A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I wasn't going to write a review but felt guilty that someone might read all the film school gushing and watch this dreck. I'm not a young man and I regret wasting 2½ hours just to learn a lesson.Very good acting, great characterization, loathsome characters (which I like) and an excellent premise, but just a premise. We unfortunate viewers are bashed over the head with the idea that people in Hollywood are bad. Over and over and over for two hours and twenty four minutes. This may be a spoiler, but how can I spoil something that rotted before the novel's author sat down at his Corona portable? The over the top ending is not needed to reinforce Hollywood bad- it is needless violence- not even entertaining violence. I've said this before and fear I will say it again- you can't act your way out of a bad script. Don't watch this movie, if only to learn from its mistakes. Find a copy of Carey McWilliams' Southern California Country (1946). His book covers the thinking behind Hollywood and its neighbors in greater depth and with wit. Lesson learned for the short remainder of my life- no more 1970s dramas except for thrillers.

Every now and then a true gem pops out of the past... that is, if you are a keen cinema-goer (or movie-viewer...as, nowadays, only kids go to the movies). The day of The Locust is what John Schlesinger had up his sleeve after the huge success of 'Midnight Cowboy'. It was his 'pot shot' at Hollywood. It was his Guy Fawkes beneath Parliament. It was his warning that the Twin Towers story COULD just be a sordid masquerade...although, of course, he didn't know it yet. They say that Hawthorne's book is far more engrossing. Sure... books take up ten times more time to unravel. His characters are mean-spirited, calculating, 'cold fish'...and what they get is what they deserve. But I feel Schlesinger and his script-writers made a worthwhile effort to imbue even these squirming serpents and cold-blooded insects with a breath of pathos, and humanity. And rightly so... the story GAINS points. 'Locust' sometimes feels more like Bergman, Fassbinder or (even) Fellini than like an American film. It reminds us of Grosz. Of German decadence between world wars. We are, often sub-consciously, led down grim corridors of analogy.... Nazi hysteria... Hollywood Boulevard madness. We are voyeurs... we watch a giant Dream Machine which spawns future mutants... frustrated maniacs. And literally DEVOURS its pathetic 'extras' and hopefuls. That is why the overtones of the film seem ,somehow, biblical. David Lynch's source-material is suddenly openly revealed. THIS MOVIE! We have Twin Peaks themes and characters... Mulholand Drive, even more so... Blue Velvet...and so on... But hey! Let's be fair.... anyone who has ever REALLY known Hollywood can only nod and say..."Yes...It's all true.... And if I'm still here, in the industry,.... I'm either a hypocrite, a victim, or a pervert of sorts." ALL the characters are crazed atoms of the American Dream Factory. And Schlesinger opts for a finale worthy of another British, but surprisingly hot-bloodedly so, director... Ken Russell. Madness on the rampage. But is he only a fine line away from exaggeration? Is he not symbolically 'spot on'? That's for you to decide. Meanwhile, the film has done the job it came to do. Maybe even better than 'Chinatown'. And, believe me, the HEY DAY of Hollywood may seem far away and long ago... but the manic drive and sexual black-mail we observe in this reptilian display is all too contemporary to our time. Bon Apetit! (If your digestive system is up to it).

