Prototype

what the film does

dr. carl forrester (plummer) has built michael (morse), an android advanced enough to pass as human. he takes michael to a department store, then home for dinner, to test whether his wife dorothy (sternhagen) can tell. she cannot. the pentagon finds out, takes michael for evaluation, and returns him with firearms tests in his memory. forrester realizes the military intends to use androids as soldiers. he takes michael on the run.

the film is a frankenstein story told as a made-for-tv drama. the writers are richard levinson and william link, the team behind columbo and murder she wrote. the director is david greene, a british tv director. billy goldenberg, who scored columbo and kojak, composed the music. the whole production has the competence and the limitations of peak-era network television.

why this one

three reasons. first, the oppenheimer parallel. forrester explicitly compares himself to oppenheimer and fermi: scientists who built something they could not control and whose government turned the creation against them. this was 1983, when the nuclear analogy was not historical but active, and the idea that a machine could become a weapon without its creator’s consent was not abstract.

second, david morse. this is one of his first roles. he plays michael with a stillness that makes the android’s growing self-awareness visible. the scene where michael reads the end of frankenstein and understands what the creature’s fate means for his own is the best moment in the film.

third, the ending. michael chooses self-immolation rather than being used as a weapon. forrester watches. the film does not cut away. the choice is michael’s, and the film respects it as a choice, not a sacrifice. the new york times called the film “uncommonly riveting” and praised the acting, script, and direction.

what stays with me

michael watching the 1931 frankenstein on television, then reading the novel to find out what happens to the creature. the film draws the line from shelley to its own story without stating it, and morse’s face as he reads is where the whole film lives.

on hand

the dvd is the 2004 artisan release in the canon.