Film review: Logan's Run (1976)

This one is a part of a series of '70s sci-fi films currently on the Criterion Channel.  I hadn't seen this since I was about 12 and in some ways it was better than I remember.  It's definitely weird (set in the post-apocalyptic ruins of Washington DC, and starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter and Peter Ustinov - only the last of whom attempts an American accent) and of a type of film that Star Wars more or less wiped out.  The special effects are about of Dr. Who quality (and by which I mean, Tom Baker Dr. Who, not the current slick version) but some of the sets are vast and impressive (although some of them also look very much like a mall, complete with escalators).  As most people know, the plot is that everyone has a gem implanted in their hands at birth that glows a certain color (kids are yellow, then green at puberty, then it switches to red) until you approach 30, at which point it starts to blink

and it's time for you to go to "carousel" - a very bizarre ceremony where people stand in a circle then get sucked upwards and explode - with the idea that some select people survive this (although, of course, they don't really, and it's hard to see why anyone watching the process would believe that they do).  Alternatively, you can "run", which means not accept your fate and try to hide somewhere in the vast cityscape below multiple domes.  At this point, the "sandmen" (like Blade Runners in that film) are tasked with hunting you down and shooting you (with what I thought as a kid were particularly snazzy ray-guns, but now also seem very Dr. Who-esque).  Logan is one of these, along with his pal Francis.  (Or, actually, Logan 5 and Francis 6, to give them their full names.  As each one of their name reaches thirty and is eliminated, their name is given to a newborn baby (produced entirely by artificial means, apparently), so the name represents a generation.)  All goes well until he checks in at the end of one day, which requires depositing the effects of one's victims on a scanner.  One of those items is an ankh, and this means that the computer (that appears to run everything) questions Logan closely and informs him that the ankh is the symbol of "sanctuary" which an underground society of runners believe lies outside the domes.  Rather unwisely, I can't help but think, the computer lets it drop that nobody every survives carousel, and at the same time it makes Logan's light blink prematurely.  The idea is to incentivize him to go undercover and pretend to be a runner, but at the same time it refuses to tell him if he'll get his 4 years back.  (Although York looks a good deal older than 26, and several people in the dome definitely look mid-30s.)  This is where Jenny Agutter's Jessica comes in, because York has already met her and noticed her ankh necklace and habit of mourning friends who've gone to carousel.  Anyway, long story short, Logan and Jessica go on the run, break out of the city, and find that everyone who's come before them has been killed (by a very silly, and yes, Dr. Who-esque "robot" called Box) that they manage to get past.  Meanwhile, however, Francis is on their tail.  They eventually reach what they think is sanctuary, but it turns out to be the remains of the Capital, complete with Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, et al. (which seems like a bit of a rip-off of Planet of the Apes' use of the Statue of Liberty), where they meet Ustinov's "Old Man" who is alone apart from lots and lots of cats.  (He has a habit of reciting T.S. Eliot's Practical Cats, which seemed topical, given the much-derided recent film of the musical.)  It looks like Logan and Jessica can settle down (after dealing with Francis), but Logan feels he has to go back and tell everyone that nobody needs to die at 30 (the life-clock gems go clear (maybe that's what Leonard Cohen meant!) outside the dome.  Will they get back in?  Will anyone listen to them? 

Will there be an incredibly cheesy "computer can't handle what it's hearing and explodes" sequence?  YOU be the judge.  Very silly, but York and, in particular, Jenny Agutter make you believe and care (rather in the manner of a, yes, I'm going to say it again, classic Dr. Who episode transcending its cheapness and silliness by the quality of the performances).  Agutter has an amazingly earnest performing style that led her to being recruited to making very strange shenanigans (e.g. Walkabout) seem human and believable, and boy is it needed here.  Definitely of its time.  There was a very short-lived TV spin off, too, but I believe Star Wars killed that, too.