09/16/2025
On this date in 1973, "Soylent Green" was released.
The screenplay was based on Harry Harrison's novel "Make Room! Make Room!" (1966), which is set in the year 1999 with the theme of overpopulation and overuse of resources leading to increasing poverty, food shortages, and social disorder. Harrison was contractually denied control over the screenplay and was not told during negotiations that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was buying the film rights. He discussed the adaptation in Omni's Screen Flights/Screen Fantasies (1984), noting, the "murder and chase sequences [and] the 'furniture' girls are not what the film is about — and are completely irrelevant", and answered his own question, "Am I pleased with the film? I would say fifty percent."
While the book refers to "soylent steaks", it makes no reference to "Soylent Green", the processed food rations depicted in the film. The book's title was not used for the movie on grounds that it might have confused audiences into thinking it a big-screen version of "Make Room for Daddy".
This was the 101st and last movie in which Edward G. Robinson appeared; he died of bladder cancer twelve days after the completion of filming, on January 26, 1973. Robinson had previously worked with Charlton Heston in "The Ten Commandments" (1956) and the make-up tests for "Planet of the Apes" (1968). In his book "The Actor's Life: Journal 1956–1976", Heston wrote "He knew while we were shooting, though we did not, that he was terminally ill. He never missed an hour of work, nor was late to a call. He never was less than the consummate professional he had been all his life. I'm still haunted, though, by the knowledge that the very last scene he played in the picture, which he knew was the last day's acting he would ever do, was his death scene. I know why I was so overwhelmingly moved playing it with him."
During shooting, Robinson was almost totally deaf. He could only hear people if they spoke directly into his ear. His dialogue scenes with other people had to be shot several times before he got the rhythm of the dialogue and was able to respond to people as if he could hear them. He could not hear director Richard Fleischer yell "cut" when a scene went wrong, so Robinson would often continue acting out the scene, unaware that shooting had stopped.
According to Dick Van Patten, Robinson died that same evening of the final scene when he leads him to the room in the Home Clinic. The next day, Heston had the whole cast meet in the studio and made the announcement. Van Patten also said it was the first time he'd met Robinson and he kept blowing the line; instead of "Come with me, Mr. Wilson," by mistake he said, "Come with me, Mr. Robinson." (Wikipedia/IMDb)
