The Final Programme (1973)

          Although British production designer-turned-director Robert Fuest won lasting affection from the genre-cinema community by making a pair of stylish and weird Vincent Price thrillers, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1973), the rest of his oeuvre is spotty. For instance, the sci-fi thriller The Final Programme should have been Fuest’s magnum opus, because he served as writer, director, and designer, adapting the bizarre narrative from UK sci-fi scribe Michael Moorcock’s novel of the same name. Alas, the lighthearted eccentricity that makes the Phibes movies so enjoyable works against Fuest here. Although it’s plain the picture was at least partly envisioned as a satire, Fuest’s script is so confusing, overwrought, and silly that it’s hard for viewers to grasp the basic chain of events, much less what any of the strange things happening onscreen are supposed to mean. The Final Programme has a certain gonzo energy, and many scenes explode with dynamism in terms of inventive cinematography and resourceful production design. Yet the sum is less than the parts.

          The story’s unlikely protagonist is Jerry Cornelius (Jon Finch), a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who behaves and dresses like a spoiled rock star, wearing flamboyant outfits and boozing 24/7. After Jerry’s father dies, Jerry is approached by various parties interested in an experiment that Jerry’s father left unfinished, so Jerry is pressured to surrender microfilm hidden in the family estate. Meanwhile, Jerry has learned from his spiritual advisor (Hugh Griffith) that the world is going to end soon, so Jerry plans to amuse himself by blowing up the family estate with napalm. Hence the peculiar scene of Jerry visiting an arms dealer in a giant room decorated like the inside of a pinball machine and filled with go-go dancers rolling around in massive ball-shaped bubbles. Another random subplot involves Jerry attempting to free his sister (Sarah Douglas) from captivity, because she’s held hostage by a third sibling (Derrik O’Connor), who keeps the sister drugged. This situation occasions a gunfight between Jerry and his brother, during which the combatants use space-age needleguns instead of regular pistols.

          Jerry also becomes involved with a covert organization headed by people including the cannibalistic Miss Brunner (Jenny Runacre), since the organization needs Jerry’s help for an experiment (or, in the movie’s parlance, “programme”) designed to create a new life form that can replace humankind. And if you’re not already bewildered, there’s also a kicky scene featuring a crazed ex-military officer, Major Wrongway Lindbergh (Sterling Hayden), who sells Jerry an antique plane for the proposed napalm strafing.

          None of this makes sense, and Fuest utterly fails to situate the viewer with a clear understanding of the story’s circumstances. Is this the distant future or the near future or simply an alternate reality? Are Jerry and the other scientists inane or visionary? Is the whole thing a send-up of trippy sci-fi, or a serious speculative story with a whimsical attitude? Best not to worry about such questions. Watched casually, The Final Programme presents a string of distracting vignettes, some of which are funny (e.g., the climactic battle, during which the “hero” pathetically shouts, “Help! I’m losing!”), and some of which are astonishingly stupid (notably the goofy final scene). FYI, The Final Programme was released in the US as The Last Days of Man on Earth, which promises a lot more large-scale excitement than the movie actually delivers.

The Final Programme: FUNKY

Macbeth (1971)

