As I've stated before, there is a special place in my heart for Overdrawn At The Memory Bank - it's similiar to those Saturday afternoon WNET movies that I'd watch when I was either sick in bed or just plain bored and channel flipping. (The Tripods come to mind, for one.)
It's not strange that Raul Julia, an ardent public television advocate who lived in New York, would do it. The question of why and how it came about is, though.
For one, the movie was part of a series of science fiction productions by WNET in 1985, all adapted from short stories and novels. The people who produced Overdrawn At The Memory Bank also produced The Lathe of Heaven for PBS in 1979 as well. After The Lathe of Heaven, they had planned to produce a series of science fictions films, though they only got to do Overdrawn afterward. You can read an interview with them here: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue162/interview.html .
As stated before, Overdrawn was one of three films in a series, which also included Kurt Vonnegut's "Between Time and Timbuktu". The movie was deliberately shot on video so they could include the digital effects. Considering the budget given, the visual effects were actually effective, if a bit psychedelic.
Raul Julia does do a very good job acting in this movie - someone on an MST3K site said he looked "embarrassed". Hardly. He actually sold the part pretty well. Incidentally, PBS had the rights to both Animals Are Beautiful People and Casablanca, which is why they made good use of both. The movie was shot in Toronto, and most of the actors are from there - so blame Canada if you must.
(Incidentally, Animals Are Beautiful People is the funniest (and oftentimes sad and touching) animal documentaries you're likely to find, earning an Oscar nomination and directed by James Uys, who also did the classic The Gods Must Be Crazy.)
The woman who plays Appolonia James, Linda Griffiths, also did a very successful one woman show in Toronto as well -http://www.aislesay.com/ONT-ALIEN.html - based on the life of Gwendolyn MacEwen called Alien Creature: A Visitation From Gwendolyn MacEwen. She also has had steady work since Overdrawn, too.
In the end,is Overdrawn At The Memory Bank a bad film? Maybe. MST3K fodder? Oh, most definitely. However, for me, it brings back happy memories of childhood, and there is one quality that makes it better than most seen even in Hollywood flicks:
Everyone seems to be having a GOOD TIME making the film. They're having FUN. Donald Moore in particular (who plays Walenda Irving, the huge chairman of the board) is having a hammy ball with the material. Unfortunately, after Overdrawn, he only did Blue Velvet then passed away.
