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Title: Soylent Green (1973)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Charlton Heston | ... | Detective Thorn | |
| Leigh Taylor-Young | ... | Shirl | |
| Chuck Connors | ... | Tab Fielding | |
| Joseph Cotten | ... | William R. Simonson | |
| Brock Peters | ... | Chief Hatcher | |
| Paula Kelly | ... | Martha | |
| Edward G. Robinson | ... | Sol Roth | |
| Stephen Young | ... | Gilbert | |
| Mike Henry | ... | Kulozik | |
| Lincoln Kilpatrick | ... | The Priest | |
| Roy Jenson | ... | Donovan | |
| Leonard Stone | ... | Charles | |
| Whit Bissell | ... | Gov. Santini | |
| Celia Lovsky | ... | The Exchange Leader | |
| Dick Van Patten | ... | Usher #1 | |
In 2022, Earth is overpopulated and totally polluted; the natural resources have been exhausted and the nourishment of the population is provided by Soylent Industries, a company that makes a food consisting of plankton from the oceans. In New York City, when Soylent's member of the board William R. Simonson is murdered apparently by a burglar at the Chelsea Towers West where he lives, efficient Detective Thorn is assigned to investigate the case with his partner Solomon "Sol" Roth. Thorn comes to the fancy apartment and meets Simonson's bodyguard Tab Fielding and the "furniture" (woman that is rented together with the flat) Shirl and the detective concludes that the executive was not victim of burglary but executed. Further, he finds that the Governor Santini and other powerful men want to disrupt and end Thorn's investigation. But Thorn continues his work and discovers a bizarre and disturbing secret of the ingredient used to manufacture Soylent Green. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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As with all environmentally aware films from the 1970s SOYLENT GREEN has a rather cheesy view of what ecological meltdown is . Overpopulation means there`s too many people to feed ? I was under the impression that famines were caused by either war or failed economic policies . Stalin`s policy in the Soviet Union in the 1930s left millions dead because of famine and to this day the greatest man made tragedy was Mao`s rural policy in China which led over 30 million starvation deaths in the 1950s . And let`s not forget the great famines in the horn of Africa in the 1980s and 90s which were to do with conflicts not overpopulation . You might like to also consider that two of the most heavily populated areas on Earth , Hong Kong and Macau , have never suffered a famine in modern times . Likewise the expansion of shanty towns around cities as seen here isn`t strictly down to overpopulation - it`s down to economic factors where people flock to cities to find better paid work than in the countryside ( It`s a symptom of industrial progress - not of too many births ) so the image of the streets of New York city being too congested to walk through and of having people sleep in stairwells is somewhat laughable
But don`t be fooled into thinking SOYLENT GREEN is a pile of corny tree hugging crap because I consider this to be the best ecological film of the
70s . It plays on the contempary audience`s knowledge of the world where Sol and Thorn are beside themselves with joy at finding fruit , brandy and fresh meat . Thorn gasps in amazement at having ice in his whisky , puffs on a cigarette and delivers the classic line " If I could afford it I`d smoke two , maybe three of these a day " . But it`s the visage of the euthanasia chamber that`s memorable as Thorn gazes at the images of wild animals , flowers , running water and snow covered mountains , a world Thorn`s generation has never known . This is a very haunting scene which makes SOYLENT GREEN a very memorable film , combined with the fact it features the final screen appearance of Edward G Robinson as the wise old Jew Sol Roth