The People (1972 film)
Summary
A new schoolteacher in rural California is shocked to discover that her pupils possess otherworldly powers.
Details
- Release Date: 1972
- Country/Language: USA/English
- Genres/Technical: Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi; made-for-TV
- Setting: 1960s(?) California
- Runtime: 1 hr 14 min
- Starring: Kim Darby, William Shatner, Diane Varsi
- Director: John Korty
- Writer: Zenna Henderson (books), James M. Miller
- Producer/Production Co: Francis Ford Coppola, American Zoetrope, Metromedia Producers Corporation (MPC)
- View Film: (link)
- TVTropes: (link)
- IMDB Page: (IMDb)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: not rated (roughly equivalent to a G or light PG)
As a 1970s made-for-TV pilot film for a family-friendly TV series, it's pretty kid-friendly.
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- Ss___ (Two Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; vaguely similar in tone, could have been a very loose adaptation)
Though hardly a horror story, this does come off a little bit as a kind of well-meaning hippie revision of a story like "The Shadow Over Innsmouth (fiction)" or "The Whisperer in Darkness (fiction)", in which a secretive conclave of people living in a backwards, out-of-the-way community, are revealed to be rather gentle and friendly aliens hiding away from human persecution.
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- Y.Whateley - "I can see a sort of Weird element to this, though I think many viewers looking for a 'Lovecraftian' film experience will be disappointed by the lack of weird monsters, looming dread, pessimism, and other elements associated with that genre; I knew the movie and story series by reputation before watching the movie, and wasn't surprised by its relatively light and well-intentioned tone - in fact, I actually expected to be put off by a sort of off-putting, overbearingly condescending and patronizing, 1960s-1970s 'flower-power' take on the roughly contemporary Children of the Damned or Disney Witch Mountain movies - a sort of "low-rent Billy Jack, with Space Hippies!" thing (expectations that were, fortunately, not met!), while the part of me that enjoys 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' would have liked to have seen something a little darker and more ambiguous at work here from the alien side of things, but in spite of my pessimism and cynicism going in I warmed up to the movie rather quickly, and in the end I found it to be a rather charming and entertaining example of the psychic-alien-kids-persecuted-by-humans genre."
- Review at The Terror Trap (2.5 Stars) (link) - "Sound bizarre? It is, but oddly watchable thanks to its very '70s moodiness and honest performances.... Not for all tastes, but the discriminating viewer with a craving for the truly weird might find this unique effort worth the time."
- Review by Dave Sindelar at Fantastic Movie, Musings and Ramblings (link) - "Suffice it to say that the heart of the story lies in explaining the reasons for the sullenness and joylessness of the people and why they choose to live in isolation; the reasons are good ones, and the whole movie is quite moving."
Synopsis (SPOILERS)
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
A new schoolteacher in rural California is shocked to discover that her pupils possess otherworldly powers: the community is actually a colony of friendly aliens hiding their identities from human persecution, forced at last to find a way to integrate into encroaching modern human society. The children have been taught in the past not to laugh or run or play like other children, lest their joy reveal their hidden telepathic and telekinetic power, but the repression and the danger of revealing their power clearly leaves the children unprepared to mingle with humans. The community is torn between hiding their motives and identity from the teacher, and revealing just enough to relieve her suspicions and curiosity, and just running the overly-caring teacher out of town, but things come to a head when one of the children is injured, and only the power of love, with the teacher's help, can save the child, resulting in the teacher and the community embracing each other, and living happily ever after, at least until the never-made television series this movie was meant to pilot revealed new challenges for the community.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
- Zenna Henderson's "The People" short stories were published in a variety of anthologies, and were only collated through the efforts of the New England Science Fiction Association who obtained the rights and published them as Ingathering: The complete People stories in 1995.
Associated Mythos Elements
- fiction: Zenna Henderson's "The People" short stories (collected as Ingathering: The complete People stories in 1995)
- fiction: compare to the much more xenophobic and pessimistic "The Shadow Over Innsmouth (fiction)", "The Lurking Fear (fiction)", etc.
- race: "The People" (a friendly race of very human-looking aliens with telekinetic and telepathic powers)
Keeper Notes
- Perhaps, in the right group, encounters with relatively friendly and well-meaning aliens like these might occur from time to time, just to keep things from getting too stale and predictable, though even a lighter-and-softer Call of Cthulhu RPG adaptation of the premise might benefit from a healthy dose of moody atmosphere and ambiguity....
