A true oddity that seems to have completely vanished without a trace, 1970's "Survival" was the brainchild of Michael Campus, in fact his first feature as director despite Oliver Reed's "Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth) usually being cited as his debut. Best known for Blaxploitation classic "The Mack" starring Richard Pryor, and a gentler follow up "The Education of Sonny Carson," he started out doing documentaries across the globe before this opportunity at a work of fiction, shot in Sedona, AZ in Dec. 1969, going unreleased until 20th Century-Fox finally picked it up for a few playdates in 1976, very few TV screenings before its disappearance. STAR TREK's John D.F. Black fashioned the screenplay from Campus' story (he later scripted both "Shaft" and "Trouble Man," starting out with John Carradine's 1957 "The Unearthly"), using a dozen cast members also recruited from television for a game of death and the meaning of life. AllMovie's review gives the most detailed analysis: "the scene is a lavish dinner party, overseen by a Woollcott-like gameplayer. After dinner, the guests indulge in the usual Charades and Twenty Questions. Then the host proposes that each guest make a statement justifying his or her existence. The catch: all but two of the participants will be rendered nonexistent by the rest of the guests. The yakety "Survival" has an excellent cast (Barry Sullivan, Anne Francis, Chuck McCann, Sheree North, Otis Young), and you'll be able to guess which actors were hired by the day and which by the week as they begin to die off." Such an unloved orphan deserves to turn up someday for at least a little bit of attention, currently praying for its survival.
