‘The Name of the Game: LA 2017’ 1971

Did young Steven Spielberg & sci-fi legend Philip Wylie predict where the world
was headed with this cult classic TV episode?

Spielberg was just 23 when he directed this episode.

L.A. magazine publisher Glenn Howard (Gene Barry) returns from an environmental conference. As he drives, Howard dictates notes to the President on a tape recorder that gives a dire warning about the planet’s future. Ironically, the media mogul is driving a huge gas hog from ‘71. As a smog report drones on the radio, Howard’s own drone becomes increasingly disoriented, and the car careens off the road. Rescued by two uniformed men and taken to a hospital, Glenn is told the year is 2017 and that Los Angeles is now underground. That’s just for starters.

***Spoiler alerts ahead***

Gene Barry as Glenn Howard, publisher & environmentalist.

Typical of the era were aging stars who tried to be cool like the young anti-hero studs of Hollywood. As with other show biz vets, instead of hip, Gene Barry’s Glenn Howard comes off smug, snide, and superior. His style is much like surly Charlton Heston in his sci-fi era. In fact, when Howard awakens in a futuristic hospital outfit, Barry looks like Heston’s arrogant astronaut in Planet of the Apes.

"Get your hands off me, you damn dirty shrink!"

LA 2017 consists of an underground community of 10,000 people. Chaos is rampant, with a chosen few in charge, and everyone else treated like cattle. Speaking of which, there is only one cow left, and its milk is treated like the finest champagne. There’s a 1984 vibe here, with a constant drone of warnings, platitudes, and declarations of opportunities that are most likely thankless.

Edgy psychiatrist/police officer Dr. Parker doesn’t take Glenn’s guff for very long.  The doc introduces him to a weapon that he calls a weapon cylinder that fires up to 25 feet. Cutting off Howard’s cynical laughter, Parker warns, “I can get anything I want out of you, electronically!”

Luckily, Howard is rescued from Parker’s clutches, and turned over to California’s vice-president, Dane Bigelow (Barry Sullivan). Seemingly genial, Bigelow gives Glenn the spiel on how LA’s survivors made a new world for themselves. A nice sales pitch, but Howard finds that there’s more beneath the surface than content underground dwellers.

Barry Sullivan as a big wig in underground L.A., with an even bigger tie!

Sullivan is the first to tell Howard how life above earth came to a standstill. Glenn guesses, “Nuclear war?” Nope. Dane brings the mogul up to speed as to how the planet stopped functioning after man’s abuse has taken its toll. “No one did anything about it?” asks Howard. Dane describes the domino effect of the environment reacting to the levels of pollution. “The scientists and government stood by while everything died.” Now, the Veep proclaims, they’ve adapted to a new way of life… some say better! Howard, of course, is not convinced.

Sharon Farrell had that Ann-Margret style and slight hysteria goin' on.

Some ‘70s style comes along in the form of Sharon Farrell as Sandrelle. Though now nearly 50 years later, Farrell sports her Ann-Margret-esque mane and mascara, plus groovy midi-skirts and boots. Sharon often played slightly hysterical characters like A-M, too. Yet, Farrell is quite touching here, in a similar role played by Leigh Taylor Young’s Shirl in Soylent Green.

Fun fact: LA 2017 aired January 15, 1971 and Soylent Green, set in NYC of 2022, was released April 19, 1973.

Farrell's female companion isn't "furniture" like "Soylent Green," but close!

Sharon’s Sherelle is a bit more high-functioning than Leigh’s female “furniture” role. Her job is to get Glenn to see the light about the brave new underground world, or at least report back what he’s thinking. She does neither, as she’s not a fan of the “new” world. Instead, she gives the publisher the scoop on what’s really going on. Sandrelle shows fragments of despair despite being desensitized. Some of Farrell’s reactions are deliberately blank and robotic, where other times her character answers with black humor bravado about the controlled environment: “We’re not supposed to knowwww!”

Got milk? Louise Latham is Barry Sullivan's dazed wife.

Glenn’s invite to the Bigelows for dinner feels like a ‘70s show, since Dane had his Bel Air home brought underground, “stick by stick.” There’s a stale sitcom feel to Dane’s banter with his kids, and his Stepford wife Helen seems like she needs a new battery. She’s played by Louise Latham, who had the market cornered on middle-aged neurotics once she played the mother of Marnie. With that southern tinge in her voice, she informs Dane that Billy died. A beloved goldfish, Dane owns one of four aquariums in the world, and poor Billy has died of old age. Smooth Bigelow is devastated and it’s an oddly touching moment. Helen then goes all Blanche DuBois on Howard: “Is Glenn spending the night? I’m lonely for Glenn.” Before she can depend on the kindness of this stranger, she is sent off to bed, without her milk.

Billy the goldfish goes bye bye in a surreal, sad moment.

Dane finally presents The Board’s plan to Glenn. They want him to re-boot Howard Publications underground. They figure there’s nostalgia value, plus Glenn’s got the skills to help create mass acceptance of the new reality, while playing on the comforting past. This will give them the edge over the rebellious counter group who resent the system stacking the deck over the peons.

