Soylent Green ***** (1973, Charlton Heston, Edward G Robinson, Joseph Cotten, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors, Brock Peters, Paula Kelly) – Classic Movie Review 4041

Charlton Heston, Edward G Robinson, Joseph Cotten, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors, Brock Peters and Paula Kelly head the strong cast for director Richard Fleischer’s exciting, intelligent and well-crafted 1973 dystopian sci-fi movie Soylent Green.

Its story is set in a broken-down, overpopulated, food-short 21st-century New York City, where mass murder is linked with a government-organised new process for producing food. Heston gets a key career role as Detective Thorn, who has to investigate the death of William R. Simonson (Cotten), one of the bosses of the sinister Soylent conglomerate.

Soylent Green is powerfully directed by Fleischer from screen-writer Stanley R Greenberg’s crisp adaptation of Harry Harrison’s novel Make Room! Make Room! Among the film’s series of involving actors playing intriguing characters, Robinson is very touching in his final role as Sol Roth, an old research man, living with Heston’s Detective Thorn, and who is able to recall all data from the past.

Also in the cast are Stephen Young, Mike Henry, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Roy Jenson, Leonard Stone, Whit Bissell, Celia Lovsky, Jane Dulo, Dick Van Patten, Tim Herbert, John Dennis, Jan Bradley and Carlos Romero.

Soylent Green is directed by Richard Fleischer, runs 98 minutes, is produced and released by MGM, is written by Stanley R Greenberg, based on the novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, is shot in Metrocolor and widescreen by Richard H Kline, is produced by Walter Seltzer and Russell Thatcher, is scored by Fred Myrow, and is designed by Edward C Carfagno.

In 2018, a remake is in development.

Richard H Kline, twice Oscar-nominated cinematographer.

Richard H Kline, Oscar-nominated cinematographer for both Camelot (1967) and King Kong (1976), died on 7 August 2018, aged 91.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4041

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