WESTWORLD: Blu-ray (MGM 1973) Warner Home Video
The film is at
once an allegory for mankind’s over-dependence on modern technology and a
forewarning against society’s increasingly dysfunctional self-indulgences. Like
most of Crichton’s prolific literature, the concept behind Westworld was slightly ahead of their time. Viewed today, the film
has not dated particularly well; its cheap-jack sets reconstituted from
remnants once belonging to MGM’s vast storehouse of props and scenery, now
looking more like borrowed junk from a garage sale than an escapist playground
where the ultra-wealthy can live out their debaucheries with complete immunity
from prosecution.
Regrettably,
there are several glaring misfires that prevent Westworld from becoming a sci-fi classic. First, is its skinflint
budget – the fault of the studio – resulting in a glaring lack of detail in
Herman Blumenthals’ production design. This budgetary restriction immediately
renders our acceptance of Westworld’s
supposed lavishness – where guests spend upwards of a thousand dollars a day to
be entertained - moot, as this retreat is nothing more than a series of
pathetically obvious cardboard cut outs.
Second, a lack
of extras milling about the theme park – also slashed for budgetary reasons –
alters the immersive experience of Westworld’s
themed lands into rather empty voids. It’s inconceivable that a theme park
would have twenty or so guests for its inaugural run. Looking closely, one can
see the same extras recycled in the background of all three supposed themed
worlds at the park: Westworld, Medieval World and Roman World. Also, there is
the acting of the ensemble to consider. Apart from Yul Brynner’s impeccably
crafted – often chilling – star turn as the deadly ‘gunslinger’ android the
rest of the performances are uniformly mediocre at best.
Finally, there
is Crichton’s script – too ambitious for these insurmountable shortcomings and
ultimately flawed in its key premise; creating fantasy worlds where guests can
indulge their whims to either murder or have sex with robots. After all, how
can a human guest be entirely certain that the ‘person’ they are shooting or
taken advantage of in other ways is, in fact, only a machine and not another
human guest? The script allows for the simple identification of the robots by
examining their hands that have not been ‘perfected’ as yet. Of course, the
real silliness is that if scientists have been able to craft androids capable
of mimicking human behavior in virtually every way then they ought to have also
been skilled enough to make a believable set of humanoid hands!
Crichton’s script
introduces us to three themed lands of exploration; Westworld, Medieval World
and Roman World. But of these only Westworld – the dream vacation visited by
James Brolin and Richard Benjamin - is ever explored at any length. The others
are superficially glossed over, particularly Roman World (shot on Harold
Lloyd’s estate gardens); only glimpsed after the androids have inflicted their
carnage on the human guests staying there.
Crichton’s
story begins with a TV commercial for the Delos Corporation; an interviewer
(Robert Hogan) receiving obviously scripted endorsements from several guests
who have already experienced the pleasures of Westworld. From here, we move to the cabin of a
futuristic hovercraft flying perilously low to ground level in the Mojave
Desert. Aboard are best friends, Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane
(James Brolin), as well as an unnamed man (Norman Bartold) and a banker (Dick
Van Patten). The latter two are hoping to indulge their fantasies by playing a
knight and a sheriff respectively. Pete and John are bound for adventures in
the old west, a lusty/dusty land of lawlessness ruled by bar room sin and
confrontations with desperados. After
changing out of their ‘70s chic for chaps and ten gallon hats, the boys take to
the open streets. Very soon they are confronted by the gunslinger (Yul
Brynner). John, who has been to Westworld before, encourages Pete to accept the
gunslinger’s challenge. Pete shoots the gunslinger dead, feeling a sense of
exhilaration overtake him.
Next up, the boys
visit Miss Carrie’s (Majel Barrett) house of ill repute where they take full
advantage of her mechanized prostitutes. Later that evening a shootout occurs
just outside the bordello, leaving many bodies strewn about. After the human
guests have all retired for the night a work crew appears to collect the robots
and take them back to the repair shop to get them ready for the next day’s
adventures. But Westworld’s lead engineer (Alan Oppenheimer) is concerned and
for good reason. Throughout the day his team of programmers hidden beneath the
theme park, have been detecting severe malfunctions resulting in more
breakdowns than usual. Relaying his findings to Westworld’s board of investors,
the engineer is assured that such malfunctions are par for the course of
overseeing a huge operation like Westworld. There is absolutely nothing to
worry about.
The next
morning, as Pete is shaving in the bathroom the gunslinger returns to confront
John in his rented room at the Grand Hotel. But Pete – who only the day before
was a mild-mannered divorcee – has now developed a taste for blood. He bursts
into John’s room, guns blazing and dispatches the gunslinger to his second
‘death’. Pete is arrested by the town sheriff (Terry Wilson). But John breaks
him out of lockup and then murders the sheriff just outside the jail. Now John
and Pete decide to go exploring the country on horseback, playfully declaring
themselves desperados. They arrive at a remote desert cliff to relax, but John
is attacked and bitten by one of the synthetic rattlesnake. The chief engineer
– who apparently has cameras set up everywhere – witnesses this attack and
orders one of his technicians to retrieve the snake for further analysis.