One of the most haunting sequences is has Edmond O’Brien, as a scientist that Glenn once knew, then a bright young man. Now, John Bergman is locked in a strait jacket, seemingly babbling. Photographed from below, O’Brien’s pop bottle glasses hide his eyes, and his voice is a rumbling monotone. When Glenn identifies himself as a friend, Bergman replies “All my old friends are dead.”

When he gives a more detailed, unfiltered version of what happened, it’s utterly chilling, given what’s actually happening in the world of 2020. Bergman recalls “…everyone expected us—the scientists, the magicians—to turn the tide…masks to screen out the poisonous rain and air…”

Edmond O' Brien steals the show in his chilling scene as the scientist who tells what happened above ground on planet Eart.

Aside from the biosphere collapsing and the fallout, such as famine, then came the fight for survival, resulting in mass violence. Bergman describes coming home late from the lab one night, to find his family butchered.

Later, Glenn turns down Dane’s offer, and he confronts him with the information that he’s found out. What happens next is counter accusations from the men, one representing the past, and one the present. Bigelow asks the big shot publisher what he really did to help stop what was happening, aside from attending conferences and cocktail parties. Glenn retorts that Dane is just passing the buck, and Dane replies, “What should we do? Turn it all over to the bomb throwers?” Glenn replies he’s for turning it all over to the people.

Howard Publishing is a rubble in 2017, illuminated by the hazy LA sky.

When Bigelow tells the Chairman of the Board that Glenn wouldn’t go along, his fate looks the same as John Bergman. Sherelle is both silenced and punished when Dane gives her some filing to take down the hall, both knowing a bomb explosion awaits her. Some underground rebels whisk Glenn away to the surface and take him to the Glenn Howard offices, which look quite sad. The plan is to enlist Glenn in their mission, and join others at a mountain top locale not entirely polluted. However, they are followed by Dane and crew. Glenn finds out about Sherelle’s fate, and he blames one of the junior rebels, who replies, “We didn’t start the violence.”

Glenn escapes with Dane and the doc as hostage, then ditches them, and runs back to his car. Collapsing, Howard is awakened by the same two rescue workers, but this time he’s back in 1971. Exhaust leakage from his car is to blame. A final close up of a dead bird hangs from a branch, as Glenn listens to his notes, which ends with, “It may be the beginning of the end of Earth as we know it.”

When Howard is rescued & finds it was all a dream, here's a contrary tell-tale sign.

Although LA 2017 is a fave of both Spielberg and Name of the Game fans, there's a fair amount of snarking about this fledgling directorial effort. I think LA 2017 is impressive when taken into context. In itself, the episode is not a bonafide classic. Yet, considering that it was episodic TV—check out any typical TV "movie of the week" from that era—and the difference is obvious. Most significantly, Spielberg was 23 when he directed this. I wonder what those critics were doing at that age.

Some have complained that special effects were disappointing. Again, the answer is obvious. It was the era and it was episodic TV. Still, Spielberg was working with his biggest budget yet—$350,000—a huge TV show budget back then. This is also why Name didn't stay in the TV game much longer, as the show’s cost didn't translate to big ratings. 

A haunting Spielberg shot framing Glenn Howard's gas hog!

What I appreciate about Spielberg’s effort is that he depicts the destroyed world in economic but effective ways: desolate locations, camera filters and striking angles. The actual futuristic world is simply shown and so the show doesn’t seem too dated—for an almost 50 year old show.

Spielberg was in the middle of directing some of Universal's better TV shows; later that year he directed the acclaimed TV movie Duel, with Dennis Weaver. In 1974, Steven made his feature film debut with the critically acclaimed The Sugarland Express, and the next year he made his breakthrough, Jaws, and the rest is film history. That's a pretty swift and impressive career path in five years!

Spielberg used some extreme camera angles to heighten tension and mood.

Phillip Wylie wrote the script and novelization of LA 2017 simultaneously. Apparently, Wylie was not happy that his TV script was trimmed and simplified. I guess he forgot that the episode was 75 minutes and that there was only so much time for ecological debates. And some of his futuristic social mores, like children having sexual freedom, would not fly in 1971!

One legend surrounding LA 2017 is that Joan Crawford appeared in an unbilled cameo as a gesture to Steven Spielberg. Crawford had memorably worked with Steven in his first directing assignment, a Night Gallery episode titled Eyes. In LA 2017, she is supposed to be in the far background of Howard’s examination scene, with a clipboard in hand. The woman does possess a pile of hair that Joan sported during that era, but it’s hard to tell. My question is, if Steven cast Barry Sullivan in a major role in LA 2017, who also appeared in his Night Gallery segment, why wouldn’t do the same for Joan, like as Sullivan’s wife? This was also during a time when Crawford desperately wanted to work. So, this makes no sense, and my guess is that it’s a Hollywood myth.

Some fans think the woman with big hair & clipboard is Joan Crawford,
rumored to have done a cameo here for Spielberg. IMO, it's not JC. 

Watch The Name of the Game’s most famous episode, LA 2017, for the combined imagination of Steven Spielberg and the knowledge of Philip Wylie, for a look at the future that is mostly on-target—sadly.

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