Review #1725: THX 1138.
Cast:
Robert Duvall (THX 1138), Donald Pleasence (SEN 5241), Maggie McOmie (LUH 3417), Don Pedro Colley (SRT 5752), Ian Wolfe (PTO), Marshall Efron (TWA), Sid Haig (NCH), John Pearce (DWY), and James Wheaton (Voice of OMM 0000) Directed by George Lucas (#113 - Star Wars, #141 - American Graffiti, #142 - Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, #143 - Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, and #144 - Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith)
Review:
A half century later, there are quite a few things to unpack with this particular movie. For one, it was the feature film debut for George Lucas. As one must remember, the California native grew up with an appreciation for comics and science fiction (take note of the clips shown in the opening of the film), and this would serve him quite well when he entered the University of Southern California and its school of Cinematic Arts; he cited educators Lester Novros and Slavko Vorkapich (chair of the school) as influences on Lucas, who made numerous short movies as a filmmaker that were fairly abstract (ranging from a minute to seven, with only one having a narrative). He graduated with a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1967, but his time spent with USC did not end there, as he went back as a graduate student in film production, with one of his duties being to teach students of the United States Navy that were studying documentary cinematography and working under Verna Fields in editing movies for the United States Information Agency (Fields would later edit a number of features for fellow USC filmmakers as a pioneer in her own right). In total, Lucas made nine short features from 1965 to 1968; the one that matters most to this discussion is his sixth in Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, made in the course of 12 weeks in 1967. He had an idea for a future film with existing stuff utilized for said future, and he tasked his friend (and fellow USC student) Matthew Robbins to write a brief outline involving the THX character and a chase scene. He utilized the Navy connection to helpful effect, since Navy folks served as crew for the movie while helping him get access for various locations to shoot. The result was a movie that won 1st prize at the National Student Film Festival in the Dramatic category. Later on, Francis Ford Coppola (fresh off Finian's Rainbow) helped Lucas with a deal to make a feature film with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts (co-produced with American Zoetrope, which Coppola and Lucas founded in 1969), and Lucas made the feature over the course of five weeks in the fall of 1969. A year was then spent in the editing room by Lucas and Walter Murch (who each wrote the movie). If you can believe it, studio executives did not appreciate what they saw of the final workprint, and they requested an edit to be done within the studio, which took out four minutes from the final edit. Made on a budget of $777,777, the movie was a mild success on initial release (making its budget back plus $122K).
I'm sure you are aware of the story that comes from a movie dedicated to the illusions of safety and order within a closed-off society filled with restrictions and watchful eyes everywhere. In fact, I know you have, because there have been a handful of books and movies that have run on similar lines for decades, such as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, for example. Of course, we are talking about a movie with Chapperell race cars modified to look like jet cars. We are also talking about a movie that seems quite curious to talk about when thinking about Lucas as a filmmaker given what would come later in the decade, and yet it is the key piece in trying to understand what he aspired to do as a maverick filmmaker in terms of visual storytelling (along with his intent to not have studios try to control the production of his movies). Perhaps it was fate that a bleak movie involving the pitfalls of consumerism and conformity took its own path to reaching audiences. It likely seems more fitting of its decade than with the next two films Lucas directed, that might be for sure, which might seem a bit off-putting for those who come in completely cold for this sci-fi movie. Of course this isn't quite a movie one watches for acting chops; in an interview, Colley noted that Lucas seemed to not be too comfortable around actors, treating the production as like one of his student films (perhaps ironically, an actor in one his future movies would say something fairly similar years later); certainly it is an interesting sight to see a group of shaved actors amidst a crowd of other voices, and Duvall certainly does fine a role that requires a bit of a blank slate sparked into breaking out of obedience into ordinariness. Pleasance, gripping in confined obedience that drips of pathetic ooze within certain pieces of dialogue, matches fine with what is required from someone dealing in the middle of a society without any choices, where fear of the unknown can be a powerful deterrent (and easily identifiable). McOmie (in her one and only film as star) is used for poignant moments with attempts at breaking free with a sense of emotion that can be construed as fear with a bit of warmth waiting to break free. Colley proves curious in those moments seen on screen within the prison sequence, one in the middle between comfort and curiosity in the angle of finding a way out. The movie relies on visual interest within a dystopia where prisons have no walls, kids have IV lines for economics in their veins, and people like to take substances to curb their emotions as they work under jobs that are terribly dangerous (factories even announce the death tolls of the period in an attempt to promote safety); when not working, people just buy things without much thought while watching odd holograms. The robot policeman are the only visual adversary one sees, since you never actually see just who is in control, knowing only that set budgets are set for the capture of anyone who tries to escape. It is mostly a visual movie, which is interesting to see when most of the stuff is white (clothing, bald hair, et cetera) but certainly not the easiest film to sit through in its versions; the movie was restored in 1977 with an 86 minute run-time that restored the four cut minutes on the original release that was later put out on VHS and LaserDisc, while a Director's Cut was supervised by Lucas in 2004 that restored the film on an audio/video level while adding a few bits of computer generated imagery (along with adding detail to certain sequences) that resulted in a run-time of 88 minutes (in fact, one can apparently watch it with just the sound effects and score present with no dialogue, if one is into that sort of thing). Perhaps the easiest parallel in terms of a student film being turned into a movie for effect is Dark Star (released three years later...by sheer coincidence, it was made by a USC alum and included a reference to this movie), where it might have reached better as just a student film; regardless, I thought this movie was interesting in the right parts to work in generating a curious bleak world in imagery that leaves more for thought rather than thrills. It isn't a great achievement in originality with its story, but it does prove diverting in visual nature with the right kind of curiosity to make it worthwhile to overcome its shortfalls and work out fine, one that certainly merits attention as a cult classic, one that is just odd enough and interesting enough to win out.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
