In Praise of Equus

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I knew nothing of the play "Equus" when it premiered in 1973.

In fact, I'm not sure I knew anything about it when a movie adaptation was made four years later. I guess I must have read about it, but I probably didn't comprehend much about the plot. I suppose I went to see it when it came to our town only because I knew Richard Burton was in it, and I was one of Burton's admirers.

So I went to see "Equus" sometime in 1978, even though it premiered on this day in 1977.

It was a haunting tale, inspired by a true story of a teenager who blinded six horses. When he wrote the play, Peter Shaffer knew few, if any, details of the case, and he tried to create a fictionalized explanation for what might have happened.

I was enthralled by the story — and, at the same time, repulsed by it. I have always admired horses — so, from that perspective, I suppose I can understand how the main character could regard horses (and their god figure, Equus) as deities. Swirling around them were the themes of ritual sacrifice and religion.

The main character (Peter Firth), as the audience discovered, had been the recipient of contradictory messages on religion from his devoutly Christian mother and atheist father. He also developed, from an early age, a sexual attraction for horses.

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I'm telling you, there's a lot going on here, and it was Burton, playing the role of the psychiatrist, who had to peel away the layers and find out the truth.

It was a meaty role for Burton, appearing in one of his final films (and, in the assessment of many, giving his last great film performance) — a worn out psychiatrist doubting himself and his life's work with troubled young people tries to unravel what may be the greatest challenge of his career. Why would a young boy blind several horses?

I often think of the first time Burton's character, already working with more patients than he can handle, and Firth's character meet in Burton's office. I've been in offices like that — musty and crowded with books. If we could smell it, I suspect it would be a mix of odors, mostly old papers, pipe tobacco and quiet desperation.

Burton's character kept trying to get basic information from Firth's character, who insisted upon singing commercial jingles and little ditties that revealed nothing.

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But Burton pressed on.

Jenny Agutter aided in this endeavor, playing a young woman who met Firth's character in the shop where he worked. Agutter's character had close contact with horses, which drew Firth's attention.

And she was drawn into the story, participating in a tryst at which (I presume) the stage play only hinted — but was on full display in the movie. For awhile, it appeared Firth's character might begin to understand the complicated nature of his twisted relationship with sex, religion and horses.

But then he heard horses making noises in the stable where Agutter had been seducing him, and he pulled away from her.

It was, as I say, a haunting story, a disturbing film.

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So many moments linger in my memory, even though it has been years since I have seen this movie.

It was a story of faith — and the loss of faith. In a tale full of symbolism, a typical example came when Burton told Firth a story about the "old gods ... before they died."

"Gods don't die," Firth replied.

"Oh, yes, they do," Burton said.

Burton received his seventh — and last — Academy Award nomination for his performance in "Equus."

Running For Your Life

This is a bittersweet time, I am sure, for those who knew and loved Farrah Fawcett.

Earlier this year, her longtime companion, Ryan O'Neal, donated several items from her career — including the swimsuit she wore in her best–selling poster in 1976 — to the Smithsonian.

(It is somewhat amusing, I must admit, to think of that suit — a component of millions of boys' adolescent fantasies — enshrined in the Smithsonian.)

In a few days, it will be the second anniversary of Farrah's death, and, if I could say anything to those she left behind, it would be that the second anniversary of a personal loss is far different from the first.

If those who were close to her stop to think about it, they may realize that June 23 is the 35th anniversary of the premiere of "Logan's Run."

It wasn't Farrah's best film. It wasn't even her first film. But it was the last thing she did before Charlie's Angels made its debut in September 1976 and changed Farrah's life forever.

Farrah's role in "Logan's Run" was a small one. She was, as I say, on the brink of becoming a star in June 1976.

The film's female star was Jenny Agutter, who was about five years younger than Farrah but much more of a show business veteran. By the time she made "Logan's Run," she had been performing in front of the camera half her life.

I remember my mother taking my brother and me to see the movie sometime during the summer of 1976. She was drawn, I think, by the knowledge that much of the movie was filmed here in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. At least, I remember her telling my brother and me about that as we drove to Little Rock to see it.

