Reply With QuoteThe film, which I think was actually called THE FINAL PROGRAMME, was certainly chaotic particularly if you had not read the book, but a very stylish production.
I think I've only ever seen The English Assassin on TV once.
It might not be a classic, but I seem to remember that it had its moments. And Jon Finch, I think, was a pretty good Jerry Cornelius.
I was never that big a fan of fantasy style Moorcock, but in the last decade of Balkan chaos, Taliban, Jinjaweed etc...some of his Cornelius stuff suddenly wasnt so far-fetched.
Time for a remake?
Gerry C
The film, which I think was actually called THE FINAL PROGRAMME, was certainly chaotic particularly if you had not read the book, but a very stylish production.
You're quite right...E.Assassin was another in the book series.
Hello. This is my first post! The film based on a Michael Moorcock Jerry Cornelius story( apparently he hates it). The original release had a few cuts- the trailer supposedly had parts that did not appear in the final version. Does any of this survive? The American version(The Last Days of Man on Earth) is said to be a longer edit.
Hi Les. The American version (The Last Days Of Man on Earth) is actually shorter. Apparently some brief clips from deleted scenes (including shots of Moorcock and Hawkwind) did make it into the original UK trailer but these are not in any extant version of the film. The main problem with the film version seems to have been Robert Fuest (ironically it was his involvement with the film that enabled it to be made). However, he took it far away from the original version of the book. Moorcock had some involvement with the film and Jon Finch was also sympathetic to the author's intentions. However, it's not a great adaptation of the book.
I think it's a pretty marvellous film. And far more faithful to the book than many sci-fi adaptations. They didn't take many liberties at all, and most of the changes were necessitated by cost factors. Fuest's design sense and humour make the film worth seeing.
There's a very good French DVD. The earlier US DVD, now out of print and expensive, features a deleted scene involving the band Hawkwind, I believe.
Michael Moorcock was less than happy with the film version of his novel "The Final Programme" Directed by Robert Fuest a former set designer best known for directing the Dr Phibes films with Vincent Price. Fuest had written a script which the producers had asked Mooorcock to rewrite but the script that Fuest shot was his own original incoherant version. In an interview with writer John Brosnan (Primal Scream A History of Sci Fi Film) Moorcock says;
"There's something absolutely terrible about a bad version of your stuff and it affected me very, very badly and quite fundamentaly for a long time. When I saw it I sat there willing it to be better but the strain of watching it was just too much. There were one or two sequences involving scientific explanation which, when I first saw them, I literally laughed out loud, they were so ridiculous. As for the ending, it would have been all right in a TV sketch. There's nothing wrong with the idea but it had nothing to do with the rest of the picture.Fuest was doing his best to shore it all up by sending up everything that had happened before because there was no sort of fundamental logic to the structure of the film. I didn't want it to do well. I knew it wouldn't do well. I mean my faith in the British public would have been badly shattered if it had done well. So I was glad it did badly but in a way I was also very bitter because they'd bought the rights to the sequels and obviously no one is going to film the sequels after that one was such a disaster. It's possible to interpret "The Final Proramme" in very trendy, daft terms in the way that Fuest did but you're less and less able to do that with the later books"
I saw the film when it first came out after reading Moorcocks book and I would say the film and the book are not that closley related. I found the film visually interesting and mildly entertaining but rather dissapointing in general as it seems to sacrifice any semblence of coherance in favour of (as Moorcock points out) a rather self conscious trendy parody.
But Moorcock is CRAZY if he thinks the follow-up books could EVER have been filmed. Talk about incoherent! They work on the page, and MIGHT make good films, but the lack of any kind of cohesive narrative would have prevented any British producers even trying to adapt them.
THE FINAL PROGRAMME is the only one in the series with a plot, and Fuest's film is reasonably close to it.
I know how Moorcock must have felt, it's a terrible experience when somebody messes with your work, but at least his book still exists in its original form.
The film follows its own path and is still very enjoyable. Moorcock's original ending could not have been shot without a Cecil B Demille budget.
The ending in the novel has "the final programme" combining the Cornelius and Miss Brunner character into a single creature, a bisexual Messiah who leads the entire population of Europe into the Mediterranean and oblivion. That would indeed have been tricky to film as described in the novel!! The film's ending is less ambitious: their combined bodies form a shaggy neanderthal who winks into the camera and does a Humphrey Bogart imitation!Maybe Moorcock simply lacked a sense of humour! I don't think the film is half as bad as Moorcock makes out, I can kind of see where he is coming from in his criticism but as you say (D.cairns) very difficult set of novels to film and transfer to screen. I would quite like to watch it again, haven't seen it in more than 25 years!
A week or so ago, I started a petition to Optimum Releasing to make a special edition DVD of the Sci-Fi thriller The Final Programme (1973). Anchor Bay's 2001 DVD is a rarity nowadays even on sites like Amazon, also not to forget that if you find that DVD it's overpriced.
The film was played this year at several film festivals here in the UK, and there's a growing market here for the movie.
If any of you are interested, please sign the petition on this link:
The Final Programme (1973) Special Edition DVD Petition
Thank you.
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