Movies I Want Everyone to See: Westworld (1973)

This is another entry in the Pre-Star Wars inventory of great science fiction movies of the early 1970s. While the story moves forward in some slightly clunky ways, and there are some premises that defy logic in order to get to the climax, the crux of the concept is exciting and fun. The even more important point is how significant the movie is to future films in the genre. It continues to reverberate even today and makes a visit to this retro futuristic amusement park a necessity for anyone who loves the action and adventure of films from Spielberg and Cameron.


The premise is simple and enticing for anyone with a sense of adventure and a lot of cash. For a $1000 a day, adults can play in a fantasy world called Delos. The park has three distinct themes, Roman World, Medieval World and Westworld. Visitors are fitted out for cosplay and given the opportunity to indulge the pleasures of the times they have chosen. This would include the orgies of Rome, the loose serving wenches of a castle and the prairie angels that  serviced the weary cowpokes with a poke at the end of the trail. In addition there will be gladiatorial contests, sword duels and shootouts on the dusty streets of a western town.


Richard Benjamin and James Brolin are Peter Martin and John Blane, two affluent businessmen on a vacation designed to get Benjamin's character over a recent nasty divorce.  John has visited Westworld before and Brolin plays the opening sections of the film as an experienced visitor amused at his friends enthusiasm and his other various trip anxieties. Peter is the naive, gee whiz neophyte who wants to enjoy all the parks amenities but is a little concerned about potential embarrassment and danger. Delos is able to provide such adult fantasy play by loading it's parks with the latest technology, lifelike robots that are fully functional in all the important ways. The promise is that the fantasy is 100% safe. Famous last words.

Michael Crichton, the writer/director of Westworld, was a well known novelist making his directorial debut. He had written other highly entertaining films before this, including the Science Fiction technology thriller "The Andromeda Strain". His milieu was technology and many of his well known books feature stories of technology going wrong; "Sphere", "The Terminal Man","Congo". The most successful movie made from one of his stories is "Jurassic Park" about an amusement park where science is not able to control it's attractions. Basically, "Jurassic Park" is "Westworld" with dinosaurs.  Everybody probably remembers that great line from Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcom, "Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists". It was actually the second time such a concept was used by him. Reportedly, Crichton was inspired to write "Westworld" after a visit to Disneyland where he was impressed by the animatronics in "Pirates of the Caribbean".

The movie would be a voyeuristic dud if they had stuck to the simple premise of the park. In order to create suspense and thrills, the rules of the park will breakdown as the technology does. As a result, that which is supposed to be a naughty rich man's fantasy turns into his nightmare. The explanation for how things start to go wrong sounds suspiciously like a computer virus; which at that point had not really been thought of. So Crichton's  work is oddly prescient, although his film language was a little bit crude. In the early part of his career, the film stories often feel a bit clumsy as they try to bring to life a great idea. "Coma" and "Looker" are two other examples of this failing. They each have solid premises but hit some bumps along the way. If you thought it was weirdly convenient that all the technicians  were off the island in "Jurassic Park", you will notice how it is even more awkward the way  the employees at Delos are handled in the story.



Peter and John engage in the fantasy play that they paid for. The have a bar fight, spend the night with the ladies of the bordello where they are staying, they even get to do a jailbreak. On multiple occasions they face down the gunslinger character that is their nemesis. The first of those events comes in a traditional barroom standoff. It makes perfect sense. The second confrontation is more visually interesting but it is largely unexplained. The point is that Brolin and Benjamin begin to take their conflicts and the outcomes for granted. There are however some warning signs that foreshadow their danger. In a parallel story set in the Medieval section of the park, a lecherous   customer also sees some faults in the system. His animatronic paramour actually rejects him which goes against all the fantasy he is paying for. When Mel Brooks said "it's good to be the king" he had apparently not visited Delos Medieval World before.

It takes an hour of the near ninety minute running time to get to the real drama of the story. As everything is being set up we get a backstage view of the technology and some of the problems that the administrators faced. Like John Hammond twenty years later, they are convinced that they can manage their dream despite the overwhelming technology challenges they face.  This is another place where the story telling has to rely on less than smooth technique from the first time director. The guys in lab coats talk out problems instead of visualizing them. The futuristic aspects of the park come down to long hallways filled with inadequate lighting. There are only a couple of moments where we see the robots in their true form as they are being repaired. These moments are handled well on a limited budget but they feel somewhat stilted.

Westworld is a simple story that is told in a basic, sometimes crude manner. It was successful enough to have a sequel, "Futureworld" where the plot is more intricate and the acting and motivation a lot more polished. So if the film is not a masterpiece of cinema technique, why is it a film I want you to see? Well I have already mentioned the story line is the crib sheet for the more successful "Jurassic Park". There is however a second feature that portends future science fiction lexicon; the unstoppable killing machine. It can't be argued with, it can't be bargained with and it will not stop until you are dead. Yul Bryner plays a variation of his "Magnificent Seven" character here. The foreboding shootist with few words all dressed in black.



As our city slickers once again confront the tin target set up for them to take down, the outcome changes. This is when the movie basically becomes "The Terminator" for the last twenty minutes. Just as Sarah Conner learned, a robot is never finished when you want it to be, our hero struggles repeatedly to finish off and outwit the mechanical man pursuing him. Eleven years before Arnold Schwarzenegger donned the black leather, unholstered his weapon, and chased down his prey, Crichton had his mechanical harbinger of doom do the same thing in almost exactly the same manner. When you watch the machine like swagger of the gunfighter, it is easy to see the future Terminator walking relentlessly toward us. There is an early computerized point of view shot from the gunfighter that consists of heat signatures and fuzzy pixels. Both of these ideas will be used in future films featuring robots or aliens tracking down their targets.

