THX 1138 (7/10) Movie CLIP - Under Control (1971) HD

CLIP DESCRIPTION:
THX (Robert Duvall) endures a torture of the bungling variety as a pair of disembodied prison monitors play around with THX's motor functions.

FILM DESCRIPTION:
Based on his award-winning student short, George Lucas's debut feature cerebrally celebrates the possibility for individual freedom against all odds. In a 1984-esque white-washed future underground dystopia where sexuality is banned, all humans sport shaved heads and the same shapeless outfits as they go about their work in a mandated state of sedation, listening to exhortations to "Buy and Be Happy." Black-clad robot cops chant a mantra to their victims that "everything will be all right" and automated confessional booths emit soothing therapeutic bromides. But unbeknownst to THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), his roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) has been reducing their meds, resulting in their mutual discovery of love and THX's subsequent imprisonment for drug evasion and sexual misconduct. Determined to find the pregnant LUH, THX breaks out of prison with the help of his cellmate SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) and an escaped TV hologram (Don Pedro Colley). With fugitive pursuits strictly budgeted, THX only has to evade the robocops until the funds run out, but surveillance is omnipresent and THX's vehicle keeps overheating. Making the only film produced through the first incarnation of Francis Ford Coppola's independent studio American Zoetrope, Lucas and his small crew, including co-writer and sound editor Walter Murch, shot THX 1138 in northern California with no interference from distributor Warner Bros. When Warners saw the austere result, however, they recut the film before its release. Neither the studio's nor Lucas's cut was a popular success, but THX 1138's coolly minimalist style and story-telling gained fans on the college screening circuit, just as Stanley Kubrick's poetic 2001: A Space Odyssey had attracted a large youth audience in 1968. When Lucas returned to sci-fi after American Graffiti, he traded restraint for nostalgic fun in the film that guaranteed his creative freedom in Hollywood: Star Wars.

CREDITS:
TM & © Warner Bros. (1971)
Cast: Willie C. Barnes, Robert Duvall, Richard Quinnell
Director: George Lucas
Producers: Francis Ford Coppola, Edward Folger, Larry Sturhahn
Screenwriters: George Lucas, Walter Murch, Matthew Robbins

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HIT US UP:

[Paul_M_Bradley]

It’s a great example of the dark humour of this film that instead of the brutal and dedicated thought police of something like 1984, there’s a load of slightly bored technicians in charge of the torture devices.

[AdhamOhm]

Scott Beach and Terry McGovern, members of the San Francisco improv comedy troupe The Committee, played the part of the two engineers torturing THX. They ad-libbed the dialogue for this entire scene; George Lucas told them to act as if they were running tests on electrical equipment, fitting with the film's theme that people are looked as as devices rather than humans.

It was also either Beach or McGovern who ad-libbed the famous line "I think I ran over a Wookiee back there on the expressway" later in the film.

[mrspooks]

*_somebody’s gotta make an instruction manual for the mark 8 board_*

[reypolice]

Typical employee behavior at jails, hospital, government workers.

[zanemurcha]

It's nice to know that in the Star Wars and Lucas Universe, they still use 1970's Tech.

[Bucketroo]

One of these people is David Ogden Stiers, who just passed away.

[Koldeman]

The irony is, the very device we're watching this clip on could very well observe & control us in ways only to be imagined. Let that percolate in your mind for a moment. Lucas postulated this 50 years ago.

[MWorsa]

Yes, but disillusionment occurred at 4.5.

[gdale]

This is the best visual example of R.L.S. a very serious disease, very similar to Parkinson's. Here is a typical night for me.

[La-familia-de-Fazio]

That's what you call EMF brain manipulation folks!!!

[ariqarisya]

Production Companies:
Warner Bros. (current owner)
Turner Entertainment (current owner)
Semetoll-Imkerss Distributed Pictures (Distributor)
Semetoll-Imkerss Production Studios (Presentation)
American Zoetrope (production)

[epcotman]

I could have swore George Lucas was talking.