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Streaming The Final Programme Online.
Movie Title: The Final Programme The Final Programme is available for streaming or downloading. |
“The Final Programme” is an adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s first book in the Jerry Cornelius series. Like Elric, the Jerry Cornelius stories, an epic in themselves, comprise a subset of his Eternal Champion epic, inspired in part by Jungian psychology and the theories of Joseph Campbell. Of all of Moorcock’s books, the Jerry Cornelius stories are the most experimental and are by far those which lend themselves the least to movie adaptation.
Robert Fuest, who was a set designer and director of the Avengers TV series and the Dr. Phibes movies, makes an admirable, and visually entertaining, attempt at adapting the first novel, however what he creates is ultimately flawed. This is most noticeable in the ending (which I won’t spoil) which comes off as purely pretentious camp in the film, although it works well in the novel.
One of the things which makes the Jerry Cornelius series most interesting is that each novel takes place in a slightly different world with slightly different characters with similar names, reliving the same dramas over and over again. For example, there is the love triangle between Jerry and his brother and their sister, which is barely developed in the movie, perhaps for censorship reasons. As you progress through each book, the themes become reinforced and the series’ exploration of archetypes becomes stronger. The love triangle, for example, becomes more profound and takes on mythic tones, like the legends of Osiris, Isis and Anubis. By adapting only the first novel, the movie loses most of its impact and its focus on the themes in the novel becomes quite surface. So instead of an amazing intellectual journey, you instead get what appears to be an especially campy, bizarre and racey episode of the Avengers, with secret agents and spies in fancy dress racing to retrieve a mysterious microchip in a psychedelic and decadent age.
Another weakness of the movie is that it gives only a bare glimpse at the End of the World, something that is wonderfully portrayed (in different manners) in each of the Cornelius books. The largest indication of the movie taking place at the end of the world is a speech about the approaching end of the current Yuga (or “age”). However, it is preferable that the movie is a bit too subtle in this regard instead of hitting you over the head with it.
Someone who has read the Cornelius books will likely have greater appreciation for this film than others, recognizing what it accomplishes in attempting to adapt an impossible to film book. But all should find at least the first half an enjoyable trip with great, creative visuals and avant garde late 1960s fashion and architecture.
What can you say about a film that, opening scene onwards, you either love or loathe? It’s fantastically dated, and that’s what makes it fantastic. From the London Red-Bus Movie music, the bizarro pseudo-science, the biting dialogue, and the (almost) Cast of Thousands, “Final Programme” is one of my favorite films ever. I’ve almost worn out my copy.
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The plot’s incidental, but what the hey. Jerry Cornelius (Jon Finch) is a Nobel Laureate living on Bell’s scotch, pills, and chocolate digestives in a chaotic world where Trafalgar Square is a vast dump, arms dealers operate in basements across from the National Gallery, and Amsterdam’s now “25 square miles of white ash–for once the Americans got it right.” Jerry’s dad, mad-scientist and founder of the Cornelius line, was working on something weird in Lapland when he died, but that’s not Jerry’s problem now. He’s more worried about his crazy brother Frank (the wonderful Derek O’Connor), who is holding their sister Catherine hostage in the Family Manse and is, if possible, more strung out than Jerry.
But Lapland returns to haunt him in the form of Miss Brunner (Jenny Runacre) and three Magritte-like scientists. They need Jerry to help them get his dad’s microfilm, the last piece of The Final Programme—a project staggaring in conception and quite, quite funny. The microfilm is locked in the house with Frank, and as the old family retainer tells Jerry,”There’s another problem–it’s that house. You know what that old house is like.” “I haven’t forgotten” says Jerry.
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That “old house” is a super-modern fortress, of course, complete with lights of simulate “pseudo-epilepsy”, booby traps, poison gas, and a pantheon of James Bondish dangers. Along the way to the microfilm, it becomes apparent there’s something very odd about Miss Brunner, and that Frank’s not the fool he seems.
I know it’s dated and I don’t care. I don’t care if the continuity is bad. I don’t care if the budget could’ve been bigger. I don’t care if the “science” is Junk with a capital “Juh”. I’m oblivious to it all, because this is such an entertaining movie. For one thing, Jon Finch is incredible. He’s the perfect Jerry, and Prince could only PRAY to wear a Goth/New Romantic suit as well as Finch does. For another, Jenny Runacre’s Miss Brunner was feminist before there was a common understanding of what that word meant. And the versatile Derek O’Connor’s greasy, desperate Frank is brilliant.
You’ll need to have your finger on the “rewind” button–the dialogue comes fast and urbane. You’ll keep recognizing British character actors, and let’s face it, if you’re female,you’ll enjoy watching Finch, who’s easy on the eyes. And the visual jokes–watch for “LOVE” embroidered on the vampirical Brunner nightie in the “climactic” final scene!
A warning, though: this really does deserve its R rating. Hustle the kiddie-winks to bed first–then enjoy!
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