You should find it easy to ignore the plot loopholes on park safety and the scarcity of assistance toward the end because you will identify with the customers. They came for a good time and they are getting so much more than they bargained for. This film will find ways to give you your monies worth even when it frustrates you with amateur film mistakes. The story concept and the vision of the wild west as a robot will echo forward to better films that are all well loved by the movie audience, but those films owe a huge debt to Westworld.



Richard Kirkham is a lifelong movie enthusiast from Southern California. While embracing all genres of film making, he is especially moved to write about and share his memories of movies from his formative years, the glorious 1970s. His personal blog, featuring current film reviews as well as his Summers of the 1970s movie project, can be found at Kirkham A Movie A Day.

The Ten Commandments TCM Fathom Event

It was just two years ago that I went to a screening of "The Ten Commandments" at this same theater. That showing was not a Fathom event but rather part of a series AMC Theaters did that year running a whole variety of older movies. It was not particularly well attended in part I'm sure because of a lack of promotion. Today, I returned to the Red Sea with Charlton Heston and because the screening was a Fathom Event in conjunction with TCM, the theater was quite full. It was not a sell out but it was impressive for a Sunday afternoon screening of a sixty year old film.

Once again the film was spectacular, and although the special effects are six decades behind today's digital technology, it still feels more than impressive. TCM Host Ben Mankiewicz pointed out that much of the exterior work was shot in Egypt and that there were enormous sets to complement the camera trickery that makes the city of Goshen appear so impressive and of course the parting of the Red Sea so notable. The photographic effect of the final plague on Egypt looked like God's green fingers were coming from the sky and that the fog which clung to the ground was his breath, turning Ramses edict on itself and slaying the first born of Egypt while passing over the Israelites who marked their thresholds with lambs blood.

The style of the dialogue sometimes provoked a bit of laughter from the audience. Let's face it, half of the time anyone says the name of Moses, they repeat it a second time in the script. The things that are most believable in the filming are the impressive use of the extras, especially in the Exodus scene itself. The geese, and goats and camels and cattle all interact in a very realistic way with the impressive cast of thousands.  Still none of it would matter if Mr. Heston and Mr. Bryner were not convincing in their parts. While much more theatrical in nature than most of us are used to in acting today, both the leads are effective with their faces, body movements and voices. Both of them make large public pronouncements that would sound silly coming from today's leaders but are sincere in the context of this film.

So many character actors are in the film that it is a wonder that they could keep them for as long as it took to shoot the film. I've heard it said that Edward G. Robinson was miscast in the movie but his slight NY accent did not seem to be a distraction to me. Vincent Price was suitably slimy and  hearing John Carradine's sonorous voice backing up Heston was a delight. The only performer who seemed slightly awkward at times was Anne Baxter, but her scenes near the end of the movie were far more effective than the love scenes in the first hour.

It's Easter season so this film is a perennial and it made sense for TCM to schedule it during the Holy Week. If you are looking for some easy way to commemorate the Holiday, the nearly four hour investment in this movie is probably worth your time. It is also playing again this Wednesday, so play hooky and go, you will be glad you did.  

The Ten Commandments

Nothing celebrates Easter and Passover like "The Ten Commandments". Getting a chance to see it on the big screen is also a treat. I may have done this with my kids back in the late eighties or early nineties but I can't quite remember. I do know that if I did, it was not in the pristine digital form that the movie was delivered to us today in. Although it was a theatrical release for one day, I am pretty sure this was the home Blu-ray version, complete with Entrance and Exit Music, and an intermission. The problem was that they really did not take a break at the intermission, the music played briefly and then the entr'acte for the second half started. After the whole experience was over, as I was waiting for my family to exit the ladies room, I heard a young woman speaking to her father about how long the movie was that they had just seen. It sounded like they saw "Heaven is for Real". The dad was explaining why he thought it was just long enough and she said it could have been longer. Her phrase was something like "I've seen a movie that was two hours thirteen minutes, so this could have bee longer and it would not be a problem". Having just come out of a movie that runs three hours and forty minutes, I chuckled to myself and thought about how lucky I am that I can be enraptured for that long without starting to feel ADD.

A Screen Shot from the entry way to show that I really was in the theater watching this.

The spectacle of "The Ten Commandments" starts with a stirring speech by director Cecil B. DeMille. It extols the virtues of the story as the beginning of real freedom and he makes a very pointed comparison to some of the political issues of 1956. It turns out that he sees it as a very anti-communist film because it concerns totalitarianism by one man over the rule of law that governs all men. It was an apt message then and it is equally important today. Although the photographic effects are not as impressive as they once were because of the more sophisticated tools now available, they still pack a wallop and if you are caught up in the story, the imperfections hardly matter.  The characters are quite different but you can see the seeds of Ben Hur in Charlton Heston's Moses. It was an impressive performance in the first half, but once the make-up and hair took over in the second half, he was more a cardboard hero than he had been before.

I saw that my blogging friend Eric, learned all of his Jewish traditions from this film. I guess I'd have to say that this was pretty close to my education on the matter as well. DeMille assures us at the beginning that although there is a large period of time in which we do not know the history of Moses, that his film is based on historical works by ancient scholars and theologians. I'll take him, at his word, it seems unlikely that he committed any heresy that would get him in the same hot water with religious groups as Darren Aronofsky got into with the recent "Noah". The film has stood the test of time, so there is not a lot to add. If you don't care for biblical epics, this will be a burden to you, but if you are inspired by the events of the old or new testament, than this should be a treat that you can savor for a long time (3:40 to be exact).