Soylent Green (1973), directed by Richard Fleischer.
First review
A minor science fiction effort, actually a simple murder mystery dressed up in a dystopian setting. It's a "statement" movie made shortly after the first Earth Day when the population bomb, pollution and social regimentation were fresh and vital issues. It's remembered for the famous punch-line and for being Edward G. Robinson's last picture.
New York in the near future is hot and overcrowded: 40 million people without enough water or electricity. The air is yellow-green and garbage trucks collect the dead bodies. Charlton Heston is a cop investigating the murder of a rich man in a luxury apartment building: as a perk of the job he pilfers freely and makes use of the A/C, running water and resident prostitute (called "furniture" for some reason -- as in "piece of"? Or because it is a "furnished apartment").
Heston must have liked science fiction, he did so much of it. Robinson died just a few days after the end of filming and I read that he told Heston what was up before their big good-bye scene. That's moving, although I wish it had been in a better movie. And yet: the euthanasia chamber scene is distressingly lovely.
Available on Blu-ray.
Second review
I'm writing this in 2022, the year of the story. We do not have 40 million people in New York City and I haven't seen riot control done with big powered scoops, but neither have I looked for it. Fears of the population bomb have declined with birth rates; I remember charts forecasting the leveling off even before this film was made.
We still worry about pollution and lack of clean water, and the film was prophetic in citing the greenhouse effect, illustrated with a dirty, sweaty urban peasantry. Also for its concern in the extreme gap of wealth and poverty, where -- as the commentary track says -- some are above the law and the rest are completely beneath it.
This is considered science fiction but there is no advanced technology. It's just set in the future. I appreciate it more now without offering it as a great film.
The cast:
Charlton Heston really cried at the euthanasia chamber, knowing how close to the end Robinson really was. They ad-libbed their big meal together. The director decided to add it because we needed to see the contrast of an older and a younger man, fond memories vs new experience.
I always felt sorry for Edward G. Robinson with this is as his last film; he died shortly after completing his scenes. Everyone knew it was the end. Now I read that he was excited to do the project because it "had something to say". He was almost totally deaf but could do each scene after a rehearsal or two.
I now recognize Leigh Taylor-Young from The Buttercup Chain (1970). She's quite good at the combined vulnerability and fortitude of a high-class sex worker, the best job a beautiful woman can hope for as the age of feminism recedes into the past.
I knew police chief Brock Peters from To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and now recognize him from The L-Shaped Room (1962), both fine performances.
Lincoln Kilpatrick had been an infected cultist in Heston's The Omega Man (1971). Here he is heart breaking as a priest whose sanity is hanging by a thread, first because of the overwhelming suffering of those living in his overcrowded church, then by hearing the unbelievable confession of a guilt-ridden director of the Soylent Corporation.
Notes:
The literate who can do research are called "books", something like the misfits at the end of Fahrenheit 451 (1966).
A common experience: younger people cannot believe that the world used to be different, in some cases better. Robinson: "People have always been rotten, but the times were better". It goes the other way, too: fantasies about a golden age that never existed.
Look at that early Asteroids game! 1973!
The luxury of clean water and hot water should never be forgotten.
The child tied by a rope to the dead mother: that's been used elsewhere, hasn't it? Heston just picks it up and hands it to a nun, no drama.
Soylent Green is a big operation, hard to keep secret I would think.
The beauty of the show at the euthanasia chamber really hurts because it shows the natural world is so far gone that it can signify a transcendent passage to the next world: "Going home", he says.
Available on Blu-ray. The director and Leigh Taylor-Young provide an appreciative commentary track.