Meanwhile, in
Medieval World, the unnamed man – masquerading as a knight - is unable to
satisfy his passions with one of the bar wench androids (Ann Randall). This is in direct conflict to the android’s
basic protocol of obey and serve. The chief engineer recalls ‘the model’ for
reprogramming. All too late, he begins to realize that Westworld’s creations
have begun to develop a will of their own. The next day the unnamed man is
brutally slain by the Black Knight (Michael Mikler) during an unscheduled duel.
As Pete and John are leaving the Grand Hotel in Westworld, the gunslinger
confronts them once again, only this time he outdraws John and shoots him dead,
leaving Pete to flee into the desert.
Unable to
bring his operating system back online, the chief engineer and his technicians
are trapped inside Westworld’s command center without sufficient ventilation.
They suffocate, leaving the human inhabitants of the theme park to fend for
themselves. Woefully unprepared, the humans are slaughtered by the androids.
Pete makes his way across the desert to Roman World where he finds nothing but
bodies scattered about its lavish Imperial gardens. He crawls down a ladder
into the underground tunnels of the park and makes haste toward the robot
repair room, pursued by the gunslinger. Pete tosses acid into the gunslinger’s
face, thereby damaging his sensory capabilities.
Running into
Medieval World, Pete is confronted by the gunslinger once again. Only now this
killing machine becomes disoriented by the heat given off from various torches
inside its castle great hall. Using this to his advantage, Pete sets the
gunslinger on fire and flees into a dungeon room where he hears the cries of a
woman (Julie Marcus). Believing that she is the last surviving human guest,
Pete frees the woman from her shackles and attempts to pour water down her
throat to revive her. But she is an android like all the rest and short
circuits once the liquid has entered her system. Pete is briefly threatened by
the smoldering gunslinger, who topples down the stairs into the dungeon before
short circuiting – the sole survivor of Westworld’s carnage as the company’s
tagline ‘Boy, do we have a vacation for you!’ begins to echo in his ears.
Westworld abounds in nonsensical contradictions. For example,
how is it that the gunslinger can drink pure whiskey and not short circuit
while the girl in the dungeon fries over a few drops of water? Where does the
gunslinger get real bullets to attack the guests? The engineering staff
suffocates in a matter of minutes in their basement bunker despite the room
being quite cavernous and thus containing more than enough oxygen to sustain
them for at least a few hours – long enough for real help to arrive. Even more
curious; where have all the other androids gone after killing their human
masters? It seems only the gunslinger is around to hunt Pete. The others have
effectively vanishing into thin air.
Fred Karlin’s
score is a weird combination of tinny western saloon music and electronica
underscoring – the latter used to ominously good effect when augmenting Yul
Brynner’s eerily mechanical performance.
This is also greatly enhanced by the reflector contact lenses Brynner
wears to make his eyes a pair of frozen silvery orbs when properly lit.
Regrettably, the lenses also scratched Brynner’s corneas and had to be
abandoned half way through filming. More discerning viewers will take note that
in some scenes Brynner’s eyes sparkle cold dead silver and in other scenes
appear simply as his own natural brown.
In retrospect
Michael Crichton has gone on record as saying that the production was an
unmitigated disaster, marred by repeated studio intervention and penny-pinching
that continuously forced him to downscale his efforts. Viewed today, Westworld is indeed very second rate on
almost every level. And yet, there is something disturbingly vibrant about its
last act. Crichton infuses his clichéd hysterics once the mechanical world
overtakes its human creators with a genuinely palpable sense of paranoia. If
the first two thirds of his story seem grossly uninspired in both content and
execution – and they are - the showdown of man vs. machine - is never anything
but terrifying. In the final analysis Westworld
will not win any awards for high art. But it is unusually contemplative and
fairly intelligently scripted. Its strengths are Crichton’s writing and Yul
Brynner’s nerve-jangling performance.
Warner Home
Video has finally come around to releasing Westworld
on Blu-ray. This title has been readily available overseas for over a year from
Aventi Home Video. Warner’s incarnation is light years ahead of their old DVD
transfer. But it’s considerably different in its color scheme from the Aventi
release. Where Aventi’s release exhibited fairly natural looking ‘pink’ flesh,
Warner’s release has a decidedly orange patina. Contrast levels are decidedly
bumped. Scenes in the desert in particular look somewhat harshly bright to my
eyes. Never having seen Westworld in
its theatrical run I cannot in good conscience claim which home video
presentation is more faithfully rendered. But personally, I prefer the look of
my Region B Aventi to this disc.
Warner’s 5.1
DTS is identical, with SFX and Karlin’s score sounding fairly solid. Good stuff
here. Where the Warner disc wins out is in the extras. Aventi’s has none.
Warner gives us a vintage featurette on the making of the film, plus the nearly
hour long TV pilot for ‘Beyond Westworld’ – a series that
only lasted for 5 episodes. Reviewing the pilot, it’s easy to see why. We also
get the original theatrical trailer. Really good stuff. All that’s missing is an audio commentary
from Crichton. Too bad.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
2.5
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