believes, will finally turn the nation against the Society, and pave the way for the enforcement of "new restrictions" and the doubling of the ISF force size.

Most of this 1968 TV movie involves McCloud's attempts to prevent Operation Hammer from succeeding, and finding unexpected allies along the way.  Even the hesitant priest comes to McCloud's aid, after Colonel Davis's death by torture.  The movie ends at the dawn of Christmas, with the reminder that "there's always another battle to fight."

One of the most interesting facets of Shadow on the Land is its alternate reality viewpoint.  It is still the year 1968, but fascism has reigned in America for forty years, since 1928 ostensibly.  Still, America in 1968 looks almost the same as we would remember it.  There are freeways, Christmas decorations, office meetings, restaurants, etc.  The only difference is that no one is free.  That concentration camps dot the landscape, and every park, every avenue, every building is is monitored by the ever-present ISF soldiers.

Perhaps the tele-movie's second most powerful moment occurs when Davis attempts to find sanctuary following an ISF raid on the mission.  He begs people for help in the park, in the streets, even in a diner.  He tells them he's an army officer. He's bleeding, and desperate.

And no one lefts a finger. 

No one even makes eye contact with him.  The point transmitted by this scene is plain and clear: a fascist state depends on two things: a militia to bully people, and an apathetic, uninvolved populace.    Again, this got me thinking. Who would I rather be?  The guy who dies raising the flag?  Or the guy staring down at his lunch plate as a free man is captured and tortured?

Shadow on the Land was apparently a backdoor pilot for a TV series.  The concept was never picked up for broadcast, but I was struck how timely it seems today.  For instance, the opening narration discusses America losing democracy in three ways. 

First by fear, and certainly, this country knew crippling fear after September 11, 2001, in the age of color-coded terror alerts and warnings about powerful politicians of "mushroom clouds over" American cities. 

The second way is by greed, and indeed we saw Wall Street's sickening greed bring this great country to her knees in the Economic Meltdown of 2008.  We bailed Wall Street out and now look where we are.  They've got bonuses, and there's no money left for our schools, our workers, or, apparently, a middle class.

And third, finally, by laziness.   Let's hope against hope that we don't see this shoe drop. Certainly both the passion in the Tea Party in the election of 2010 and the passion now raging against Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin speak powerfully against the possibility of such mass laziness.  These are both wonderful American examples of dissent, or what Shadow on the Land terms "the life blood" of democracy. 

I'm particularly glad Shadow on the Land pointed out the importance of dissent in a democracy such as ours.  I remember last decade, not too long ago when people spoke out of conscience about their objection to the War in Iraq that they were labeled un-American or treasonous for not going along.  On the contrary, it was the most American and patriotic thing people could do then (and do now): question authority. 

Ask why.

In terms of action, Shadow on the Land is pretty-fast paced and brutal.  And John Forsythe gives a nice, icy performance as high-ranking ISF officer, General Bruce.  But again, I just kept thinking that something like this TV-movie could be done very effectively today, when we've moved into a more technological age, when both political parties have apparently accepted surveillance of U.S. citizens without oversight and the right of American interests to torture. 

A new weekly series on this subject -- America under totalitarian rule -- would be a perfect Zeitgeist program at this juncture, and I would nominate Chris Carter to create, produce and write it.  He's an artist who has obsessed over these very ideas for twenty years, and, more than anyone else, I think, could write movingly about the human decisions, bravery and capitulations inherent in a scenario like Shadow on the Land's.

If this concept had gone to weekly series in 1968 (when the optimistic Star Trek was still on the air), I wonder how it would have been welcomed. 

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: The Omega Man (1971)

"One creature, caught. Caught in a place he cannot stir from in the dark. Alone, outnumbered hundreds to one, nothing to live for but his memories, nothing to live with but his gadgets, his cars, his guns, gimmicks... and yet the whole family can't bring him down..."

-Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) contemplates Neville (Charlton Heston) in The Omega Man (1971).

As I wrote in Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), Charlton Heston is legend. 

To the kids who grew up in the 1970s, the great actor is not the larger-than-life religious messiah of The Ten Commandments, nor the 1990s-era NRA Hawk of "from my cold, dead hands" infamy.  Rather, Heston remains the ultimate science-fiction anti-hero and bad ass.

In a relatively short-span (from 1968 to 1973), Heston fronted four remarkable dystopic and post-apocalyptic science-fiction visions: Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man and Soylent Green. 

He did so with cocksure arrogance and larger-than-life charisma, prompting Pauline Kael to note on one occasion that Heston was a "god-like hero, built for strength...an archetype of what makes Americans win."

