THX 1138

THX 1138 (1971)

Timing: 1:26 (86 min)

6.448/10
907

All about film

Video 1

Photo 13

Actors and characters

Release date

1971-03-11

Country

United States

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures, American Zoetrope

Genre

Science Fiction, Action, Drama

Budget

$777 000

Revenue

$2 437 000

Website

http://www.thx1138movie.com/

Director

George Lucas

Actors

Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie, Ian Wolfe, Marshall Efron, Sid Haig, John Pearce, Irene Cagen, Gary Alan Marsh
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Edward Folger, Larry Sturhahn, Francis Ford Coppola

Operator

David Myers

Composer

Lalo Schifrin

Artist

Audition

Editing

George Lucas
All team (14)

• In the film, the image of Christ blessing from Hans Memling's painting "Christ Blessing" (1478) is used as an image of divinity in special confession booths.
• George Lucas subsequently made several references to his first film in his later works. For example, the car number "THX 138" appears in "American Graffiti" (1973).
• The heads of "Warner Brothers" studio disliked the finished version of the film, and a decision was made to reduce the film's runtime and decrease the marketing budget.
• The film was shot in San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Rafael – cities in the state of California.
• This film is an expanded version of the director's 15-minute student graduation work, “THX 1138 4EB,” which received high praise and the opportunity to make a full-length version at Francis Ford Coppola's “American Zoetrope” studio, for which this film was the first.
• In 2004, an updated director's cut of the film was released on DVD with additional scenes and digital special effects, with a runtime of 88 minutes.
• Fragments of the film's soundtrack (an episode of a man being beaten by prison guards) were used by musician Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) in the album The Downward Spiral, the track “Mr Self Destruct.”
• The final scene of the film uses music from the first part of Johann Sebastian Bach's “St Matthew Passion.”
• Shaved-headed commoners in the film were played by patients from the Synanon drug rehabilitation center in California.
• According to George Lucas's vision, the characters embody the concepts of sex and love, which is reflected in the names of the main characters – THX and LUH, which respectively sound similar to the words 'sex' and 'love'.
• The scene of the android police officers chasing the fugitives was filmed in the machine room of a large telephone exchange, meaning the endless rows of electronic equipment were telephone systems.