Dallas is where Mom grew up, and I think she was hoping to see familiar sights, but she had been away from this area for many years when "Logan's Run" was filmed, and the main location didn't exist when she married and moved away — so I'm not really sure what she expected.

Personally, I didn't see anything that I could identify. We visited my grandparents in Dallas frequently when I was a child — and, if the movie had been filmed on the SMU campus or something like that, I probably would have known the landmarks.

But I recognized nothing in "Logan's Run."

I enjoyed the story, though — and Mom seemed to enjoy it, too. In some ways, it has even been prophetic — although the culture shown in the movie has not yet come to pass (at least not here). And that is consistent with the tale because it is supposed to be about the 23rd century.

I know Mom liked the acting. I don't recall hearing her say anything about Agutter — Fawcett's role was rather small, and she wouldn't have been a topic of conversation then, anyway, because almost no one knew who she was — but I remember Mom speaking with obvious pleasure about the performance of Peter Ustinov.

Mom always liked Ustinov, and his was a contradictory character in the movie, to be sure. The premise of the film was that, in this futuristic society, population management was achieved by executing anyone who reached the age of 30 — and Ustinov's character (known simply as "old man") must have been at least twice that.

There was a kind of comic relief when he was on the screen. Ustinov was as serious and talented and as versatile an actor as you will find, but I remember one moment during which Agutter's character wondered if "those cracks" (wrinkles) in Ustinov's face were painful (presumably those were the first wrinkles she had ever seen). She reached out, tentatively, to touch his face, and Ustinov pulled away slightly, giggling a little as he did.

As I say, he provided some comic relief.

I remember that the late film critic Gene Siskel wrote disparagingly of the movie, saying that Ustinov's acting was the "only decent thing" in it. Personally, I thought it was better than that.

Michael York played Logan, a Sandman, the name given to those charged with the task of terminating "runners" — those nonconformists who refused to go quietly.

He was approached by the faceless state with a revelation and an assignment — the revelation was that "renewal," the article of faith that persuaded so many people who were on the verge of turning 30 to passively give up their lives, was a sham, and the assignment was to go outside the domed city, find the "sanctuary" that was the destination of all "runners" and destroy it.

To accomplish this, he had to become a "runner" himself — and that required the state to re–program him so that the lifeclock that was installed in his palm upon his birth would mimic one of a person about to turn 30 (the audience had already seen that the lifeclock of a person approaching his/her 30th birthday would start to blink).

Logan was four years from becoming 30 and, understandably, wanted to know if he would get those years back when the mission was completed. He got his answer in the form of a non–answer from the state.

Not really knowing what to expect, he embarked on his mission with Jessica (Agutter), who was at first reluctant to believe that one of the state's enforcers would run. But she was convinced when Logan helped another runner.

And the two set off on an adventure into the world outside.

I always felt the conclusion was somewhat anticlimactic — but, in hindsight, I guess it was really all that could be done.

And the film did win an Oscar for its visual effects. Those visual effects may look cheesy now — but, remember, this was 35 years ago. Technology has come a long way.

"Logan's Run" will never be the best sci–fi, fantasy, futuristic movie you've ever seen — but it will never be the worst, either.

The Exploitation of Jenny Agutter

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I always felt that Jenny Agutter was symbolic of young actresses who were exploited in the 1970s for things that were entirely separate from their acting abilities.

Exploitation certainly wasn't new in the 1970s, but the '70s were a time when people were particularly sensitive to the inequities between the sexes in most fields.

Self–described feminists brought attention to many areas in American life that were discriminatory. At the time, there were many reasons to think that repressive attitudes were on the decline.

Discrimination of all kinds was being challenged openly, and my memory of that time is that, as doors were opening up for all races and religions, they were opening up for women as well — in all sorts of fields — and women were being judged for their skills and accomplishments, not their physical attributes.

The performing arts, however, were still subject to the age–old double standard.

Oh, there were signs that things were changing. In the early 1970s, Mary Tyler Moore, for example, was starring in a hit TV show about a young single woman who was carving out a life for herself. But, before the decade was over, the hot trend in television was the so–called "jiggle" programming of Charlie's Angels and Three's Company.

