Red-Barracuda
This made for TV sci-fi thriller is set in a dystopian near future United States. Overpopulation has resulted in the government introducing policies limiting couples to one child and severely reduced medical aid for those over sixty-five. We are introduced to a young couple whose first child died in infancy. The woman has fallen pregnant again. The authorities find out and, facing forced abortion, they have to go on the run.I am guessing that concerns about overpopulation were rife back in the 70's, seeing as there were other science fiction films that dealt with this issue in slightly different ways (Soylent Green and Logan's Run spring to mind). It's a very bleak picture that The Last Child paints of the future in the USA, where the government has become somewhat fascistic in this issue at least and people are forced to flee to the more reasonable land of Canada! The movie's TV origins are pretty self-evident. For a sci-fi film it has a pretty contemporary look, with little in the way of futuristic sets or costumes. But it's the drama that propels this one, with a decent enough script. It isn't essential stuff by any means but it's certainly one that should interest sci-fi buffs, primarily those that have a love of the 70's strand.
Timothy Damon
There were two required courses my freshman year in high school that I recall for one or two reasons - "Comparative Economic Systems" I remember for the example of the price of hula hoops in regards to supply and demand and fads, et cetera. If the book is still being published a reference to the Coen brothers "The Hudsucker Proxy" would be a good update. As for "Comparative Political Systems" I vaguely remember something about the Kwakiutl Indians, but what remains sharply in focus 40 years later was the result of the assignment to watch this film.If it seemed somewhat fantastic [3. imaginary or groundless in not being based on reality; foolish or irrational: fantastic fears] then, 40 years later it's not so unrealistic. While "death panels" are not mentioned per se in the film, cutting off medical aid to folks over 65 can be problematic if you're diabetic - as was the character of Senator Quincy George played by Emmett Evan Heflin Jr, and, as the trivia section notes "This TV movie was Van Heflin's final performance. He died of a heart attack three months before the original broadcast..." BTW - to avoid a spoiler don't read all of the trivia - I've truncated it so the spoiler doesn't show.I don't want to write much more without seeing it again - memories of films forty years past may not be entirely reliable - but it made quite an impression on a young teenager raised in an extremely conservative environment. I've read most if not all of Philip Kindred Dick's short stories written in the 1950's and wonder at how prescient he was with many of them. "The Last Child" was the first produced script by Peter S. Fischer, to my knowledge. He won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for an episode of "Murder, She Wrote" and several Emmy nominations for other of these episodes. He would go on to work with the director, John Llewellyn Moxey, on a number of the "Murder, She Wrote," episodes.
