SOYLENT GREEN: Blu-ray (MGM 1973) Warner Home Video
Edward G.
Robinson marked his 101st and final performance with Soylent Green (1973) a depressingly
dystopian view of the future where population overcrowding and a shortage of
natural resources have wrecked society with mob rule and where people have
become the prime ingredient in the most readily renewable food source. The
actor should have retired at an even hundred. Although this apocalyptic future
forecast proved wildly popular and has since acquired a solid following as an
iconic 70s science fiction movie in my estimation Soylent Green is two hours of my life that I can never get back.
Given the run
of MGM's dilapidated back lot to shoot his film director Richard Fleischer
transforms Harry Harrison's novel 'Make
Room! Make Room! into something of a quirky oddity, a rummage sale in which
some truly outstanding old time talent is fed through the meat grinder (both
figuratively and literally). As if any more proof were needed that the golden
age of movies was over this film, at least in retrospect, seems to relish the
exploitation of its thespians; Robinson, Joseph Cotten and Charlton Heston in a
plot riddled by stick figure characterizations and some truly lousy
screenwriting.
Stanley R.
Greenberg's screenplay is a mishmash of episodic events that Heston traipses
through blindfolded. Trapped in a performance that is somewhere in the actor's
repertoire between Ben-Hur (1959)
and Planet of the Apes (1968),
Heston is Robert Thorn, an insolent New York City cop whose 'Don't Bogart that can, man!' beatnik attitude
is an ill fit at best. Thorn rooms in a dingy apartment with Solomon 'Sol' Roth
(Robinson); a bookworm forced to seek out knowledge from the ramshackle remains
of the public library. After an untouchable elite, William R. Simonson (Joseph
Cotten) is found bludgeoned to death in his trendy apartment he shares with 23
year old concubine, Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), Thorn assumes responsibility
for solving the case.
While Sol
delves deeper into the mystery of soylent
green, Thorn decides to take advantage of Shirl - whom he nicknames 'furniture' because she just goes with
whoever is occupying the apartment. Thorn then decides that Simonson's ex-body
guard, Tab Fielding (Chuck Connors) is a likely suspect. Truth be told, Thorn
does not care much one way or the other who killed Simonson. He just wants to
find a scapegoat.
The film plays
fast and loose with the then fashionable 'all
cops are pigs' mentality that probably had rioters from Detroit cheering in
the isle. As the mindless masses clamor for more soylent green they are driven back by knight stick toting police
who use dump trucks to scoop up looters and carry them off - presumably to
jail, though more than likely to a processing plant beyond city limits where
they will become 'soylent green' for
the rest of society. During this riot, Thorn is nearly murdered by Simonson's
assassin who is quickly dispatched when the heavy forks from one of the dump
trucks crush him to death. Thorn's next port of call is Tab's girlfriend,
Martha (Paula Kelly), a sort of 'Foxy
Brown' meets Sharon Tate sex
vixen whom Thorn assaults after Tab attacks him.
Meanwhile,
having learned the true ingredients of soylent green, Sol decides that he has
lived too long and stumbles to his local government assisted suicide center to
end it all. He is given a toxic chemical to drink before being placed in a
containment room where Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony blares from loud speakers
in front of a Cinerama-styled travelogue depicting bucolic images of a world
that no longer exists. Thorn arrives too late to save his friend, but Sol
confesses with his dying breath that the main ingredient in soylent green is
people.
Unable to
accept the truth, Thorn secretly follows Sol's body to a waste disposal truck
that is driven to the processing plant where soylent green is being made. After
battling a few of the plant's technicians, Thorn retreats to an overcrowded church
to escape the secret police out to silence him. He is shot, wounded and carried
away screaming "It's people!"
as his superior, Lieutenant Hatcher (Brock Peters) looks on.
Soylent Green is a mid to low budget potboiler at best. While the
novel takes place in 1999 the film is set a bit further down the road in 2025.
Yet the decor, clothes, vehicles and hairstyles are straight out of 1970s. This
limited imagination in set design works if we stretch our own imaginations to
believe that the world of the past broke down somewhere during 1973 or shortly
thereafter, rendering things like fashion inconsequential to the masses for
nearly 50 years. But what are we to make of Simonson's apartment? He is the
head of the Soylent Conglomerate, a man of affluence and luxury. He can afford
anything, yet he chooses to live in 2025 as a retrofitted world of leisure
suits and bellbottoms, his penthouse derived from that cookie cutter, globular
postmodern extremist view of architecture that has since dated quite badly. So
much for the future!
The book makes
mention of soylent steaks that would have made the cannibalism references in
the film much more frightening; especially if the crowds in the market had
stormed in to devour raw meat that we are to presume was cut from their own
brethren. Mmm...yummy! Unfortunately, the film converts its human waste to tiny
emerald-colored melba-toast sized squares called soylent green, a fabrication of
screenwriter Greenberg's limited imagination that all but diffuses any thoughts
about cannibalism. After all, how does a by-product of human flesh become a
cracker?
I realize I am
in the minority in my utter distaste for this film (no pun intended) but there
it is. I think it's silly, ridiculous and very pedestrian in its execution. It
isn't that the narrative is too gruesome. In fact, I think it's too tame. But
the acting is way over the top, particularly Heston who plays Thorn as though he
just might believe he can still part the Red Sea with a wave of his hand. The
final indignation foisted onto the audience is the fight sequences, lacking in
any kinetic energy to be believed.
There is no
tension to the film as a whole, no escalation of the supposed shock value, and
worse still, no style. Cinematographer Richard H. Kline shoots strictly for
footage that is, in this case, flat, boring and frankly more of a dinosaur when
viewed today than it surely must have seemed when the film debuted. Unlike
other vintage sci-fi classics from this period; Planet of the Apes (1968) or even the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Soylent Green does not hold up at all!
In the end, we are left with a badly composed, tragically executed movie that
is colossally mundane at best.
Warner Home
Video's Blu-ray is much improved but still strangely lacking. Colors, though
refined, rarely pop. Fine detail is wanting, particularly during night scenes.
Flesh tones seem unnaturally orange. There are also minor hints of color fading
during a few key sequences. Overall, this is a just above average transfer with
no real complaints but also, no great moments of awe-inspiring imagery. The
audio remains faithful to the original 2.0 Dolby. Dialogue is strident and
forward sounding at best. Extras include the same audio commentary from
Fleischer as was previously available on the DVD. There's also a vintage
'making of' and a very brief tribute to Edward G. Robinson. Ho-hum…and moving
on.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
1
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
2
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