Logan's Run | 1976
- Locations |
- Los Angeles, California;
- Texas
- DIRECTOR |
- Michael Anderson
The huge sci-fi extravaganza Logan's Run utilised vast studio sets but reduced the budget considerably by the use of 'modernist' practical locations. Find out what still remains fifty years after the film's release.
A big box-office smash, it now suffers from having been released just a year before Star Wars, which raised the bar and left Logan's Run's Oscar-winning FX looking sadly dated.
The elaborate sets were built at what was the old MGM studios in Culver City, now Sony Pictures Studio, 10202 West Washington Boulevard. Here were built the interior of Sandman Headquarters; the 'New You Shop' where Logan tries to get a new face, the ice caverns and the Old Man’s cat-filled home.
The famous MGM backlot, then in serious decline before being sold off, was used for the overgrown ruins of 23rd century 'Washington DC' – with plenty of pre-digital matte paintings.
But the film is perhaps best remembered for its use of futuristic (by Seventies' standards) architecture in the Dallas / Fort Worth area of Texas.
Probably the most famous of these is the Dallas Market Center, 2050 N Stemmons Freeway in Dallas.
Inspired by Chicago's vast Merchandise Mart (the 'Hudsucker Building' in the Coen brothers' The Hudsucker Proxy), the 4.8-million-square-foot complex, was begun in the mid-Fifties.
The complex grew spectacularly in the 1960s, to become six ultra modern structures standing on 135 acres, and the largest single wholesale merchandise mart in the world at the time.
The most striking space was used as the congregating place before the citizens enter into the "Carrousel", which was the Great Hall of the Apparel Mart. Before you get too excited, I'll quickly let you know that it's been demolished.
A five-level arena 280 feet long, 150 feet wide, and 60 feet high, that could hold 4,500 people, its wild Sixties extravagance needed little dressing. It's a tragedy it couldn't have been preserved, but it's a commercial space.
The other part of the centre that was used wasn't nearly so way-out and, after a little updating, remains recognisable. This is the Hall of Nations in the World Trade Center Building.
In a climate-controlled dome, the city of 2274 seems superficially perfect, full of healthy people with a vegetarian lifestyle and casual sex only a press of the remote control away. But they are all suspiciously young. This apparent perfection comes at the cost of their lives ending at the age of 30, with a promise that they will be "renewed".
Not everyone is happy with this sell-by date so ruthless enforcement agents called Sandmen are charged with the task of hunting down and eliminating these "Runners".
When agents Logan (Michael York) and Francis (Richard Jordan) are seen entering the Sandman's HQ, the exterior is clearly a real high-rise. Several buildings looking somewhat similar have been credited as appearing in the film. In fact, the one used was then the Zales Jewelry company building at 3000 Pegasus Park Drive, Dallas, It's now the headquarters of Exxon Mobil and, maybe to deter fans of the film, fencing and a thick cover of trees make it difficult to get a good photo.
Few of the other locations have survived. The Sandmen's gymnasium, where Francis lounges in the pool as Logan's questions arouse his suspicions, was the Health Center in Arlington, Texas.
When Logan and Jessica (Jenny Agutter) become runners themselves, the groovy sex club with mirrors and a smoke machine through which Francis chases them in slo-mo, was the OZ Nightclub, which stood at 5429 Lyndon B Johnson Freeway in Dallas. Both these locations have long gone.
It's not all Texas though. As so often happens, it's convenient to find locations closer to the studio in the Los Angeles area.
The city's grubby undersea service area through which Logan and Jessica make their way in search of a place known only as Sanctuary, is an abandoned section of the Sewage Disposal Plant at El Segundo, south of Los Angeles.
Once the pair make it out of the Dome for a first glimpse of the real world, the rocky countryside is familiar old Malibu Creek State Park, 1925 Las Virgenes Road, in the Santa Monica Mountains near Calabasas. Among many other screen credits, it's famously the site of the ape village set in the 1968 Planet of the Apes and the M*A*S*H set.
It's back to Texas for one unchanged location you can still visit. This is the square pool with all those steps – part of a water-driven power source – through which Logan and Jessica must swim, leaving behind the Old Man (Peter Ustinov) in order to re-enter the city.
It's no such thing of course. It's the Active Pool, one of three pools in Fort Worth Water Gardens, 1502 Commerce Street, Downtown Fort Worth, which was built only two years before the film was made.
As you can see from the photo, matte painting removed its neighbouring buildings and placed it on the coast. One change is not visible. In 1976, the depth of water was nine feet until, in 2004, four people drowned here. Its depth has since been reduced to two feet and swimming and wading are not allowed.
After previews, scenes were shortened or even cut so it's reasonable to assume that other locations mentioned in press releases of the time (Burton Park Building, 8700 Stemmons Freeway, Dallas as an "Apartment Building", and the interior of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 1200 Louisiana Avenue, Houston) ended up on the cutting room floor.
