George Lucas was a film student when he made the futuristic, surreal short "THX 1138:4EB". It won an award at the 1967 National Student Film Festival. It also got the attention of Francis Ford Coppola. He served as Executive Producer of the feature length version of the film. Lucas directed and edited the film, his feature debut, as well as co-writing the script with Walter Murch.

Robert Duvall stars as the title character, a modest, thoughtful man who lives in a tightly controlled society. In this unpleasant version of "1984", men and women alike are shaved bald and wear matching white uniforms. They are also constantly drugged and monitored. Sins are confessed to a computer priest, who delivers mindspeak platitudes in place of blessings.

Duvall's roommate is LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie), a young, unhappy woman. Duvall and McOmie stop taking their prescribed drugs and make love. These are capital crimes (drug evasion and sexual perversion, respectively) in the Orwellian society. Duvall is arrested by robot policemen, and placed with other 'crazy' people in a holding center. But Duvall escapes with talkative dreamer SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) and hungry hologram SRT (Don Pedro Colley). He is chased by the robot cops in a finale shot in San Francisco's BART subway system, which was then under construction.

Many people will find "THX 1138" to be tedious. The dialogue is minimalist, the sets are bathed in white, and there's little action except for the chase scenes. Not much is asked from Duvall, who is mostly expressionless.

But while it isn't for everybody, "THX 1138" is still a very good film. The society depicted is so controlling that the people have become cattle. The lies and propaganda of the machines, the banalities of the media, and the omniscience of Big Brother. They're all familiar nightmares of a future controlled by computers, but perhaps they've never been expressed so cogently before.

Lucas, of course, went on to become one of Hollywood's most successful producers with the "Star Wars" trilogies. But he probably still remembers his first feature fondly. In his film "American Graffiti", the license plate of Paul Le Mat's roadster is THX 138. The THX sound system developed under Lucas was also named after this film. (76/100)



Recommended: Yes