Call it the Heston Mystique.

It's a truly unusual and specific alchemy at work in these particular films.  Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man and Soylent Green are all authentic leftist nightmare visions of unpleasant futures; pointing to the folly of nuclear or germ warfare, and railing against environmental apocalypse, militarism, and entrenched corporate, political and even religious interests. 

And yet in all these instances we have this grinning, caustic  icon of the right-wing countenancing such concerns...the last man standing, the last man advocating for our way of life.

Even if our way of life -- in some sense -- is directly to blame for the apocalypse at hand. 

Only Nixon could go to China, and only Charlton Heston could take on such terrifying, dystopian worlds, perhaps.  But the frisson generated as a right-wing icon takes on traditionally left-wing concerns about the end of the world grants each of the aforementioned films a special kind of enduring power and resonance, that's for certain.

Although The Omega Man arrived smack in the middle of this cycle of Heston sci-fi films (after Apes and before Soylent), it really makes the most of this his unique persona.  The film opens with Heston -- decked out in cool sun-glasses -- patrolling the lonely streets of a post-apocalypse 20th century city in his red convertible.  He races down the garbage-strewn boulevards, listening to Max Steiner's Theme from "A Summer Place." 

Then, he sees a shadowy figure move in a nearby edifice's upstairs window.  And he whips out a machine gun...

It's one of those wonderful movie moments: first trading on well-articulated feelings of loneliness and isolation (enhanced by the epic, long-distance aerial shots), and then reaching for terror...and a just little bit of humor as Heston -- singular defender of the human race -- cuts loose on an enemy quite abruptly. 

Later in the same scene, Heston dons a stylish tan jacket that makes it look as though he's out on safari.  He carries a red gas tank in one hand and his machine gun in the other, and thus is perfectly accessorized to stave off the End of Life As We Know It. Coupled with Ron Granier's heroic, rousing score, this moment in The Omega Man really...kicks. 

If you ever want to dissect the unusual Heston Mystique, this moment is probably the place to start.

Another suitable place would be the scene in The Omega Man in which Heston informs the leader of the Family -- a group of albino mutants -- that he's "full of crap."

"Is this the conclusion of all our yesterdays?  Is this the end of technological mankind?"

The Omega Man is the second silver screen adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 landmark novel, I am Legend.

The first version starred Vincent Price and was called The Last Man on Earth (1964).  The third, I am Legend (2007), headlined Will Smith.  The Omega Man has often been termed the least faithful of the cinematic bunch, yet in many ways it's also the best film of the three, neither ultra-low budget nor saddled with dated and ridiculous CGI effects.

In The Omega Man,  Colonel Robert Neville (Heston) has survived a biological plague that, in March of 1975, wiped out the vast majority of mankind.  As the story opens, it is the year 1977, and Neville -- living a life of unending isolation -- devotes his days to discovering the location of  "the Hive;" the hideout for The Family, a menacing gang of neo-Luddite, photophobic mutants.  If Neville owns daylight in this metropolis, the Family owns the night.  And every midnight, the Family surrounds his urban dwelling and calls Neville out, hoping to destroy this last remnant of technological man. 

The Family's leader, the loquacious Matthias (Zerbe) believes that the plague was God's punishment of man; judgment on his dependence and belief in science and technology.  Now, he and his "Family" devote their lives to burning books and works of art, and destroying all evidence of 20th century technology. 

"In the beginning, we tried to help one another, those that were left," he tells Neville.  "We tried to clean things up, set things straight. We buried things and burned. Then it came to me that we were chosen. Chosen for just this work: To bury what was dead. To burn what was evil. To destroy what was dangerous." 

In short, Matthias gives new meaning to the term eliminationalist rhetoric.  He wants nothing less than to erase Neville -- and twenty centuries of human development -- from the history books.

While out in the city one day, Neville unexpectedly encounters a fellow survivor named Lisa (Rosalind Cash).  She is allied with a brilliant med-student, Dutch (Paul Koslo) and several small children.  All of them are currently unaffected by the still-rampant plague, but could "turn" at any moment. 

When Neville realizes that mankind could have a future again in this small group, he re-doubles his effort to produce a vaccine for the germ that destroyed almost all life on Earth.  He realizes that the key to destroying the plague involves his own untainted blood...

"Your art, your science...it was all a nightmare, and now it's finished."

In some respects, the first portion of The Omega Man -- with Heston's Neville alone in a vast urban jungle of glass, cement and metal -- remains the strongest and most memorable portion of the film.

Neville continually drops one-liners, to an audience of one: himself. 

