Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Final Programme Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson November 19, 2021

Note: THE FINAL PROGRAMME contains some frontal female nudity. Viewer discretion is advised.

British director Robert Fuest's (The Avengers TV series; The Abominable Dr. Phibes) sixth big-screen feature The Final Programme (1973) opens on a bleak Lapland plateau where a small group of mourners gather around a funeral pyre in observance of Dr. Corneilius, a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist. Geneticist and international playboy Jerry Cornelius (Jon Finch), the deceased's son, arrives late (as he typically does) to the ceremony and isn't really a mourner. Dressed in a black velvet frock and dark shades, he's anxious to get the cremation of his father over with so he can jet off to his father's mansion where he wants to settle some family business. His dad's colleague Dr. Smiles (Graham Crowden) approaches him before takeoff about a roll of microfilm (the movie's McGuffin) the senior Corneilus stored containing the Final Programme, which supposedly has the formula to hermaphroditic creation of a "messiah." Jerry doesn't know much about the microfilm. When he comes to the lake adjoining his father's estate, Jerry sees the Corneilus butler/retainer John (Harry Andrews) on an incoming boat. He asks him about the whereabouts of his sister Catherine (Sarah Douglas), the only character he's truly concerned about in the film. Jerry later learns that Catherine has been kidnapped and drugged by his psychotic brother Frank (Derrick O'Connor), who's put his sister in a somnambulistic state. Dr. Smiles, Dr. Powys (George Coulouris), and Dr. Lucas (Basil Henson) join Jerry in his search for Catherine and the microfilm along with Miss Brunner (Jenny Runacre), a bisexual dominatrix who feeds on human flesh. Jerry and her both want to be part of the Final Programme's experiment. Jerry finds Catherine asleep in bed but gets ambushed by a lurking Frank. The two go toe to to toe in a battle of "needleguns," which fire drug-tipped darts.

The Final Programme is based on the eponymous novel by Michael Moorcock, who wrote it in 1965–66, published it in 1968, and went on to write a series of books about the adventures of Corneilus. Moorcock is said to be highly displeased with the way Fuest translated his novel to the screen and the detours the movie takes from its source material. The Final Programme is sort of a dystopic portrait of the planet set days into World War III. Amsterdam is in ruins. Trafalgar Square and the Thames embankment have been transformed into an auto junkyard. Amid this near apocalyptic milieu is a quest to find the revolutionary code for creating a Neanderthal. Fuest, who also served as production designer, creates a large pinball arcade with go-go dancers and futuristic set pieces that would have made Kubrick proud. However intriguing this sci-fi/fantasy world is (and it's quite awe-inspiring), missing are lucid ideas about the Final Programme itself that Fuest fails to communicate to his audience. The Final Programme delivers too many narrative enigmas and pseudo-scientific conundrums that can make it a frustrating experience to watch.

The Final Programme received primary distribution in the UK where it received a mixed reception by the critics there. Alexander Walker of the Evening Standard was delighted by the film, calling it "wonderful fun, done with style and excellent effects. The bizarre conjunctions of the futuristic and the antiquated are well served by Fuest's approach, neither playful nor pretentious, but just staying on this side of surrealism." Similarly, George Melly of The Observer deemed it "an un­qualified success." On the other hand, Jen Dawson at the rival newspaper, The Guardian, had the polar opposite reaction, describing The Final Programme as "an implausible piece of apocalyptic sci-fi." The film had pretty scant exhibition in America and from my research, appears to have had it most showings in California from 1975–76.

Note: The British Board of Censors gave The Final Programme an X-Certificate on its initial release.

The Final Programme Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout! Factory has given The Final Programme its only Blu-ray release to date on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. The movie appears in its presumed native aspect ratio of 1.85:1. All DVD editions opened it to 1.78:1, including UK-based Network's R2 PAL DVD, whose transfer is sourced from the original film elements. Shout!'s transfer looks very solid with a textured look befitting the '70s film stock. There are no image stability problems. The picture showcases lens effects well and colored gas spraying from the ceiling in one scene. Grain is judiciously scattered across the frame. Shout! encodes the movie at an average video bitrate of 36000 kbps.

Shout! has provided twelve scene selections for the hour-and-a-half feature, which appears to be the uncut version. (It was trimmed to 84 minutes when it screened in Los Angeles in August 1975.)

The Final Programme Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono mix (1566 kbps, 24-bit). The sound track has been completely cleaned up and is undamaged, although I thought I heard warbling at around the 35-minute mark. I later played the Shout! disc on a different player and couldn't pick up any warbling. British dialogue sounds flat and authentic with adequate intelligibility to the spoken words. The electronic/jazz score was composed by Paul Beaver and Bernard Krause.

Optional English SDH accompany the feature.

The Final Programme Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Robert Fuest and Actress Jenny Runacre, Moderated by Author/Film Historian Jonathan Sothcott - This commentary track was originally recorded in 2001 for Anchor Bay's DVD release. Fuest dominates the track throughout. He recalls reading Michael Moorcock's novel (and the author later disapproving of his film adaptation), developing the script, and the movie's costumes. Runacre discusses other films that she's made and their directors (especially Pasolini). Sothcott does a decent job of asking followups but I would have liked him to have Runacre more involved in the chat. In English, not subtitled.

• U.S. Theatrical Trailer (2:36, upconverted to 1080p) - an unrestored theatrical trailer (promoted here as Last Days of Man on Earth) that's presented in about 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. The grainy print derives from an interlaced source and shows off pixellation.

• U.S. TV Spot (0:32, upconverted to 1080p) - video quality is very similar to the trailer. This also was included on the AB R1.

The Final Programme Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Final Programme is a trippy cinematic journey into a sci-fi labyrinthine that, while visually rewarding, is often baffling to comprehend. It's worth seeing for Robert Fuest's impressive sets, Sterling Hayden's funny cameo as Major Wrongway Lindbergh (who seems derived from Hayden's military figure in Dr. Strangelove), Ronald Lacey as an eccentric assassin (several years before he played Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark), and to see the supercomputer, DUEL. Shout's transfer and uncompressed monaural mix are very good. The extras duplicate the Anchor Bay DVD. A MODEST RECOMMENDATION for The Final Programme.