          Roman Polanski’s intense adaptation of Shakespeare’s legendary “Scottish play” arrived in theaters with unwanted baggage. On a superficial level, the project raised eyebrows because it was the first feature film financed by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, and some critics made sniggering connections between the picture’s startling nude scene (more on that later) and Hefner’s skin-trade notoriety. On a deeper level, however, Macbeth was the first movie Polanski made after his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by crazed followers of Charles Manson. Accordingly, a lot of critical ink has been spilled analyzing the parallels between the bloody style of Macbeth and Polanski’s presumed need for catharsis after a horrific tragedy.
           Both attempts to draw a line between real life and reel life probably have some basis in validity, but it’s equally fair to simply say that Polanski found a gritty style suiting the morbid nature of Shakespeare’s play—after all, Macbeth traffics in such dark subject matter as betrayal, guilt-ridden hallucination, lethal ambition, and witchcraft. So, while there’s no question that Polanski made the material very much his own (lest we forget, he was making creepy movies before the Manson massacre), it’s wrong to marginalize this powerful film by relegating it to the status of a salacious historical footnote.
          Adapted for the screen by Polanski and Kenneth Tynan, the movie stars brooding UK actor Jon Finch as Macbeth, the nobleman who fulfills a supernatural prophecy by seizing the Scottish throne after murdering a king. Fierce and lean, with deep-set eyes and a honeyed voice he uses to spit daggers of dialogue, Finch gives an extraordinarily committed performance. He’s matched in potency by beautiful leading lady Francesca Annis, who portrays the scheming Lady Macbeth; the aforementioned nude scene, one of Polanski’s boldest directorial flourishes, features a deranged Annis sleepwalking while she delivers the play’s famed “Out, damned spot!” speech.
          Right from the beginning of the film, Polanski immerses viewers in a gritty vision of 17th-century Scotland. Clothes are tattered, skies are gloomy, and terrain is wet with mud. Combined with the shadowy cinematography by Gil Taylor and the churning score by The Third Ear Band (whose music employs instruments and modalities extrapolated from the story’s historical epoch), Polanski employs his unglamorous realism to create a world where death and intrigue feel commonplace. Yet the director also employs his special gift for cataloguing the madness of men by accentuating the fevered quality of speeches that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth deliver; one gets a sense of two people driven mad by exploring the outer edges of avarice. Macbeth isn’t a pleasant film to watch, aside from the gorgeous music of Shakespeare’s words, but it deserves a place among the most distinctive screen treatments of the Bard’s work.

Macbeth: GROOVY

Frenzy (1972)

          After losing his way in the late ’60s, when drab source material and poor health dulled his edge, Hollywood’s “master of suspense,” director Alfred Hitchcock, forcefully entered the ’70s with Frenzy. In addition to returning to familiar territory in terms of location and subject matter, Hitchcock toughened up his perverse storytelling by adding the R-rated elements of nudity and profanity. Yet while many of his old-Hollywood peers seemed desperate when they jumped onto the anything-goes ’70s bandwagon, Hitchcock’s movies had always been so infused with nastiness that the rough stuff suited his style.

          Furthermore, Frenzy demonstrates the filmmaker’s unique ability to weave black humor into sordid material, so the picture has some very funny moments in addition to sequences of concentrated fright. The movie is too long, the performances are good but not great, and the storyline sometimes meanders, but given its many strengths, Frenzy would have been a wonderful swan song for Hitchcock’s epic career. Alas, the underwhelming Family Plot (1976) was his final film, a whimper following the roar of Frenzy.

          Jon Finch, the intense leading man of Roman Polanski’s Macbeth (1971), stars in Frenzy as Richard Blaney, a London ne’er-do-well with a volcanic temper. Fired from his job as a bartender in the Covent Garden neighborhood, he accepts financial and moral support from his girlfriend (Anna Massey), his ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt), and his former military comrade (Barry Foster).

          Meanwhile, police officers including the meticulous Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen) are chasing the “Necktie Murderer,” a serial killer who rapes women and then strangles them to death with neckties. Based on a novel by Arthur La Bern and written for the screen by Anthony Shaffer (best known for his clever play/film Sleuth), Frenzy fits perfectly into the Hitchcock tradition, because as the story progresses, circumstances convince Oxford that Blaney is the Necktie Murderer. Viewers, however, learn the real identity of the criminal, and it’s wicked sport to watch Hitchcock move the characters around each other while it seems more and more likely the wrong man will get arrested.

          Hitchcock and Shaffer enliven the picture by carefully fleshing out their characters. For instance, the running gag about Oxford’s home life—his wife’s experiments with gourmet cooking lead to a procession of elaborately repulsive meals—is wonderfully droll. Plus, in classic Hitchcock style, Frenzy features a handful of riveting suspense scenes, like a lengthy sequence in which the real Necktie Murderer nearly gets caught while trying to recover evidence from a truck that’s barreling down a highway. And, in an enjoyable grace note, Hitchcock uses his camera to explore the colorful streets of Covent Garden, the neighborhood in which his parents operated a shop when Hitchcock was a boy.

Frenzy: GROOVY