Z.P.G. (1972)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Michael Campus

Writers:

Frank De Felitta (writer)
Max Ehrlich (writer)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

The Time Is Tomorrow And There's No Time Left.

Plot:

In the not too distant future, a very smoggy and overpopulated Earth government makes it illegal to have children for a generation...

Plot Keywords:

Future | Robot | Futuristic | Entire Title Is Capitalized Acronym | Overpopulation

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Oliver Reed	...	Russ McNeil
Geraldine Chaplin	...	Carol McNeil
Don Gordon	...	George Borden
Diane Cilento	...	Edna Borden
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Eugene Blau	...	Baby Shop Salesman
Bent Christensen	...	Baby Shop Salesman
Belinda Donkin	...	Daughter
Birgitte Federspiel	...	Psychiatrist
Birgitte Frigast	...	Nurse
Anne-Lise Gabold	...	Mother in Baby Shop
Michel Hildesheim	...	Thief
Peter Hohnen	...	Edict Boy
Torben Hundal	...	President's Aide
Theis Ib Husfeldt	...	Jessie
Wladirmir Kandel	...	Edict Examiner
Brian Keifer	...	Edict Examiner
Lone Lindorff	...	Mother
Victor Lipari	...	Headwaiter
Carlotta Magnoff	...	Informer
Sam Maisel	...	Father in Baby Shop
Ditte Maria	...	Telescreen Operator
David Markham	...	Dr. Herrick
Bill Nagy	...	The President
Claus Nissen	...	Guard
Sheila Reed	...	Mary Herrick
Dale Robinson	...	First Guide
Wayne Rodda	...	Metromart Salesman
Peter Ronild	...	Edict Doctor
Christian Sarvig
Paul Secon	...	Tour Guide
Jeff Slocombe	...	Guard
Lotte Tholander	...	Telescreen Nurse
Birte Tove	...	Nurse
Lene Vasegaard	...	Edict Mother
Aubrey Woods	...	Dr. Mallory

Also Known As:

Edict
The First of January
Zero Population Growth (UK)

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:X | Norway:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Copenhagen, Denmark

Company:

Sagittarius Productions Inc.

Trivia:

Final feature film of Bill Nagy.

A very prescient movie.

In the not too distant future, overpopulation with its resultant pollution has made most of the earth unfit for habitation. A portion of humanity has retreated into a hermetically sealed city. By edict couples are prohibited from having children. Exempt are those born Before Edict and the initials B.E. are invisibly engraved on those children's foreheads visible only under a special light wielded by law enforcers.

Deprivation of maternity has driven many women to psychosis. There is a scene where women scream at another woman with a young child "Baby! Baby!" and the authorities move in. It turns out that the child has a B.E on his forehead.

Despite the danger, the characters played by Reed and Geraldine Chaplin decide to have a baby anyway. Gripping was the scene when Reed was researching via a virtual library on how to perform a baby delivery. He was of course being monitored by a "Big Sister" computer of the authorities. How he got to the sections about maternity and delivery is interesting. He first surfed through sections about some obscure aspect of monastic art,Premonstratensian art. From there he managed to navigate to pregnancy and delivery. The computer, however, sensed that he drifted into the taboo topic of childbirth. Reed's chair clamped onto him sending volts of electricity into his body. He pretended to be disgusted at the videos he saw of childbirth and alleged that he was about to report and protest the presence of such "filth" in the library. His acting here was notable as he seemed to be really in pain with his face oily and perspiring.

The leader of the civilization rides in some kind of whimsical toy-like flying saucer that plays "Pop Goes the Weasel" every time he makes an appearance. The tone, texture and general treatment of this film is both amusing and unsettling at the same time. It is what makes it a fine one.

The horrors governments would be willing to perpetrate to achieve Zero Population Growth was accurately predicted in this movie. Compulsory mass abortion was (is?) practiced in China in the '80s. There too was the testimony of a Chinese lady doctor who escaped to the West that babies who were delivered live illegally (more than two children for the couple) were murdered by injecting poisons into the fontanel. Later China amended the two-child decree to only one. During Indira Gandhi's regime in India, Rajiv (her son who later on became PM himself), regularly went on patrol gathering young men and having them forcibly sterilized. And of course, women who went to public health clinics for any reason were summarily sterilized once it was determined that they already had children. But why pick on China and India, abortion in the U.S. and in most of the EU is also done on a massive scale under the alleged "right to privacy" and of "freedom of choice."

If you are intrigued by societies that seal themselves off from the rest of the world and humanity, check out Zardoz (1974 with Sean Connery) and Logan's Run (1976 with Michael York). There is also, of course, The Time Machine of which I know of at least two film versions. I like the older George Pal production because of its lush texture and the beautiful actors (Yvette Mimieux and Rod Taylor). The Lost Horizon also has two versions one made in 1937 and the other in 1973. The newer version is the better one with Peter Finch and Liv Ullman although the parts with George Kennedy (singing at that) and Sally Kellerman made it somewhat corny.