Deadly Harvest

After several disastrous harvests, people from the cities are venturing into rural areas hoping to procure food to feed their families. Compounding the problem is that the farmers are also experiencing the same issues and there simply isn't enough food to go around. As a result, the cities are placed under martial law while small vigilante groups are set up in the country to prevent armed groups from urban areas looting nearby farms. Although one particular farmer by the name of "Grant Franklin" (Clint Walker) disagrees with the need for these vigilante groups, what he doesn't know is that the politicians have been deliberately misleading the populace and things are about to get much worse for everybody. Now rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film definitely had potential. Unfortunately, it lacked the necessary drama and suspense due in large part to the stoic manner of the main character. To that effect, in spite of everything happening all around, nothing seemed to faze him. At least, not initially. Be that as it may, while I don't consider this to be a bad film by any means, I honestly wasn't that impressed with it and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Comin at you from the 70's when global climate change meant cold weather and food shortages...I liked the soundtrack and some of the scenes are memorable- Clint driving into the city with the world going haywire. the opening of the movie. and the end credits are especially good. This movie is barebones don't expect to be blown away by special effects because there are none. and that's a good thing in my book. It's one of those movies that you might remember watching as a kid and thinking it was pretty awesome and then watching it again now maybe it's not so awesome. but then again, maybe it is? If you like Clint Walker i recommend it he is laid back for most of the movie, well really all of the movie, but its good.

Deadly Harvest is about global environmental breakdown that could have been prevented if people would have listened. Sound's familiar. Multiple harvests are lost causing a dip into the non-existent food reserves. Brother, people should have been eating the oil reserves instead. It causes the government to lie about food and people to degenerate to killing mobs. The city folk are pitted against the country folk because the country folk have farms and can produce food while the city folk rely on the lying government. There is an odd prim and proper ethical side to the degeneration as the city folk steal the country folk's food. But things get pretty bad and the country folk come to take revenge. I'll agree that city folk would be in dire straights if there should be food shortages, but then there's always soylent green.

If this film has a mesdsage it's a somewhat mted one in that if they really want to farmers rule. In the end food is what's the most important thing, more than any other commodity that we place value on.

A famine has come on the earth as a result of our slovenly industrial practices and we see it from two points of view. Clint Walker who is head of your typical American farm family trying to survive and Nehemiah Persoff head of a blakc market food ring in a nearby midwestern city.

Deadly Harvest is a cheaply made film which has faded shades of that other post apocalyptic film On The Beach ithout the power, poetry, and stars of the latter.

The message as I said before is a mted one.and muted. Taken to its logical conclusion Archer,Daniels,Midland and companies like that will rule the planet.

"Deadly Harvest" was made at a time when the Earth's climate was thought to be cooling due to a sun-blocking shroud of pollution. The film takes this premise to a setting in which winter begins in August! The world's food supply is almost gone and the social order is breaking down.

Unfortunately, this film mostly comes across as just another cheap, violent 'tax shelter' ripoff. Walker is wooden (and his wood is weaker than usual) as the heroic farmer, while Persoff is inappropriately hammy as the arch-villain. Geraint Wyn-Davies of later "Forever Knight" fame had yet to show talent here.

The film does take on a haunting quality near the end as it tours a frozen, near-deserted Toronto and witnesses a family's last meal.

-Tony