"Another day, another dollar."  "There's never a cop around when you need one."  And -- during a viewing of Woodstock (1970) -- "They sure don't make pictures like that anymore."

All these jokes are determinedly cliched, and yet these familiar turns-of-phrase from before the apocalypse also seem poignant because they no longer carry their original meanings. Rather, they call attention to Neville's plight. 

Another day another dollar?  Money is worthless. 

There's never a cop around when you need one?  There's nobody around.  Period.

They sure don't make pictures like that?  In fact, no new movies are being made. 

Neville's sarcastic running commentary reveals just how pointless and empty his life has become; and how impossible it is to forget the past, and the dead. 

Another exemplary scene early in the film finds Neville hunting down the Family in the empty Hotel Premiere.  He passes through a fancy hall with a grand chandelier, and then moves into a dining room where a long dinner table is still set with the finest china and linens.  Again, table settings, fancy dishes, frilly gold curtains, and ornate light fixtures seem damned unimportant in the face of extinction.  The visuals in this scene get at that idea; at the notion of man as having gone the way of the dodo or the dinosaur; with only these empty forms and shapes left behind.

Many such moments early in the film practically tingle with this electric idea of a fully-decorated but unpopulated world, as well as Neville's seething, caustic anger about his fate.  For instance, there's a moment when he spies a pin-up calendar on a car dealership wall, and has to take it down.  He can't bear to look at it; to be reminded of the fairer sex.  It's just too much to bear..

And the scene in the movie theater, with Neville lip-synching the words to hippie dialogue in Woodstock (1970) is some kind of twisted genius.  It gets to the tension inherent in casting right-wing Heston in a role such as this (or in the role of Taylor in Planet of the Apes).  Heston's Neville doesn't give a flying hoot for the hippies or their counter-culture belief system.  But here he is, alone at the end of the world, and, well, he'll settle even for a hippie's faux profundity as company. 

By having Neville accept and repeat the words of Woodstock, the movie knowingly puts this guy in the role of humanity's defender.  Messy humanity's defender, I should say, longing for all the species' stupid conflicts, nonsense, and silliness.  Neville is there...celebrating it; mourning it.  It's the equivalent of George Clooney playing Neville after the apocalypse, lip-synching to a Rush Limbaugh recording, or a Bill O'Reilly show.  There's a tension to it; an irony.  And a poignancy too.

The Omega Man also thrives as a good old fashioned action film.  There's an exhilarating motorcycle escape in a football-stadium, scored heroically -- again -- by Granier, and culminating in a slow-motion jump.  It's sort of refreshing and eye-opening how basic and well-staged it is, with no digital effects or CGI backgrounds or herky-jerky camera work and editing.  To quote Neville, "they don't make pictures like this anymore."

I suppose most of the ire and brickbats directed at The Omega Man over the years involve the film's ending.  In case you've forgotten, the climax finds Neville speared to a modern art fountain outside his apartment.  As he dies in a pool of his own life-saving blood, Neville slips into a Christ pose; of Jesus Christ on the cross.   I know this ending really upset critic Howard Thompson at The New York Times, who called it "phony" and "florid."

I agree that this ending is bracing, but would nonetheless argue that the way for it is is paved early on.  A young girl gazes at Neville admiringly and asks, "Are you God?"  If that's not a clear set-up for the quasi-religious denouement, I don't know what would be. 

But on more basic terms, what's intrinsically wrong or wrong-headed with the comparison of Neville to Christ?  Both men die for the sins of the world; and both die giving humanity a second chance.  In John 1:7, it is written “and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”   In the case of Neville, his blood will also cleanse humanity of the plague; the sin of germ warfare made manifest in flesh. 

Secondly, a critical part of Matheson's original novel is the mythologizing of Neville as a kind of bedtime story for the vampires, a bogeyman.  Though The Omega Man de-mythologizes and de-romanticizes the tale to a considerable degree, this ending brings it all back in.  This movie's events serve, in a sense, as an origin story of how mankind got a second chance. 

That line of Scripture quoted above actually begins with the words "If ye walk in the light, as he is in the light.."  And consider too that throughout the film, Neville is dramatically associated with the light; just as the Family is associated with the dark.  Neville only operates in the day time, and he preserves also the light of knowledge: of literature, art, medicine and science.  In the case of the latter two, those are the very things which enable Neville to share his life-giving blood.

So the Crucifixion pose, if you will, not only works thematically; but it works in terms of the literal story and what these characters witness and will come to remember.  This is especially true of the children, particularly that little girl who asked if Neville is God.  She will grow up and tell her children about the man whose blood saved the human race. 

