The Movie Snob takes in a classic.
Soylent Green (B). I caught this movie the other day as part of The Magnolia’s ongoing classic film series. It’s a 1973 sci-fi flick set in New York City. The year is 2022, the Earth is overheated and overcrowded, and most of the impoverished population is fed with rations of unappetizing wafers called things like Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and yes, Soylent Green. When a director of the Soylent Corporation is murdered in his plush high-rise apartment, a somewhat crooked cop named Thorn (Charlton Heston, Antony & Cleopatra) takes on the case. It’s good, cheesy fun as Thorne follows the trail, uncovers Soylent’s ugly secrets, and cozies up to the decedent’s lovely mistress Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young, TV’s Peyton Place). The depiction of NYC as a dilapidated city coming apart at the seams has a Philip K. Dick feel to it, but the movie is actually based on a sci-fi novel by Harry Harrison called Make Room! Make Room! I recognized Dick Van Patten (TV’s Eight Is Enough) and Chuck Connors (Old Yeller), but not Joseph Cotten (The Third Man) in the role of the Soylent magnate who’s marked for murder.
The Movie Court 
[…] I didn’t quite buy the ending. But still and all, I enjoyed the movie. Edward G. Robinson (Soylent Green) co-stars as the insurance claims investigator who can smell insurance fraud a mile […]
[…] Scheider. I liked the old comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, starring Marilyn Monroe. I enjoyed Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston as a corrupt cop in a dystopian future America, and Scarface, starring Al […]
[…] of a different kind. I was bored. I give this a “C.” Rent 28 Days Later, Doomsday, Mad Max, or Soylent Green; they are all much […]
[…] entry from my film noir collection, this 1955 flick offered some pleasures. Edward G. Robinson (Soylent Green) plays Victor Scott, the hugely successfully D.A. of Los Angeles. After he sends an innocent man to […]
[…] wicked fashions – this movie is a must-see. Catch Heston (Ben-Hur) before he found out that Soylent Green is people. As the last man on Earth (at least until mid-way thru the movie), Heston ain’t so […]