Z.P.G.

(vt Zero Population Growth UK) Film (1971). Sagittarius/Paramount. Dir Michael Campus, starring Oliver Reed, Geraldine Chaplin, Diane Cilento, Don Gordon. Screenplay Max EHRLICH, Frank DeFelitta. 97 mins. Colour.

   This film was a product of a period when, not before time, the question of OVERPOPULATION had almost overnight become a matter much publicized by themedia, books like Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1968) had become bestsellers, and the Club of Rome was about to publish a very alarmist report in The Limits to Growth (1972). "Zero population growth" is a term which refers to a situation where the population of a society remains steady, neither increasing nor decreasing. But the screenwriters of Z.P.G. assume, absurdly, that it means nobody having any children at all during the 30-year period of a world government's ban. A married couple defy the edict and have a baby secretly. They are betrayed by a jealous neighbour, but escape the authorities by descending into a sewer. Where they escape to is not explained. The novelization is The Edict * (1971) by Ehrlich.

   JB/PN