THE FINAL PROGRAMME (1973)

It's the future and much of Europe—including Amsterdam, Vatican City, and parts of London—are in ruins due to some unspecified wars. We meet Jerry Cornelius (Jon Finch), a wealthy Nobel Prize-winning scientist who looks, dresses and acts like a swinging 1960s playboy, at the Viking-style funeral of his father, also an important scientist. His Indian mentor, Prof. Hira, tells Jerry that mankind's "long dark age" (which began around 3000 BC) is about to end, though that doesn't sound especially positive, given the state of the world. Jerry's dealing with some folks, led by Miss Brunner (Jenny Runacre), who are desperate to get their hands on some microfilm left in his father's belongings. They refer to it as "the final programme" and it apparently involves the creation of an immortal self-replicating human being who would inherit the earth when we all kill ourselves off. To get into the family mansion, which has been taken over by Jerry's crazy brother Frank, Jerry enlists the aid of the faithful butler (Harry Andrews). In addition to the microfilm, Jerry is also trying to save his sister Catherine who is being held as a drug-addled prisoner in the house. There's a strong incest vibe going on here, but it’s ignored narratively—and speaking of narrative, after Jerry breaks into the house, any straightforward plot is more or less tossed out the window. Some things that happen: we see a life-sized pinball machine with people rolling around in large transparent balls (pictured at left); we see that Miss Brunner is pansexual in her tastes, and apparently literally absorbs her lovers physically after sex; we see what looks like a washing machine but is actually the world's most complex computer ("Does she do spin-dry as well?" someone asks); and we see an occasional needle-gun fight break out. 

If you can get through the middle of this strange, muddled, dystopian, satiric sci-fi comedy/drama, the storyline is clarified somewhat in the last 20 minutes, though I must warn you that the ambiguous ending does not give the closure you might want—I actually quite liked it though some viewers feel it's kind of a throwaway punch line. The movie is probably best enjoyed as a series of 60s setpieces (it was filmed in 1973 but feels much more like a relic of the 1960s). Sterling Hayden has a cameo as an American military advisor, and he's clearly riffing on his role as the dangerously paranoid General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove. The intense Patrick Magee (the writer whose wife is raped in A Clockwork Orange) has an enjoyably nutty cameo. Renowned character actor Hugh Griffith has two brief scenes as Hira, and the reliable George Coulouris (Thatcher in Citizen Kane) is one of the scientists trying to get the microfilm. For me, Finch is a weak link, though that may be due to his character, a creation of writer Michael Moorcock who appeared in several novels. Here, he is passive, unsympathetic, and isn't as smart or sexy as the role would seem to demand. One wishes that the filmmakers had a bigger budget for their sets and effects, though occasionally, as with the pinball room or the psychedelic sex scene at the climax (no pun intended), the director, Robert Fuest of the Dr. Phibes movies, gets it right. [Blu-ray]