ROLLERBALL (1975)

A mixed reception on release, something of a cult fave now, this dystopian fable imagines a world of Bread & Circus for the masses in a future run by a mysterious entity known as The Corporation.  Meant as an anti-violence cautionary, it never gets past a William Harrison script with too many missing pieces (he barely worked again), there’s really nothing but RollerBall, a game for punk gladiators that’s half Roller-Derby/half Quidditch and all Death Race.*  Even with a lot of second-unit work, director Norman Jewison not a fellow known for his action chops.  When we finally do get cookin’ on a semi-finals match, he abruptly leaves the arena to hunt up deep explanations at Computer Headquarters.  (No answers; but a neat comic turn from Ralph Richardson.)  Elsewise, James Caan is the aging player whose refusal to retire threatens to arouse a docile public happily sedated by this ‘opiate of the people.’  (Caan wears #6, but there’s something very #9 Gordie Howe about him.)  John Beck his bigger, hairier teammate; John Houseman dreadful as the corporate overlord (if only he & Richardson had swapped roles); Maud Adams the girl so we don’t get ‘ideas’ about Caan & Beck*; and the furnishings all leftovers from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.  Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe emphasizing a Stanley Kubrick color scheme so we don’t miss the reference.  And Jewison repurposing classical music cues also in Kubrickian fashion; Bach, Albinoni, Shostakovich, with André Previn at the helm.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *There really is something very Quidditch about this sport.  J.K. Rowling a rollerball fan?

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Indeed, just a hint of a Caan/Beck/Girl threesome at a massage session in Japan.