Logan's Run (12A.)
Directed by Michael Anderson. 1976
Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Michael Anderson Jr. and Peter Ustinov. 114 mins. Released on double play by Warner Bros
Logan's Run offers up a nightmarish vision of the future – a domed city in the 23rd century where everybody lies about their age. In this Aldous Huxleyish society everybody is young and their lives are fully of fluffy japes and saucy fun. They walk around in tunics, have sex and nobody seems to do much work apart from the Sandmen, the armed police force. Even they have a jolly time, exterminating dissenting voice with carefree flare. The people they kill are Runners, and what they are running from is the Big Catch – it's a great life in the domed city, but short; everybody dies at 30. This happens in a ceremony called Carousel, a primitive Cirque De Soleil arrangement where the birthday boys and girls try to renew by flying up towards the light only to get blasted into smithereens.
The society is based on two big lies. The first is that nobody ever gets renewed at Carousel, and you wonder how it is that nobody notices this seeing as Carousel is the society main entertainment. Of course the other big lie is the general level of And The Rest-ness among the occupants of this youthful utopia. Most of the cast, particularly the male part, have to suck in their stomach and suppress a smirk every time they have to announce what particular year in their twenties they are. Two years later Richard Jordan would be playing a middle aged writer for Woody Allen in Interiors.
Considering they went to the trouble of making a film about it, the mechanics of this society are infuriatingly vague. The system seems entirely self regulating, apart from the Sandmen there are no authority figures. The social system is rigged, but seemingly not corrupt because nobody seems to be getting an unfair benefit from it.
The plot revolves around a Sandman who is forced to go undercover and become a runner, escorting Agutter, in a mission to find and destroy a place called Sanctuary, where all the runners are heading for. The film seems eager to get out of the very fake looking domed city so it can move on to filming in more realistic looking subterranean power station and water works locations. After they make it outside their reward is to be upstaged by a Ustinov who is thesping and improvising like crazy; or like a man with little regard for the film he's in but wants to make sure he'll have his fun.
Logan's Run is a nostalgic beast for me. As a kid I was hooked on the TV series spin off, was a bit shocked when I got to read the sex filled original novel it was based on, and thrilled when I finally got to see the film because it had Jenny Agutter getting undressed in it, as well as naked bodies frozen in ice. I also liked the guns the Sandmen had which produced four opposing spurts of flame every time they were fired. (They seem like the inspiration for the noisy gun Harrison Ford had in Blade Runner.) Sad to report that seeing it today it is pretty awful. The special effects are generally terrible from the model for the domed city, to the clunky blue screen work and being able to see the strings when people start to fly in Carousel. You'll say, quite reasonably that this was to be expected of a film from that era, but this is only a three years before Alien and just before Star Wars and Close Encounters. This feels like the last brick sized mobile, bought just before the first Iphone is released.
In the title role, York is pretty atrocious. We complain these days about upper class actors getting all the best roles but even the worst of the current crop have a basic competence. He's so unconvincing, so false it's likes he's doing as an act of solidarity with the clunky model city and special effects. The script isn't doing any of them of any favours but Jenny Agutter is actually rather good, managing to not draw attention to how bad her dialogue is, and how lacking in credibility her character's actions are.
1976 was, I guess, a bad year to be a science fiction film. It was the year before it stopped all being silly. The following year Star Wars (and Close Encounters) would come along and make sure that sci-fi films, even silly ones, would never be treated demeaningly again. Prior to Star Wars, sci-fi were mostly seriously intentioned allegories of contemporary issues, usually about the threat of nuclear Armageddon, that were widely looked down on. Logan's Run marks the last point that Planet Of The Apes was the default template for Hollywood sci-fi movies.
Extras.
A commentary by York, director Anderson, and costume designer Bill Thomas, which seems to be separate interviews stuck together.
A promo feature from its original release: A Look Into The 23rd Century.
Directed by Michael Anderson. 1976
Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Michael Anderson Jr. and Peter Ustinov. 114 mins. Released on double play by Warner Bros
Logan's Run offers up a nightmarish vision of the future – a domed city in the 23rd century where everybody lies about their age. In this Aldous Huxleyish society everybody is young and their lives are fully of fluffy japes and saucy fun. They walk around in tunics, have sex and nobody seems to do much work apart from the Sandmen, the armed police force. Even they have a jolly time, exterminating dissenting voice with carefree flare. The people they kill are Runners, and what they are running from is the Big Catch – it's a great life in the domed city, but short; everybody dies at 30. This happens in a ceremony called Carousel, a primitive Cirque De Soleil arrangement where the birthday boys and girls try to renew by flying up towards the light only to get blasted into smithereens.
The society is based on two big lies. The first is that nobody ever gets renewed at Carousel, and you wonder how it is that nobody notices this seeing as Carousel is the society main entertainment. Of course the other big lie is the general level of And The Rest-ness among the occupants of this youthful utopia. Most of the cast, particularly the male part, have to suck in their stomach and suppress a smirk every time they have to announce what particular year in their twenties they are. Two years later Richard Jordan would be playing a middle aged writer for Woody Allen in Interiors.
Considering they went to the trouble of making a film about it, the mechanics of this society are infuriatingly vague. The system seems entirely self regulating, apart from the Sandmen there are no authority figures. The social system is rigged, but seemingly not corrupt because nobody seems to be getting an unfair benefit from it.
The plot revolves around a Sandman who is forced to go undercover and become a runner, escorting Agutter, in a mission to find and destroy a place called Sanctuary, where all the runners are heading for. The film seems eager to get out of the very fake looking domed city so it can move on to filming in more realistic looking subterranean power station and water works locations. After they make it outside their reward is to be upstaged by a Ustinov who is thesping and improvising like crazy; or like a man with little regard for the film he's in but wants to make sure he'll have his fun.
Logan's Run is a nostalgic beast for me. As a kid I was hooked on the TV series spin off, was a bit shocked when I got to read the sex filled original novel it was based on, and thrilled when I finally got to see the film because it had Jenny Agutter getting undressed in it, as well as naked bodies frozen in ice. I also liked the guns the Sandmen had which produced four opposing spurts of flame every time they were fired. (They seem like the inspiration for the noisy gun Harrison Ford had in Blade Runner.) Sad to report that seeing it today it is pretty awful. The special effects are generally terrible from the model for the domed city, to the clunky blue screen work and being able to see the strings when people start to fly in Carousel. You'll say, quite reasonably that this was to be expected of a film from that era, but this is only a three years before Alien and just before Star Wars and Close Encounters. This feels like the last brick sized mobile, bought just before the first Iphone is released.
In the title role, York is pretty atrocious. We complain these days about upper class actors getting all the best roles but even the worst of the current crop have a basic competence. He's so unconvincing, so false it's likes he's doing as an act of solidarity with the clunky model city and special effects. The script isn't doing any of them of any favours but Jenny Agutter is actually rather good, managing to not draw attention to how bad her dialogue is, and how lacking in credibility her character's actions are.
1976 was, I guess, a bad year to be a science fiction film. It was the year before it stopped all being silly. The following year Star Wars (and Close Encounters) would come along and make sure that sci-fi films, even silly ones, would never be treated demeaningly again. Prior to Star Wars, sci-fi were mostly seriously intentioned allegories of contemporary issues, usually about the threat of nuclear Armageddon, that were widely looked down on. Logan's Run marks the last point that Planet Of The Apes was the default template for Hollywood sci-fi movies.
Extras.
A commentary by York, director Anderson, and costume designer Bill Thomas, which seems to be separate interviews stuck together.
A promo feature from its original release: A Look Into The 23rd Century.