To some -- especially as generations pass -- Neville will indeed seem as a God, or at least a Savior.

I don't find the ending of The Omega Man  sacreligious or profane, or even overly florid.  I think it's the perfect and valid ending to Neville's particular story. After having spent years in the "wilderness" of Los Angeles alone, he  returns to humanity and finds redemption both for himself and his people.  He has gone from being "hostile" and "not belonging" to saving the human race.  Furthermore, the casting of Heston, whom many associate with religious imagery because of Ten Commandments, lends further validity to a religious or mythological interpetation of Neville's life.

Finally, I've been writing about dystopias a lot lately.  There gets to be, at some point, common ground with the post-apocalyptic film.  They aren't always one in the same, but in the case of The Omega Man, I would argue that they are.  The film depicts not just life after the fall of man, but a new and terrifying order, a "Family" (in the style of Charles Manson's) that wants to burn and destroy everything of value, from art to literature to sculpture.  This Family would leave the Earth in a new Dark Age without beauty, without imagination, without past, and therefore without potential.

That's the "Hell," so-to-speak, that Neville delivers the world from.  And that's why he earns his valedictory crucifixion.

CULT TV FLASHBACK # 130: The Name of the Game: "L.A. 2017"

Thanks to the generosity and kindness of a good friend and reader of this blog, I have now been able to screen and enjoy "L.A. 2017," a uniquely dystopian episode of the wheel TV series The Name of the Game (1968-1971). 

To top it off, "L.A. 2017" is directed by none other than movie legend Steven Spielberg.

Networks don't generally present so-called wheel series these days, but The Name of the Game filled a ninety-minute slot each week of its 76-episode run on NBC, with three rotating lead actors (Gene Barry, Tony Franciosa and Robert Stack) vetting story lines. 

In this case, all the adventures portrayed on The Name of the Game centered around Howard Publishing.  Franciosa played an investigative reporter, Stack a crime magazine editor, and Gene Barry was Glenn Howard, the publisher-and-chief.

Created near the end of The Name of the Game's three year run, on the then-considerable budget of $375,000 dollars, "L.A. 2017" features Gene Barry's character, and sends him off in an unexpected and frightening science fiction adventure.

As "L.A. 2017" (written by Philip Wylie) commences, Glenn Howard is on his way back to Los Angeles from the Sierra Pines Conference on Ecology. 

As he drives on a windy mountain road, Glenn dictates a private memo to the President of the United States about what he has seen and heard at the conference.  He suggests that "the destruction of the environment" is imminent unless someone begins to demonstrate real leadership on the issue.

While steering and dictating the memo, Glenn suddenly falls unconscious and drives his car off the road.  When he awakes, he is being tended to by two emergency workers in red jumpsuits and protective gas masks. 

These men escort him through the "Los Angeles Portal" to the city.  But it's not the same city it once was, as Glenn quickly learns.  The year is now 2017, and the surface of the planet Earth is uninhabitable.  Mankind has moved underground to a series of overcrowded subterranean complexes.

While Glenn tries to figure out how he traveled into his own future, the authorities of L.A.in 2017 interrogate him.  Cameron (Severn Darden) is a psychiatrist and chief-of-police, and is suspicious of the stranger.  Cameron fears Glenn might be part of a violent underground movement seeking to destroy the cities.  "I can get anything I want out of you, electronically," he confides in his ward.   Soon, Cameron diagnoses Glenn as either "schizoid" or telling the truth about his time travels.

In short order, Glenn is introduced to the amiable Vice-President of Los Angeles, Dane Bigelow (Barry Sullivan).  Dane further explains the nature of this terrifying future.  He describes how mankind has been underground since 1989, when the atmosphere grew "toxic" after the growth of poisonous algae in the Indian Ocean.   Because "science and government stood by while everything died," the business community of the United States took over control of the country, drafting a "Corporate Constitution" that gave all surviving citizens shares in America, Inc.  Supposedly, this is a more "efficient" system of government, than before.  At least according to Bigelow and the Chairman of America Inc.

A beautiful young woman, Sandrette (Sharon Farrell) gives Glenn a tour of the underground city, home to 11,000 survivors.  She introduces herself by informing Glenn is she is "thirty, sterile and a sex education major."  Sandrette then takes Glenn to church where computers have taken the place of priests.  You can type your spiritual question on a keyboard, and the computer will answer it.  Example: Q: "How do I find the truth?"  A: "It will find you." 

