his 1973 British cult film adapts, very loosely indeed, the first of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels. Jon Finch plays Cornelius as Lord Byron with a Nobel prize, moving through an absurdist fantasy world that is staggering toward the last gasp of the modern age.
The sequence of events (one hesitates to use the term plot) begins with the funeral of Jerry's reclusive scientist father, Alexander. The Cornelius clan is easily the most dysfunctional family since the Borgias, with the now-dead patriarch being the only thing keeping the lid on. Jerry promptly starts plotting all-out war against his junkie brother, Frank, apparently for possession of their drug-addled sister, Catherine.
Enter mysterious computer expert Miss Brunner (Runacre), trailing a trio of grumpy old scientists and a toyboy named Dimitry in her wake. This unlikely crew is searching for some microfilm containing some of Alexander's research. Jerry takes them along as he raids the Alice in Wonderland deathtrap that is the family estate, but things don't go as planned. After a running dart-gun battle, Catherine ends up dead and Frank escapes with the microfilm.
After this failure, Jerry is ready to sink into decadence and await the end of the world, but Miss Brunner has taken a stronger interest in him. The pair tracks Frank to Turkey, where he is trying to sell the microfilm to a former associate of their father. After a final confrontation, they retrieve the microfilm, which turns out to link several of Alexander's projects together into a plan to create the next stage in human evolution. Miss Brunner and her crew plan to complete this work, to create the ultimate human, and she's decided to replace the beautiful but vaguely empty Dimitry with Jerry himself as the final part of the project.
And so it's off by hot-air balloon to a secret Nazi submarine base in Lapland for a thrilling climax featuring the most complex computer in the world, a solar-powered instant incubator, brains in tanks, plenty of nudity and psychedelic optical effects, and an immortal, hermaphrodite messiah.
The DVD version of The Final Programme offers some promotional spots taken from Roger Corman's edited American release of the film as Last Days of Man on Earth along with a commentary track by Fuest and Runacre, moderated by journalist Jonathan Sothcott.
The apocalypse? Smashing, baby!
Ah, what to say about The Final Programme? Perhaps the best way to convey the essence of the experience is to suggest that, had Austin Powers really been around in the early 1970s, he would have starred in this film. It's also helpful to realize, as the commentary track makes abundantly clear, that writer, director and production designer Robert Fuest had just come from making the first Dr. Phibes film with Vincent Price. The Final Programme offers a smart, droll sensibility suggestive of the Phibes films translated to the "Swinging London" setting of the period.
But does that make it any good? Well, it depends on what demands viewers place on it. The story doesn't make a lick of sense. The synopsis above actually makes the film sound more coherent than it really is by stringing together some elements in a way that suggests a storyline while leaving out more troubling elements. For example, what actually happens to Miss Brunner's lovers, of either gender? None of them is ever seen again, and the film hints that she's somehow physically absorbing them. None of this is ever explained.
On the other hand, there's a definite sense of style at work in set design, cinematography and especially costume design, not surprising considering Fuest's background as a set designer. Finch glides through the movie in a tailored black suit with frilly white shirt, a black rose in his lapel and black fingernails. Runacre is a swirl of furs, high-heeled boots and menace. It would be all too easy for them to just be ridiculous, but somehow they really achieve the ultra-cool they're going for. The film achieves a hip style and plays it for all it's worth.
Ultimately, however, this isn't enough. Despite the good performances and occasional laugh, the stylish surface mostly just polishes an empty experience. By the time the balloon materializes out of nowhere, most viewers will have given up. (Recall Roger Ebert's observation that no good movie has ever featured a hot-air balloon.) The last act is mired in the kind of incoherent would-be cosmic profundity so strongly associated with this era that one can't help thinking it must have had something to do with all that acid. The Final Programme is fascinating as an artifact of its time, but now works best as an explanation of just what the joke is about in the Austin Powers films.
