Logan’s Run (1976)

Logan’s Run
Directed by Michael Anderson
Written by David Zelag Goldman from a novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson
1976/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime

Box: Overwhelming, am I not?

This malthusian science-fiction film was supposed to be a blockbuster along the lines of Star Wars (1977).  Things didn’t work out as planned.

The year is 2274.  Mankind has depleted the planet of its natural resources.  The survivors of this environmental Armaggedon live in a domed city.  The inhabitants are all in their teens and 20’s and life is one round of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  Each 30th birthday represents the Last Day of the celebrants.  People are named and dressed like their birth year cohort. Each day’s highlight is the Last Day celebration in which birthday heroes mount a Carousel that whips them around in the air and takes them somewhere above the ceiling.  The people believe that some people are terminated and others are “renewed”.  Unbelievers who flee their birthday party are known as “runners”.  They are chased down and terminated by “Sandmen”.  Our hero is Sandman Logan 5 (Michael York).

After demonstrating his effectiveness as a Sandman, Logan finds a mysterious ankh symbol.  He shows it to a computer which tells him that he must penetrate the Sanctuary where some runners have escaped and destroy it.  He is to do this in the guise of a runner.  Soon thereafter he meets Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter) who is scantily clad throughout and they run together.  There is a romance going on at the same time.

Logan and Jessica meet up with an ice robot named Box who reveals part of the secret the two have been looking for.  Then somehow they get outside the domed city and meet up with an unnamed Old Man (Peter Ustinov) who has a bad memory and spends lots of his time reciting T.S. Eliot’s cat poems.  More stuff happens.

This was a big-budget film with state of the art special effects and did reasonably well at the box office.  I was definitely not wowed.  There is something kind of juvenile about the whole set up with its color coding etc.  The movie is not terrible but I don’t think it will last long in my memory.

Logan’s Run won a Special Achievement Oscar for its visual effects.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction – Set Decoration.