Something prevents me from giving a thumbs down for this classic. This movie got away in being a bad film but it's quite weak if compared to movies with a similar theme that appeared before and after it. It's a confusing and strangely empty film carried with an impressive imagery that slowly dies in front of you, almost a tragedy if we consider the amazing ensemble casting, the screenwriter and the director.Based on the acclaimed novel by Nathanael West, "The Day of the Locust" haunt us back to the inglorious days of the Great Depression, most precisely, the story is situated in the non-stopping factory of dreams called Hollywood and its glamor with its films and stars. There, an variety of empty souls and figures such as an film art director (William Atherton), an actress (Karen Black), her old father (Burgess Meredith), the frustrated accountant Homer Simpson (what an coincidence!) (played by Donald Sutherland) and others try to build a future of their own in this God forsaken place where no kind of values existed, and where the appearances, money, fame count more than love or anything. According to some, here's an work about people's alienation and desperation in trying to get what they want and the things they do to stay on a comfortable position.Movies that work with hyperlinked situations and multiple characters need to introduce instigating moments, to keep us curious right until the ending, and connect everything and everyone in one same context or message. Now, John Schlesinger film even back then in 1975 trying to do something that is most regular now, failed a little in its connections; it doesn't know how to make us interested in this messy portrait. Characters and performances keep on slowly dying in front of our eyes. Atherton, Sutherland, Black, Meredith are all great actors and their characters have great beginnings, they're very promising but after they're established in the movie and what they do, their development until the conclusion gets uninteresting to watch, so numb. Some of the situations are presented without a clear meaning (the cockfight, Karen Black's back and forth relations with men, leaving one for another, then returning) no emotion is given or taken from anyone or anything (part of this is comprehensible because of the movie's theme but sometimes it just doesn't work).The dream-like aspects of this film, the art direction, costumes, electrifying moments such as the disaster on the film set of a Napoleonic war and the shocking ending (ok, it wasn't all that much for me, and by the way, the boy deserved his ending and I know I shouldn't say that but that's what I think), all those moments are magically filmed, brilliantly presented. In the whole, these are the things that count a little for making this a favorable piece to watch. Lately, I've been watching films that are a little bit flawed in creating and giving a message or a purpose but somehow their presentation, their package and visual are interesting to make you at least compensated for the lack of destination. They worth your view and at least are a hundred times better than some recent films. But all I can say was that the same story scheme worked way better in "Ragtime" (1981). 6/10

Under the dry and dusty Hollywood(land) Hills of the 1930's, dispersant characters and chancers gather to harvest what they can get from the studio system or else become leeching camp followers. Based on a celebrated novel by Nathaniel West.(Who presumably knew the scene first hand from his date of birth and working C.V.) America, being a republic and a relatively new country does not have that many unique stories in its foot-locker. The western, the gangster/American Mafia cycle and Hollywood backstage story are the only three I can think of right now. The latter - naturally - being today's quarry.Like the other two, lots of free gifts, built-in charms and easy plot devices. Human ego, sex and exploitation are never more to fore than in showbiz. The prize of success and the cost of failure mean that morals are more easily put to one side. Nothing being as cheap as human beings out here in the Cali sunshine.While I used the term "chancers" in one of the early paragraphs above I should have used the term "no chancers." Only lead male - William Atherton - has any clear and discernible artistic talent and even that seems depressive and obsessive.(Judging solely by what he produces. Unless he was trying to do early sketches for Pink Floyd's The Wall - which his drawings curiously mimics!) Karen Black is a standard over-verbose ten-a-dime peroxide dreamer. Taking everything from fan magazines and the movies. An extra with no chance of progress beyond Central Casting because she can't really act (although Black certainly can!) Seems loyal to her ageing father (a brilliant pre-Rocky Burgess Meredith) and her odd-ball friends though.(Her interactions with a dim accountant - brilliantly played here by Donald Sutherland - shows a hint of a darker and more exploitative side. Or is the reality of her own situation beginning to sink in? Is he the future meal ticket when her looks fade?)To add perspective the film takes an upstairs/downstairs look at the big studio. With Atherton walking between the two storeys. However this does little other than to illustrate a fairly healthy props budget. With money comes sex, privilege and opulence, the movie tells me. Hold the front page.The central problem is that there is very little subtle about this production from the title (humans being locusts) onwards. What could be almost a soap-opera-come-tragedy is brought to a climax that brings to mind Apocalypse Now. Real bizarre and heavy-handed stuff.(In 1930's Hollywood even the street by-standers are mad as hatters?)In short summation, Locust is a more interesting film for its parable and its moral than the often tepid (ludicrous and over-the-top finale accepted) on-screen action. My closing thoughts are that in Hollywood nothing has really changed other than the clothes and the technology. It is still the wheel on which a thousand dreams are broken.