UTILITIES
Canada, 1981, 89 minutes, Colour.
Robert Hays, Brooke Adams, John Marley.
Directed by Harvey Hart.
Utilities is quite an amusing satire on big business, the power brokers with the public services who have the public in their grasp. The film focuses on a particular company, its cruelty towards its customers and the protest that is possible against such big business (as well as the lengths that they will go to preserve their power and wealth).
The film is directed by Harvey Hart, director of a number of movies including Fortune and Men's Eyes, The Sweet Ride - although he was more successful with telemovies. The sympathetic hero is Robert Hays, from Flying High, Take This Job And Shove It, Scandalous. Brooke Adams is the heroine (Days of Heaven, A Man, a Woman and a Bank, Cuba). John Marley leads the supporting cast.
The film is particularly American, has American targets - although, it is quite clear that the points being made are universal.
1. Enjoyable comedy? Satire? With social point?
2. The city, the utilities firms, police precincts, apartments, computer programming rooms? The special effects for the blackout of the city etc.? Musical score?
3. The title and its American tone? The focus on the utilities companies? Their services, boards of management, advertising, power and wealth hunger, strong-arm tactics, flouting of the law? The focus on the ordinary people fighting against them?
4. Bob and his work, meeting people, his despair? The apartment block? The old lady and her being cold, trying to get the power on? The protests and demonstrations? Her death? The importance of his stances, going to the bank, going to the utilities offices? His frustration? The demonstrations and the encounters with Marion Edwards? His being arrested? Interrogated? His friend and their breaking into the computer system? The hand on the wet paint - and the code name of The Finger ? Covering his tracks? Rallying people? The further exploits of The Finger? The counter-terrorism by the company? The on and off relationship with Marion? The build-up to the demonstration, the court case, the filibuster? The lights going out as protest? The winning of the court case? Reconciliation with Marion?
5. Marion as policewoman, breaking up the demonstrations, her tricking Bob and arresting him, the interrogations? Their verbal fighting? Falling in love? The on and off relationship? Her police stands? The confrontations with Bob? Concern about his involvement? Her taking the side of the law? The winning of the case? Reconciliation?
6. The people in the apartment block? Their lack of income, the utilities company and its exercising its power? The old lady and her being cold? Her death? The protests in the street? The protests against the company? Going to court? The demonstrations in court? The representatives of the ordinary people and their protest against big business?
7. The company and the board meetings, the few people there, the television commercials? The slick advisers? The decisions against people? Money motives? The protests, the possible loss of income? The breaking into the computer? The irony of people getting refunds on their bills? Their cashing them? The desperate measures and the criminal hired to sabotage, imitate The Finger? The court case and the hold over the members of the Bench, the photos, the legal blackmail? The irony of the mad criminal and his enjoying his sabotage work? The irony that he caused the protest with the lights out? The come-uppance of the company? How much satire, how much caricature, how much reality?
8. The members of the Bench - upright citizens, their secrets. sexual aberrations, the photos. their being pressurised and influenced in the court case? The prolonging of the case. the witnesses? The final decision?
9. Ordinary people and their being victimised, the fairytale touch with their getting cheques and their money back?
10. The confrontation between ordinary people and those with power? In the United States context? In the context of the utilities companies?
11. A pleasant fable? Social point?
