FUTURE WORLD
MOVIE REVIEW

		Review by E.C.McMullen Jr.
WESTWORLD MOVIE REVIEW WESTWORLD MOVIE ARTICLE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE MOMENT FUTURE WORLD - 1976 USA Release: July 14, 1976 The Aubrey Company, American International Pictures Rating: USA: PG

In the 1970s under a new CEO, Daniel Melnick, MGM Studios began an upswing in the film company's fortunes. He ushered through risky Science Fiction movies based on on good but not particularly bestselling novels. Under Melnick we got Harry Harrison's "Make Room! Make Room" turned into the smash movie, SOYLENT GREEN which, so far, remains part of our nation's culture and language.

Author Michael Crichton was super hot and wanted to be both screenwriter and director of WESTWORLD, which also became a big hit (as practically everything always did with Michael). But the 1970s were the last gasp of MGM's greatness, as in 1969, investor Krekor "Kirk" Kerkorian bought a 40% stake in MGM and wanted to take it out of music and film production - where it was staggering at that time - and turn it into an expensive hotel chain (which began with the MGM Grand in Las Vegas).

A visionary who could pick and guide through productions that raised the value of MGM's filmmaking business was not where Kerkorian wanted to go. Kerkorian knew real estate and film production was out of his league.

Putting the squeeze on MGM, in 1975 they decided to sell their property of WESTWORLD to Samuel Z. Arkoff: a guy who really knew how to kill a franchise.

Samuel wasn't about the property or the story, he was about the sales. For Sam, the title came first. Once he and his fellow investors had one they liked, get the poster made. Say! That's a swell poster! Okay, hire some writer to hammer out a story about the title and what he sees on the poster.

Arkoff's formula was simple. Whatever the story was about it needed Action, Revolution, Speeches, Fantasy, and Fornication. So long as you had that in there, by golly, you had a movie!

Sure it will suck! But now we have a movie and the rubes will go see it because they like the first one!

How did that work for him?1 Well, for decades he Produced or Executive Produced: often both. He also left himself uncredited on more than a few of his movies. I'm sure he had Reasons.

Michael Crichton, feeling burned and exhausted after his shabby treatment by MGM over WESTWORLD, wanted no part of it which suited the new owners, American International Pictures. So yeah, anything FUTUREWORLD could have been, what it it was going to be is "Corman-esque".

That is, the kind of movie that Roger Corman could always sell to Samuel Z. Arkoff.

It begins with a TV game show. Some schlub named Ron Thurlow (Jim Antonio: PIGS, THE TERMINAL MAN, EVE OF DESTRUCTION) just won the grand prize, a trip to the all new Delos!

Yay! No wait! Isn't that the place where...?

Next we meet Chuck Browning (Peter Fonda: SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, RACE WITH THE DEVIL, DANCE OF THE DWARFS, SPASMS, GHOST RIDER). He's a reporter of sorts who will stop at nothing to Get the Story!

Chuck gets to work 2 hours late (cuz he's a rebel), answers a phone call, hears a voice on the phone with a big story about Delos, he goes to a secret meeting with the man, 'cause the guy is scared about reprisals, and before he can talk to his source, the guy is shot in the back, dead.

Whoever shot him, sucks at his job because the killer didn't retrieve any of the incriminating evidence about Delos that the victim is holding.

Next thing we know, Chuck is in a kerfuffle with TV reporter, Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner: TO KILL A CLOWN, STRANGE BUT TRUE, AMERICAN GODS [TV]) for showing up late to a Public Relations meeting with the new head of Delos, Mr. Duffy (Arthur Hill: THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, REVENGE OF THE STEPFORD WIVES, TOMORROW'S CHILD, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, PROTOTYPE, MURDER IN SPACE). Chuck & Tracy have a history and they bicker, you know the drill. You know of what comes after that. Especially in 1970s TeeVee land.

That's right. In the 1960s and '70s the networks would fund and produce their own movies (THE NIGHT STALKER, SALEM'S LOT). In addition, they would frequently take on movies that started out as TV pilots for a series that was never sold.

Why am I bringing this up? From start to finish, FUTUREWORLD plays out, visually and in dialogue, plot, and pacing, like a low budget, made for TV movie. That includes all of the ironclad rules of Broadcast Television censorship. If there was anything this movie did to earn its PG from a G, I didn't see or hear it.

That makes sense because it was written by veteran television writer, George Schenk (SUPERBEAST, THE PHANTOM OF HOLLYWOOD, DEATHMOON, TURKEY SHOOT), he spent nearly his entire career working under the sword of TV censorship. It's influence can be witnessed in every one of the few theatrical feature films he wrote.

It didn't stop there.

Under television veteran, Richard T. Heffron's direction, along with 2 time Emmy winner, veteran television cinematographer Howard Schwartz (Boris Karloff's JACK THE RIPPER, Boris Karloff's DESTINATION NIGHTMARE, Boris Karloff's THE VEIL [TV], BATMAN [TV show and movie], LAND OF THE GIANTS [TV], TERROR IN THE SKY, NIGHT OF TERROR, FUTURE COP [TV], THE INCREDIBLE HULK), and a second TV cinematographer, Gene Polito (LOST IN SPACE [TV], COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT, WESTWORLD, ALL THE KIND STRANGERS, THE PHANTOM OF HOLLYWOOD), who was credited for all of the cut scenes from WESTWORLD that were used here.

Instead of building sets, they dressed sets. For those futuristic sets that would have been too cost prohibitive to build, they shot those scenes in - what was then considered - the most modern and futuristic looking city in the world: Houston, Texas2.

This is why the whole movie looks and feels like a TV show because everyone in the creative departments worked in television for that small, boxy screen and all of its TV tropes and TV culture. This includes scene cuts that, around the halfway mark, got me thinking that the pause was for the insert of a television commercial.

This is what Samuel Z. Arkoff wanted and got.

That was not what the audience wanted. We wanted a movie that built up upon WESTWORLD.

There's nothing unredeeming about FUTUREWORLD (and as a Horror fan I'm more than fine with a few unredeeming qualities in a story), there's just nothing redeeming about it.

Well, except for one thing and one thing only - the reason why Delos is going to the trouble and expense of re-opening. Whoever came up with that concept? That was an excellent concept. Now if only you had hired the people to make it happen and figured out a way to stop Kerkorian from derailing it all3.

Pointless and unnecessary, with acting both pedestrian and often wooden, I give FUTUREWORLD 2 Shriek girls.

This review copyright 2024 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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For those who scroll...

A Note On Those THE PHANTOM OF HOLLYWOOD Credits

3 You'll notice that some of these people also worked on a1974 MGM movie called, THE PHANTOM OF HOLLYWOOD.

Remember what I said about Kerkorian?
He owned 40% of MGM, but CEO Melnick had the power of greenlighting the movies.

According to IMDb, this is what THE PHANTOM OF HOLLYWOOD is about.

"The internationally famous Worldwide Studios (really MGM) has hit hard times and is forced to sell it's back lot to Hollywood property developers. The trouble is someone keeps killing off the site surveyors. The studio chiefs then learn of the legend of a masked man who lives on the lot and is sworn to protect it from harm."

THE PHANTOM OF HOLLYWOOD was one of the last movies shot on MGM's Lot2, which was being destroyed and sold off to property developers.

Ahem...