Jenny Agutter's experience was somewhere in between.

Most people in America probably hadn't heard of Agutter in May 1971.

In the mid– to late 1960s, when Agutter was in her teens, she appeared in a twice–weekly TV series on the BBC, "The Newcomers," so there is reason to believe she was at least somewhat familiar to the British audience.

But in May 1971, when she was 18 going on 19, she began to make her transition from the children's roles she had been playing to more mature roles with a film called "Walkabout."

And that is probably when American audiences got their first glimpses of her.

"Walkabout," which made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, was adapted from a book, both of which took their title from the name of a rite of passage in which adolescent male Australian Aborigines live alone in the wilderness.

In the book, two siblings are stranded in the Australian Outback following a plane crash, and they start walking. They hope to find civilization — preferably, their original destination (although, unknown to them, that city is actually on the other side of the Australian continent).

While they are wandering, they encounter a young Aborigine in the midst of his "walkabout," and he helps them survive by showing them where to find water and how to find food.

It was hardly an ideal situation. The children could only communicate with the Aborigine through gestures; even if they had spoken the same language, there were significant differences in their cultures that contributed to considerable sexual tension between the girl sibling and the Aborigine.

The movie took the novel's general premise but didn't follow the book precisely.

For openers, the children were not in a plane crash in the movie.

I don't know the reason for that. Perhaps the special effects would have been too costly — or perhaps even the most cutting–edge technology was incapable of producing what the director wanted — or perhaps the director felt another source of alienation was needed.

At any rate, early in the movie, the boy and girl were taken into the Australian wilderness by their father, allegedly for a picnic, but the father started shooting at the children, and they sought cover behind some boulders.

Their father then set fire to the vehicle and shot himself, leaving the children stranded in the Outback.

The children began walking and encountered the Aborigine, at which point much of the sexual tension began.

It was certainly when audiences began to see more — much more — of Agutter.

They couldn't see her well — most of her nude scenes were shot from a distance or under conditions where it was hard to tell what one was seeing (as in the scene where the Aborigine sees her skinny dipping) — but it was the kind of (pun intended) exposure that was beneficial for young actresses in those days.

(Still is, I suppose, but that's another story.)

Anyway, because there was quite a communication/cultural gap between the girl and the Aborigine, the sexual tension went unresolved, leading to the boy's suicide.

(I suppose that, if the sexual tension had been resolved, there might have been an uproar about the interracial angle.)

That was another difference between the book and the film. The boy died in the book as well, but that death was brought about by the flu.

Being loosely based on the novel, the film's story was kind of a free–for–all, something that director Nicolas Roeg openly acknowledged. Much of the movie, he admitted, was improvisation: "We didn't really plan anything. We just came across things by chance … filming whatever we found."

That would account for the sometimes by–the–seats–of–their–pants approach that was taken to the story — as well as the sometimes flimsy pretenses for having Agutter shed her clothes.

I'll grant you, I never read the original book (only summaries) — but I'd be willing to wager that it didn't obsess over sex the way the film did.

In the coming years, Agutter appeared in films with bigger budgets, more mainstream appeal and, in some instances, more exposure.

Five years later, for example, she appeared in "Logan's Run" with the still largely unknown Farrah Fawcett and the highly regarded Peter Ustinov. Agutter was required to do a few revealing scenes in that film — but her most revealing film appearance may have come a couple of years after that, when she was featured in "Equus" with Richard Burton.

It was a good film with a brilliant cast, but my memory is that more critical attention was paid to Agutter's nudity than to the complex psychological story the movie told.

Personally, I always felt Agutter had a lot of acting talent. The fact that I also found her attractive only added to the package, but when I saw her in a movie, I expected more than Hollywood tended to deliver, even when she shared the screen with the likes of Burton and Ustinov.

She is nearly 60 now. Most of her time in recent years has been devoted to vocal acting and charity work.

I think she left the '70s behind her a long time ago. I wonder if Hollywood ever will.