LOGAN'S RUN
Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Farrah Fawcet Majors, Peter Ustinov. Dir. Michael Anderson, MGM, 1976"Never trust anyone over 30." -- Abie Hoffman
In the 23rd century, according to Michael Anderson's film of LOGAN'S RUN, trusting folks over 30 will not be a challenge because no one lives to see 31. The world has suffered nuclear and environmental cataclysm. All that remains of humanity in the US live in one great city, covered and sealed off from the outside world by massive, opaque domes. Within, this remnant race lives in a sybarritic paradise of pleasure and indolence. Few work. The human body can be remade however people desire with laser surgery. Sex is available in clubs and the home 24/7. Everyone has all the food they want. Everyone has a home. As the onesheet in '76 read, however, "There's just one catch."
It's a doozy. A great computer, called only "Computer," runs the city and its citizens' lives. According to its calculations, people can live no longer than 30 years - in the novel it's 18, but Anderson felt finding a sufficient number of extras of that age would prove impossible - in order for a life of comfort for all to remain sustainable. The computer has created a ritual, "Carrousel," which the citizens believe renews the lives of those who reach and touch a white light at the top of the domed chamber in which the ritual occurs. To reach the light, those scheduled for termination must avoid laser beams which vaporize them on contact. The citizens, who attend Carrousel and cheer like crowds at gladiatoral matches, believe those vaporized opt to accept death rather than compete for renewal.
Logan 5 (York), works as a Sandman, an elite police officer tasked with stopping (killing) those who try to defy Computer by fleeing to the outside world where they believe they will find a haven called Sanctuary. At the start of the movie, Logan has a recent runner's personal effects analyzed by Computer, which zeroes in on a silver ankh, the symbol of those who believe in Sanctuary. Computer reveals to York that no citizen has ever renewed, which forms their motivation to run. Computer deducts four years from Logan's lifespan, indicated by a crystal, or Lifeclock, implanted in every citizen's left palm, enabling him to pass for a Runner so that he can hunt down the Sanctuarians and put an end to running forever.
Prior to beginning his mission Logan meets Jessica Six - a caste system, color coordinated & determined by age range, determines what number appends to one's given name - a secret member of the Sanctuary movement whom he orders up for sex. Convincing Jenny of his plight, she agrees to take him to her people and help him run to Sanctuary.
If all this seems spoiler-y, it isn't - most of the premise is established within the film's first 15 minutes. Revealing more would spoil the rest of the story, however, ruining a number of major plot twists.
Released one year before STAR WARS, LOGAN'S RUN, a solid entertainment, makes an informative artifact of a Hollywood about to change forever, as well as a metaphor for the America of the 1970s. The film's visual aesthetic, state of the art in '76, would look hopelessly dated one year later. The opening sequence, showing us the City's domes, looks like a set of inverted glass serving bowls placed together on a model railroad enthusiast's table covered with astroturf and fake plastic trees. Under the domes the City, with its monorails and open-sided buildings, resembles a miniature of Disney's EPCOT Center, while the buildings' interiors will remind most viewers of a typical '70s mall, which is apt, as those scenes were shot at two then-new malls in Dallas. Director Anderson, while a little too reliant on technobabble early on, tells a character-driven story, about to be an endangered species in post-Lucasfilm H'wood.
Like any good dystopian future, LOGAN'S RUN makes a great commentary on the society of that time. In 1976, America had just concluded its failed military adventure in Vietnam & Cambodia, seen President Nixon's resignation, and begun moving into stagflation. The Cold War ground on without end. Disco & punk bubbled under as rock music grew more self indulgent and baroque by the day. Open minded couples went to swing clubs like Plato's Retreat in Manhattan and "key parties" became a suburban fad. Marijuana, the previous decade's drug of choice, gave way to cocaine. Shopping malls attracted capacity crowds and did, to many, look like an indicator or our bright future. A post-'60s, post-war and -resignation America languished in the grasp of societal ennui & cultural malaise. LOGAN'S RUN, with its easy hedonism, consumerism, and narcotized decadence, looked and still looks like a stylized, color coordinated version of the life I saw daily, even if I was too young to understand it.
A contributing factor in the American malaise owed to the collective feeling that we had been lied to - our wars weren't fought for humanitarian or altruistic reasons & our President made up the law as he went along. In this climate, believing that the Cold War's central premise - Russians are monsters bent on our destruction - might also be false sounded like common sense.
As laid out in the plot synopsis above, LOGAN'S RUN becomes less a dystopia than an accurate depiction of America in the year of its bicentennial. The film's plot, essentially a modern hero's journey, starts Logan 5 onto a path in which his beliefs are not just challenged but shattered anew every few minutes. Some stories might be content to concentrate on the first set of revelations - Renewal is a lie, life can only be subtracted & not increased - but LOGAN'S RUN piles on York's disillusionment as everything he thought he knew, everything he has even heard, turns out false. He has to be stripped of all illusion before he can accept objective reality and become a new kind of person.
All of which makes LOGAN'S RUN look at least a little better on paper than what appears on the screen. Small inconsistencies - those helping pass Runners along the path of Sanctuary never leave, themselves, a key to the gate guarding the Sanctuary Road which Jessica 6 can't find is found with ease by Richard Jordan as he pursues them, a series of ice caves with an Arctic sense of permanence open out into a blazing Virginia summer - achieve a kind of critical mass of absurdity which weaken the film's good ideas and performances. When LOGAN'S RUN was in theaters, George Lucas was fighting 20th Century Fox to let him use an orchestral score rather than the disco soundtrack Fox execs favored. Jerry Goldsmith's orchestral score for this movie sounds more grand than it merits, whereas a disco score might be ideal.
If all these issues conspire to imbue the film with a campy quality Anderson may not have intended, that quality probably goes a fair distance toward explaining its enduring reputation as a cult classic. Not at all a bad film, and never so-bad-it's-good, it's also not hard to imagine smoking a big joint and giggling at points '70s audiences might not have found funny. If the film were only an exercise in camp, however, it's difficult to imagine it continuing to enjoy and find an appreciative audience over the last 46 years. As both Anderson & York observe on the commentary track, the film tells multiple stories in every scene. Coupled with its prescience (laser surgery, cultural ennui, environmental catastrophe, test tube babies) LOGAN'S RUN transcends its inconsistencies and campiness to be a movie I both enjoy and admire. Yet again, I find that even its lighter artifacts help make the 1970s my favorite decade for film. I hope it continues to enjoy an admiring audience for another 46 years.
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