On Location with Westworld

On Location with Westworld (1973)

*** (out of 4)

Ten-minute promotional piece about the making of WESTWORLD has director Michael Crichton talking about his inspirations for making the film and why the material just wouldn't work as a novel. He then talks about the production of the movie as well as if he thinks there might be a real Westworld sometime in the future. I always enjoy watching these promotional pieces from this era because the narration is always so dead serious that you can't help but feel as if you're watching something that your life depends on. The main goal of these things are to drum up interest for the film in question and for the most part I think that succeeds here. The short does a very good job at building up an interest for the story, although at times I think it makes it a tad bit too confusing. Not only do we get comments from Crichton but Richard Benjamin and Yul Brynner are also on hand for short interviews. As with a lot of these promo pieces, quite a few scenes from the movie are shown and I think a bit too many because there are a couple big spoilers here so if you haven't seen WESTWORLD then view it first before this short.

Long after the major production companies abandoned the short subjects in the middle of the 1950s, MGM would occasionally turn out an extended "coming attractions" short, masquerading it as a "behind the scenes" short feature. Here's one for WESTWORLD.

There are clips in which a bizarrely young Michael Crichton talks about the script, shots of the cast relaxing between takes, and clips from the actual movie, and co-stars Yul Brynner and Richard Benjamin about their characters.

It's impossible to say how much an effect this short subject had on ticket sales, but WESTWORLD did well enough that the title is revived for new properties more than half a century later.