Westworld

Westworld (1973) featured the first use of computer-digitized images as part of a feature film (not merely monitor graphics), in the Gunslinger's point of view. Once the process had finally been refined enough to produce satisfactory results, each ten seconds of footage for the Gunslinger's pixelated point of view took only eight hours to generate.

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Yul Brynner was in financial difficulty in the early 1970s and desperately needed money. With no other film work on offer at the time, he reluctantly agreed to take the role for $75,000, a sum equivalent to $485,648.65 in 2022.

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(At about 1 hour 17 minutes) When acid is splashed on the Gunslinger robot's face, Yul Brynner's face was covered with an oil-based makeup mixed with Alka-Seltzer. A splash of water then produced the foaming effect.

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Both Richard Benjamin and James Brolin were cast less than 48 hours before filming began.

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The robot played by Yul Brynner is a homage to/imitation of his character Chris in The Magnificent Seven (1960), and he wears the same costume.

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While taking shooting lessons for his role, Richard Benjamin trained with a gun loaded intermittently with blanks so that he would get used to not anticipating the shots. As a result, he does not blink when firing.

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For the silvery sheen of the Gunslinger's eyes, Michael Crichton wanted the eyes to look somewhat unreal but not too strange. The effect was achieved with 80% reflective mirrored contact lenses.

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Despite the film's science-fiction nature, its final shooting budget was very limited ($1.25 million). To achieve this, the producers reused many sets and costumes from previous film and television productions.

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The film is set in 1983.

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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) reached the year's highest box-office gross.

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It was shot in 30 days and released in cinemas five months later.

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Michael Crichton re-edited the film's first cut because he found it long and boring. The deleted scenes include: the bank robbery and sales room scenes, the flying vehicle in which passengers initially fly over the desert, additional and longer dialogue scenes, more scenes of the robots going mad and killing guests (including a scene in which a guest is tied to a rack and killed when his arms are pulled), a longer chase scene in which the Gunslinger pursues Peter, and the Gunslinger washing his face with water after throwing acid at Peter. Crichton's assembly cut also had a different ending; a fight between the Gunslinger and Peter (staged and cut because it looked silly) and an alternative death scene in which the Gunslinger is killed with the same rack used to kill one of the guests.

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The Western set was used in Blazing Saddles (1974). Because the "Blazing Saddles" exterior set was at Warner Bros., the background suggests that the film was shot on the "Western" studio backlots of one or more film companies, in addition to Westworld's (1973) existing background sets for the other worlds at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and the Harold Lloyd Estate gardens for Romanworld, in order to increase the implied size of the amusement park.

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The names initially considered for the two human leads included James Caan, Lee Majors, Elliott Gould, Jon Voight and James Franciscus. However, all of them either were unavailable during the shooting dates or were too expensive to hire. William Shatner (Captain Kirk in Star Trek (1966)), then 42 years old, was also seriously considered by the studio, but the producers were undecided about whom to cast alongside him. In the end they decided to cast two young, relatively unknown actors in order to keep Yul Brynner as the film's star. Coincidentally, Majel Barrett, wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, also appears in this film.

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(At about the 32nd minute) As malfunctions begin to appear in the robots and spread, the resemblance of the problem to a disease is discussed. This is a very early reference to computer viruses.

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It is one of the last films shot on the backlot of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios before it was sold to developers.

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Michael Crichton would later use a similar plot about a theme park going terribly wrong and tourist attractions malfunctioning for his 1990 novel "Jurassic Park", which became the hit film Jurassic Park (1993) 20 years after this film. Crichton also wrote the screenplay for the Jurassic Park film adaptation.

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It was the first feature film directed by Michael Crichton, but he did not direct another film for five years, until Coma (1978).

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Delos shares its name with the Greek island of Delos, site of the largest slave market in the ancient Mediterranean.

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Adjusted for inflation, the $1,000 daily fee charged to guests in 1983 would be more than $3,000 in 2023. That figure was updated to $7,547.82 in 2026.

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Alan Oppenheimer, who plays the scientist in charge of the robots, later portrayed a character that would be recreated as Dr. Rudy Wells in The Six Million Dollar Man (1974).

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Yul Brynner's character is known as the Gunslinger. Interestingly, the word "gunslinger" was only coined in the 1920s (and popularized in the 1950s) and has no direct connection to the American Old West.

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Careful viewers of the film should spot Majel Barrett in the role of the robot brothel keeper. The actress was also known for her roles as Nurse Chapel and Mrs. Gene Roddenberry on Star Trek (1966).

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The later Warner Bros. Television-Home Box Office (HBO) series Westworld (2016) continued to leave subtle hints that it could officially be considered a direct ("soft-reboot") continuation within the same story as Michael Crichton's film rather than a full reboot.

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Some of the amusement park scenes were shot in the gardens of Harold Lloyd's mansion — specifically as the exteriors of Roman World — before the estate was divided into 15 parcels and sold in 1975.

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The park recreates three eras of history: the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages and the Wild West. This is a nod to the early films made about gladiators, knights and cowboys. The later Warner Bros. Television-Home Box Office (HBO) series Westworld (2016) would expand the size of the overall Delos Park and add additional "Worlds" to the original Michael Crichton story universe.

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It was included in the American Film Institute's 2001 list of 400 nominated films for the 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Films.

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After filming Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Arnold Schwarzenegger was set to produce and star in a remake of Westworld (1973) for Warner Bros. He was then also planned to star in a sequel to Conan the Barbarian (1982), paired with a younger swordsman. Neither of these plans ever came to fruition after Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California in 2003.

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Before the decision was made to cast younger actors, Peter Graves and Leslie Nielsen (alongside William Shatner as Peter Martin) were considered for the role of John Blane. Coincidentally, all three would appear in Airplane! (1980) and/or its sequel.

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It was shot approximately between February and March 1973.

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Although John Blane is supposed to be a "seasoned" guest returning to the park, he is consistently a bad shot with a gun. He misses when shooting at a rattlesnake and is later shot by the Gunslinger. Peter Martin, by contrast, states that he has never fired a gun before yet successfully hits the Gunslinger multiple times.

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The success of Westworld (1973) inspired the 1976 sequel Futureworld (1976), whose plot also takes place at Delos. This time, however, the robots figured in a world-domination conspiracy planned by a Delos engineer. Although Yul Brynner played a brief role in the film, "Futureworld" was a pale imitation of the original and effectively ended a potential "Westworld" film series. There was, however, a 1980 television spin-off called Beyond Westworld (1980) that lasted only one season.

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The plot focuses on Westworld (1973) and Medieval World guest interactions, except for the final moment when Roman World robots attack the guests with swords. However, the middle-aged woman character shown riding the tram to Delos for the first time is seen dead in a single shot after the Roman World massacre. Yet she had no scenes in Roman World as part of the story.

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Dick Van Patten and Alan Oppenheimer appeared together in Freaky Friday (1976).

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On the film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film received mixed reviews from critics (84% of 45 reviews) and users (70% of more than 10,000 votes). Compared with the average of Michael Crichton's six feature films, this film's score is considerably higher than both the overall critics' score (57.7%) and the average of all users (49.2%).

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