On this day, 40 years ago, audiences visiting the Odeon Leicester Square could have sat down to watch one of the strangest films ever made.

A cult classic, it had the birth that all cult classic movies require — that of being a total an utter commercial flop at the cinema, only to be reborn later in the age of the VHS.

Zardoz Speaks To You!

Set in the year 2293, Zardoz was written, produced and directed by John Borman, who has a tendency to put out the occasional hit, and then is given reign to put out often deeply personal films afterwards.

Zardoz is very much a film of its era, looking ahead to an idilic future of mental peace, but as with so many heavenly edens, decay has set in. Authoritarian obedience to the collective will is imposed as democratic free will is obliterated.

It is oddly the savages that live the real lives, even as they are deluded by the vision of the giant floating stone head that vomits forth 19th century weapons.

The then popular Neo-Malthusianism concerns about human overpopulation is memorably summed up by the classic line:

“The gun is good! The penis is bad!”

Despite the strange plot, the film got a lot of media attention at the time of its launch, with lengthy interviews in the Times newspaper, and a half-hour piece on the BBC. Despite that, audiences and critics were less enamoured of the film, possibly seeing in its agrarian future a concept that was too alien to the heavy industry that dominated 1970s Britain.

Add in though the sexual overtones and the allusions to physic powers in the lethargic Immortals, and there is almost a Barbarella feel to the film.

Then again, what on earth possessed Sean Connery, fresh from fame as James Bond to agree to such a bizarre film? However, it is a chance to see the suave Scott playing a savage man, and in his savagery, become the salvation for the trapped immortals.

As a film it is both dreadfully cheesy in the way that so many utopian films of that time seem to date so badly. Yet, actually underneath it is quite an interesting idea and possibly one which looks dated because it is so naive in its idealism.

We are more cynical today.

In a way though, the notion that the immortals, shed of the mundane drudgery of daily toil would then devote themselves to art and enlightenment seems oddly precedent.

We have today the technology to shorn us of much of the need for daily labour, so long as we are willing to also arrest development by cutting our working hours to spend more time in leisure.

But would we, as a society spend that time in libraries and museums, or sat at home watching X-Factor? Humans need challenges and stresses, otherwise we become as lethargic as the immortals in Zardoz ended up.

That wasn’t a particularly popular view back in the 1970s as people looked forward to shorter working days and more leisure time, but it was a correct one.

It may be a film that rewards closer inspection, but for most people it is “that film with the floating stone head”. Instantly memorable, even if the rest of the movie is forgotten under the influence of the bacchus usually enjoyed while watching it.

But set aside all that media studies wank and just enjoy the absurdity of the film, the vision of a single man who conceived it, and relax into a weird dystopian eden.

Zardoz was released in the UK on the 26th March 1974. The censors gave it an X rating — suitable for adults only.