By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
When you talk about Westworld today, it’s assumed that you’re talking about the 2016 HBO series and not the original 1973 movie. There’s a significant number of fans of the series that aren’t aware it’s a remake, though they may know about the book, written by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton, they also may not know that the screenplay came before the novelization. For some reason, the original movie has been memory-holed despite being a blockbuster hit that spawned a sequel and an 80s TV series.
A Classic Weird Western
Michael Crichton not only wrote the screenplay for Westworld, but he even directed the movie himself, starring the award-winners Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as Peter and John, two friends vacationing in Delos, the adult theme park with three worlds filled with robots programmed to leave humans unharmed, no matter what the humans do to them. Roman World, Medieval World, and Westworld make up the park, which, when working properly, includes fun interactive features like robots challenging guests to perfectly safe duels. Until the robots start to malfunction and the duels turn deadly, that is.
The cause of the malfunction remains unknown, but the aftereffects result in multiple deaths as Delos technicians suffocate in the control room-turned-death trap, and the once tolerant robots start actively killing the human guests. The most dangerous of them is The Gunslinger, played by Yul Brynner, who starts talking Peter and John across Westworld as they try to find a way to escape. While the series eventually left the confines of the amusement park, the film remains within its massive walls to tell the taut story of survival against unkillable machines, and it benefits from the laser focus on the two friends’ struggle to survive.
Michael Crichton’s Hit Debut
Michael Crichton had never directed a movie before bringing his vision to life in Westworld, and it’s clear that the talented author could have if he didn’t burn out on filmmaking, become a famous director instead. A similar criticism that was later leveled against the HBO series, that it could feel at times like two very separate shows, was said about the original film as well, with the second half looked down upon for being a more straightforward chase-based horror film. Crichton enjoyed how fans of the film would debate the ethics behind the park since he had always intended it to be a takedown of what he considered to be a soulless corporate culture.
Westworld was a hit, bringing in $4 million at the box office, which, when adjusted for inflation today, makes the 1973 haul worth $29 million today. A sequel, Futureworld, was soon greenlit without the involvement of Crichton, and then in 1980 came the series Beyond Westworld, which only lasted a few episodes before it was canceled. Similarly, The HBO series also experienced diminishing returns with each progressive season, proving that Crichton’s choice to remain hyperfocused on two lead characters may have been the right decision.
Fans of the HBO series don’t need to go out and watch the original 1973 Westworld, though they share a similar setting and start with the same basic concept, the series goes far beyond Crichton’s original vision. It’s a fun relic today, and Brynner’s Gunslinger is one of the greatest forgotten horror movie villains, but without the weighty moral dilemmas and philosophical debates of the later remake, it’s a one-note movie. If you want to watch one movie from the mind of Michael Crichton based on an amusement park where the attractions try to kill the guests, watch Jurassic Park, but if you want to watch two, it’s worth seeing the 1973 classic that was decades ahead of its time.
Then, once you watch Westworld on VOD through Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, or Fandango at Home, you can listen to the GenreVision podcast that breaks down Michael Crichton’s first pitch home run of a sci-fi weird Western.
