Words cannot do justice to Robert Fuest’s adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s FINAL PROGRAMME. At the time several people, especially the author, were highly displeased with the film. Having not read the book, I had nothing to compare it to but as a corrective to Stanley Kubrick’s impossibly bleak A CLOCKWORK ORANGE it was most welcome. Of course the version I first saw here in America was edited down (76 as opposed to 86 minutes) and retitled THE LAST DAYS OF MAN ON EARTH. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense but it had style to burn and easily stole the show from the other movies at the drive-in. I bought a Region 1 DVD of the original British version back in 2006 before it became frightfully expensive and just purchased this copy of the original release print which is in the proper aspect ratio and uses the film’s original color scheme. That’s very important as Fuest was a painter before becoming a film director and his visual eye is striking (He did the 2 DR PHIBES movies and my favorite version of WUTHERING HEIGHTS). The film is a literal time capsule of London fashions and designs from the early 1970s and it just gets better with age.
Just being a fashion show with first class art direction wouldn’t be enough to keep this film so entertaining after all these years, there has to be something else and there is. Forget Michael Moorcock and take a creative odyssey through the Pop Culture of the time. Stanlry Kubrick gets his due with CLOCKWORK ORANGE like interior settings (actor Patrick Magee even shows up briefly) and a possible visual reference to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY at the very end, Jon Finch starts off as a Carnaby Street version of James Bond before becoming a slightly bewildered protagonist. Throw in cameos from Sterling Hayden, Harry Andrews, and Hugh Griffith and you have a film buff’s delight. The real jewel of the film though is Jenny Runacre’s ferocious Miss Brunner, a bi-sexual antagonist who literally consumes her victims (off-camera) when she has what she needs from them. An amazing performance and an even more amazing wardrobe especially her final outfit. As for the story, try and follow it if you must but you’d be better off to just sit back and let it happen. There are some great lines along the way including a Humphrey Bogart reference at the conclusion which is a supreme WTF moment. Not for everyone but, as they used to say, it’s a real trip!
The Capsule Critic 