robertemerald Review of No Blade of Grass

No Blade of Grass (1970)

Dated but entertaining environmental apocalypse movie

[7/10 · 8 January 2020]

No Blade of Grass is unique in that the basic premise, a virus endemic that effecting grasses, is the bottom line for the disaster that overtakes the world and then, very quickly, British society. The filmmakers, to their credit, keep up a barrage of images of over-industrialisation and pollution throughout, something that reenforces their rather out of the box premise. It's a fantastic time capsule of left wing fears of its day, and it's a pity we didn't take greater notice of such works at the time. This movie precedes movies such as Mad Max (1979) by almost a decade, and surely influenced the genre. By 1979 apocalypse movies had certainly matured. One of the drawbacks of this movie is the unashamedly androcentrism, or view of a male dominated society. You cringe at how subservient and weak women are portrayed in this, and how the male lead insists on his own wisdom prevailing in all situations. It's not a democracy. One lass drops her caring and responsive fiancee for an impatient and intolerant desperado because she suddenly feels safer under the wing of this man whom had no qualms about shooting his own wife just hours before after the wife spoke too defiantly to him. Even though this poor lass is somewhat traumatised by a recent rape, the whole scene comes across as a shameless defence of the male-orientated view of 'law of the jungle'. The British class system is somewhat defended as well, with the upper middle class hero certainly cast in the role of natural leader. Mind you, he was a WW II veteran, another aspect of the movie that just breeches the surface here and there. And he is also a good actor with charisma. Indeed, all the cast were well chosen and perform well. The soundtrack is interesting and at times more modern than you'd expect for its day, with discordant instruments keeping up a steady reenforcing parallel to the tension. No Glad of Grass is a reflective movie of its day, with plenty of deaths but only one gush of blood, and beyond that only red trickles sprinkled on corpses, plenty of Western style pee-ow ricochet sounds from the rifles, and the 'outrageous' addition of two glimpses of breasts, one which is only breastfeeding. But such schlock is easily overcome by the dynamic pace of this movie. You won't be bored. No Blade of Grass is certainly a time capsule, but a very welcome and important one.