The Final Programme – 1973 | 89 mins | Sci-Fi, Satire | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Pretentious cult science fiction satire based on the acclaimed 1968 novel by Michael Moorcock; who has distanced himself from this adaptation. Acting as his own set designer, director Robert Fuest’s chic sets and special-effects create an authentically surreal world of sci-fi and pop art but the fatally flawed script lacks cohesion and for the most part produces no tangible meaning. The distinguished supporting cast includes Patrick Magee, Sterling Hayden, Hugh Griffith and George Coulouris.

With the world teetering on the brink of apocalypse following a nuclear war, rebellious dashing hero Jerry Cornelius (Jon Finch), whom we first encounter beside the funeral pyre of his eminent scientist father, attempts to rescue his perhaps too well-beloved sister from the family mansion and the clutches of his drug-crazed brother Frank (Derrick O’Connor), together with his fathers masterplan "the final programme" – a microfilm scheme for world domination. This plan involves a voracious bisexual computer-programmer, Miss Brunner (Jenny Runacre), giving birth to the New Messiah – a self-fertilising, self-regenerating, immortal hermaphrodite, an all-purpose human being. Jerry is to be the father, a role he is not keen to undertake.