Post by erik on Feb 18, 2023 23:41:14 GMT -5
He was a born filmmaker--but before he could prove himself on a big canvas, Steven Spielberg, at least once he became a professional, kind of had to start small. Having launched his career inside the television department of Universal Studios in 1969 by directing the second segment of the three-segment TV pilot film Night Gallery, with Joan Crawford (no wire hangers were thrown, by the way), Spielberg had agreed to temper his ambitions for the time being and direct for episodic TV. It began with "The Daredevil Gesture", an episode of the ABC-TV series Marcus Welby M.D. (with veteran actor Robert Young in the title role) that aired in March 1970; and between then and September 1971, he directed episodes of such series as The Psychiatrist, Owen Marshall. and the first-aired episode of Columbo, as well as another Night Gallery segment. But Spielberg proved to be truly innovative and cinematic in a 75 minute-long episode of the NBC-TV series The Name Of The Game entitled L.A. 2017.
This particular episode featured the character of Glenn Howard, the publisher of a fictional magazine called People, portrayed by Gene Barry, dictating notes he is going to give to an ecological conference about the state of the world's environment. He falls asleep at the wheel of his car and crashes; and when he comes to, he seems to have entered a nightmare world straight out of George Orwell's 1984. The problem Los Angeles faced in the late 1960's and early 1970's with air pollution has now, forty-six years later, become so bad that everyone lives underground; and the society that has been set up has become corporatized and rife with surveillance and psychological brainwashing.
This is that episode in question, posted on YouTube:
With a cast of veteran actors that includes Barry Sullivan, Louise Latham, Edmond O'Brien, Paul Stewart, and Sharon Farrell, L.A. 2017 very much presages what Spielberg would do decades later with technological futurism in films like A.I.: Artificial Intellgence, Minority Report, and Ready Player One, but with obviously a far more restricted schedule of only twelve days (filming taking place in and around the San Fernando Valley in October 1970) and a budget of just $375,000. Fortunately, Spielberg really found a lot to admire in the script that was written by veteran sci-fi writer Philip Wylie (who had written the source material for the 1951 sci-fi classic When Worlds Collide), and the episode's producer Dean Hargrove gave him enough leeway to make L.A. 2017 a TV piece that went well beyond what most episodic television was about in those days. Some of the scenes in the film were shot on locations that had recently been charred by a violent firestorm that scorched the landscape from Calabasas to the Pacific, while others were filmed in the corridors of the Hyperion water treatment plant near LAX.
While more than a few things about this piece date it to the time period it was made, L.A. 2017 is still a brilliant example of what Spielberg was able to do in a medium not necessarily known for being innovative. The episode's eerie, futuristic score by Billy Goldenberg (who worked on Elvis' 1968 TV special) and Robert Prince underscores the story's technological nightmarism; and as a result of it getting a ton of acclaim when it aired on NBC on January 15, 1971, it was what would eventually him to make the TV film that would firmly make him a Hollywood powerhouse, Duel.
This particular episode featured the character of Glenn Howard, the publisher of a fictional magazine called People, portrayed by Gene Barry, dictating notes he is going to give to an ecological conference about the state of the world's environment. He falls asleep at the wheel of his car and crashes; and when he comes to, he seems to have entered a nightmare world straight out of George Orwell's 1984. The problem Los Angeles faced in the late 1960's and early 1970's with air pollution has now, forty-six years later, become so bad that everyone lives underground; and the society that has been set up has become corporatized and rife with surveillance and psychological brainwashing.
This is that episode in question, posted on YouTube:
With a cast of veteran actors that includes Barry Sullivan, Louise Latham, Edmond O'Brien, Paul Stewart, and Sharon Farrell, L.A. 2017 very much presages what Spielberg would do decades later with technological futurism in films like A.I.: Artificial Intellgence, Minority Report, and Ready Player One, but with obviously a far more restricted schedule of only twelve days (filming taking place in and around the San Fernando Valley in October 1970) and a budget of just $375,000. Fortunately, Spielberg really found a lot to admire in the script that was written by veteran sci-fi writer Philip Wylie (who had written the source material for the 1951 sci-fi classic When Worlds Collide), and the episode's producer Dean Hargrove gave him enough leeway to make L.A. 2017 a TV piece that went well beyond what most episodic television was about in those days. Some of the scenes in the film were shot on locations that had recently been charred by a violent firestorm that scorched the landscape from Calabasas to the Pacific, while others were filmed in the corridors of the Hyperion water treatment plant near LAX.
While more than a few things about this piece date it to the time period it was made, L.A. 2017 is still a brilliant example of what Spielberg was able to do in a medium not necessarily known for being innovative. The episode's eerie, futuristic score by Billy Goldenberg (who worked on Elvis' 1968 TV special) and Robert Prince underscores the story's technological nightmarism; and as a result of it getting a ton of acclaim when it aired on NBC on January 15, 1971, it was what would eventually him to make the TV film that would firmly make him a Hollywood powerhouse, Duel.