The more Glenn learns of life in LA in 2017, the less he likes it.  America is at war with England over a jurisdictional matter, and many of the poor citizens are assigned to public housing, five or six people to a single room.  Worse, these homes often show seepage from the surface, and the air is becoming unbreathable.  Other people are exploited as workers on the poisonous surface, an occupation with a 20 percent death rate. 

Milk is the drink of the rich, because there's only one cow, and it is "privately owned."

The state also constantly monitors all citizens, making privacy a thing of the past. 

"If there's no privacy, there can't be any invasion of privacy," Sandrette cheerily informs the visitor from the 20th century.  When Glenn asks her if there is any freedom in the city at all, Sandrette's response is similarly vacant: "Freedom is always relative to the needs of the community."

In the final moments of "L.A. 2017," Glenn escapes the city, where the Vice-President has plans to install him as the head of a state-sponsored press/propaganda outfit, and tries to make it back to his car, and hopefully, back to his time...

Although "L.A. 2017" features the dreaded "it was all a dream," dramatic cheat at the end, it nonetheless makes for a remarkably powerful program in 2011, forecasting ably the growing power and influence of corporations in America.  The movie boasts many great, almost throwaway moments involving the city's official announcements over loudspeakers, for instance.  One such advertisement encourages citizens to "borrow against their shares at an interest rate of just 35 percent,"  a concept that is not at all foreign to our contemporary country, post Great Recession. 

This episode of The Name of the Game is veritably filled with brilliant little asides like that, such as the surprise announcement in a control room that "there are unconfirmed reports of a Negro(!) in Cleveland," meaning, apparently that most African-Americans did not live to survive the new Corporate America.  Another interesting touch: parenthood is "no longer for amateurs."  On the contrary, the State has "professionals" do it now; professionals who have removed the words "mother" and "father" from society all together.

I also enjoyed the way the episode blends two psychiatrists with law-enforcers; these fearsome men are -- quite literally -- thought police (and armed with weapon cylinders which fire injections of "counter-productive" drugs.)

But the episode's finest and most telling moment arises in the last act.  Glenn visits Vice-President Bigelow and upbraids him for maintaining and nourishing a "totalitarian state." 

At first, Bigelow responds that "survival justifies anything" in 2017, but then he changes his tact. 

He turns Glenn's self-righteousness around on the man from the 20th century.  If Glenn hates this "future" so much, why didn't he do something about the environment when he had money, fame and power, back in 1971?  Who is he to judge the future if he didn't take responsibility for building it in the first place? 

This is a really clever narrative angle, because it asks the audience, rather bluntly, to take just such responsibility for our shared tomorrows.   Why aren't we complaining more loudly that some people -- in the thrall of big business -- want to gut rules and regulations that keep our water clean, our food safe, and our air breathable? 

Director Steven Spielberg does a solid, highly-effective job creating and charting this dystopian future of the year 2017.  He sometimes sets his camera high--up (pointed down) to catch an angled-perspective of the various rooms; presenting the appearance of being a surveillance camera view.   On other occasions, he uses extreme low angles looking up to present us multiple levels of surveillance, a visual cue that the upper class is always looking down on the rest of the populace.

Otherwise, Spielberg gets the absolute most out of the tunnels and corridors of the city, fostering memorable visions of a claustrophobic world.  In the episode's final road chase -- an ambulance versus a police car with a hood-mounted machine gun -- he deploys many of the same expressive angles he used in Duel (1971). 

Finally, Spielberg's last shot -- a shift in focus from a "rescued" Glenn in 1971 to a dead bird on a bare tree branch in the foreground -- proves a nice way of undercutting the facile "it was all a dream" ending.  Instead, Spielberg puts the valedictory focus of this piece on the environment, leaving us no choice but to consider its importance.

As you know, I've been fascinated of late with the idea of dystopias in popular entertainment, and "L.A. 2017" certainly presents a real nightmare world of the future.   What surprised me a great deal about this production was -- to take a page from Glenn's dialogue -- "how it's all remarkably consistent." 

The episode is filled with odd touches (like a rock-and-roll club for senior citizen), affecting touches (a painted skyline is all that's left of surface life...), and moments of authentic pathos (the death of one of the four last fish in the world...).   There's not one moment of empty air in this TV show from forty years ago; not one wasted breath.  Instead, Spielberg and writer Wylie fill in every inch of the movie with terrifying and memorable detail.

We're only a few years away from 2017 right now, and no, we don't live in a subterranean totalitarian state.  But that fact doesn't change the relevance of this forty year old movie.  After all, we're all watching with our breaths held as Japan deals with an environmental and technological catastrophe of enormous magnitude. 

Unfortunately, none of us has the luxury of believing this is "all a dream."