Tödliche Ernte

If this film has a mesdsage it's a somewhat mted one in that if they really want to farmers rule. In the end food is what's the most important thing, more than any other commodity that we place value on.

A famine has come on the earth as a result of our slovenly industrial practices and we see it from two points of view. Clint Walker who is head of your typical American farm family trying to survive and Nehemiah Persoff head of a blakc market food ring in a nearby midwestern city.

Deadly Harvest is a cheaply made film which has faded shades of that other post apocalyptic film On The Beach ithout the power, poetry, and stars of the latter.

The message as I said before is a mted one.and muted. Taken to its logical conclusion Archer,Daniels,Midland and companies like that will rule the planet.

"Deadly Harvest" was made at a time when the Earth's climate was thought to be cooling due to a sun-blocking shroud of pollution. The film takes this premise to a setting in which winter begins in August! The world's food supply is almost gone and the social order is breaking down.

Unfortunately, this film mostly comes across as just another cheap, violent 'tax shelter' ripoff. Walker is wooden (and his wood is weaker than usual) as the heroic farmer, while Persoff is inappropriately hammy as the arch-villain. Geraint Wyn-Davies of later "Forever Knight" fame had yet to show talent here.

The film does take on a haunting quality near the end as it tours a frozen, near-deserted Toronto and witnesses a family's last meal.

-Tony

Just watched Deadly Harvest, then noticed a distinct lack - and recent vintage - of IMDb comments about it. But I ain't even gonna TRY to sway ya: You're gonna hafta make up your OWN mind about this one. You probably won't regard your time and/or money to have been wasted if you view this. But, neither do I believe that it's one of the greatest movies ever made, although a considerable percentage of IMDb voters apparently feel that way. It's got an uncomplicated premise: because of global COOLING, the food supply has become inadequate - nothing new in some parts of the world; but, in THIS film, in North America, as well. That's as much SCIENCE fiction as there is, however. The rest of the picture focuses on character behavior resultant from this circumstance. Therefore, the heavy reliance on acting, and not much else. I'll leave it up to you to decide who, if any of, and how, the thespians might imperfectly execute their craft. My impression is that it's done well enough to take seriously, but just average.

"To most of us, it came as a surprise. Not many understood. Too few cared enough to stop it. Then, it no longer mattered how many understood or cared. It was too late.

The beginning of the end came in the late '70s. The climate changes... the energy crisis, the shortages, the high costs of growing and transporting grain, the lack of government support for research programs. The disappearance of arable land beneath the monoliths of reinforced concrete and steel as the urban centers continued their unchecked sprawl into the countryside. The industrial pollution that poisoned the earth, the water, and the air. And the continuing growth of population out of all bounds of reason. More and more people, less and less food.

By the end of the '70s, the fabric of society was breaking down in most parts of he world... And then, the bubble burst."

So begins a cautionary tale from the sages in Hollywood, who even thirty years ago were desperately trying to warn us unwashed masses about the dangers of climate change facing us. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

So what is "The World's Scourge" as described in the movie's tagline? GLOBAL COOLING!

Draw your own conclusions.

P.S. - This would make a great double feature with "An Inconvenient Truth".

Deadly Harvest is about global environmental breakdown that could have been prevented if people would have listened. Sound's familiar. Multiple harvests are lost causing a dip into the non-existent food reserves. Brother, people should have been eating the oil reserves instead. It causes the government to lie about food and people to degenerate to killing mobs. The city folk are pitted against the country folk because the country folk have farms and can produce food while the city folk rely on the lying government. There is an odd prim and proper ethical side to the degeneration as the city folk steal the country folk's food. But things get pretty bad and the country folk come to take revenge. I'll agree that city folk would be in dire straights if there should be food shortages, but then there's always soylent green.