NO BLADE OF GRASS

UK, 1970, 90 minutes, Colour.
Nigel Davenport, Jean Wallace, Anthony May.
Directed by Cornel Wilde.

No Blade of Grass is the first widely distributed science-fiction film on pollution. The world became afraid of over-population, nuclear destruction, and afraid of destruction by pollution. This seriously intended film announces that it could have been a documentary, but it is meant to frighten audiences into facing up to the threat of pollution and force them to do something about it.

Unfortunately the film is not particularly well-acted or directed; some of its scenes are too obvious and there seems to be an over-heavy atmosphere of violence and sadism. The violence, of course, has been included to emphasise the lawlessness of the situation, but the main characters seem to resort to violence very easily compared with the sentiments they utter.

No Blade of Grass is reminiscent in story and details of Ray Milland's film of 1962 - Panic in Year Zero - which shows the results of people fleeing from nuclear attacks on the American West Coast. Wilde's film is not nearly as good as Milland's. Other films will treat the problem with more force and finesse. As a first step No Blade of Grass has some interest and earnestness.

1. Did the film preach too much against the threat of pollution, especially in its opening scenes, showing polluted areas, and stating, at the end, that the film could have been a documentary?

2. Was the film too frightening and did this spoil its effect?

3. Were the precautions that the family made to flee from London selfish or sensible?

4. Do you think such a pollution problem could arise whereby disease could destroy all grass and to avert famine nations would exterminate populations?

5. Were you shocked at the first shootings? Did you think it was right to do this? On what authority did John kill?

6. What do you think of the group's belief that to survive they had to exterminate others?

7. What did you expect to happen when panic broke loose - e.g. the gang who raped the daughter? The mother shooting the rapist in cold blood - her reaction?

8. What kind of man was Perry - shooting the storekeeper, then his wife? Did he have any sense of values or was he completely vicious?


9. what was the basis for law and order? How was the leader chosen? Was 'survival' the only governing factor for behaviour?

10. Was the film pessimistic or optimistic? Did it offer any hope for the future, for the pollution situation, for human nature, for human survival?

11. Was it a good film, well-acted, well written and directed, or was it merely earnest and timely? How would you have made the film? In the battle scene with the group besieged by the Viking-bikies, the group is seen as victim; they besiege John's brother. Are they better than the bikies? At one stage, the mother asks, shocked, what kind of people the hostile group they meet really are; she is told they are ordinary people, just like her. Would ordinary people act like this in such circumstances?