The Day of the Locust (1975)

The film MIDNIGHT COWBOY director John Schlesinger made just before MARATHON MAN is getting a Blu-ray release from Arrow. Adapted by Waldo Salt (who also wrote the screenplays for MIDNIGHT COWBOY and SERPICO) from Nathanael West’s novel, it’s a film that lifts up the rock that is tinseltown to dispassionately examine the squirming creatures it finds beneath.

Hollywood, 1937 or thereabouts. Tod Hackett (William Atherton) gets a job at Paramount Pictures as a production illustrator. He gets on well with studio executive Claude Estee (Richard Dysart) and is soon moving up in the world, producing drawings for a production about the battle of Waterloo.

Meanwhile in his private life Tod is quickly becoming besotted with Faye (Karen Black) an extra who is happy to string Tod along while also entertaining the attentions of a number of other men including cowboy Earle (Bo Hopkins). Faye’s father Harry (Burgess Meredith) sells cleaning solvent door to door having failed to make the big time. Faye eventually moves in with bewildered accountant Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland), but she soon leaves him, his resultant emotional trauma coinciding with the premiere of a new Cecil B DeMille movie leading to a climax of spectacularly grim and nightmarish proportions.

THE DAY OF THE LOCUST runs 144 minutes and in that time we meet hardly a single character who has any redeeming features. Instead they are all self-obsessed, unpleasant, lacking in empathy or morals and frequently just plain bizarre. The film has been likened to David Lynch’s later MULHOLLAND DRIVE and it’s easy to believe Lynch was influenced by many of the elements of this when he made his classic, from the place where Tod lives to the presence of a mysterious cowboy and the apparitions of strange screaming figures. Even so, the climax still comes out of left field and is not to be spoilt if you’ve never seen this. As well as the above, interesting faces amongst the cast include a very young Jackie Earle Haley as a disturbing child, and William Castle as the director of the Waterloo epic. The location used for his 1959 HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL puts in an appearance as well. 

Arrow’s Blu-ray features a 2K remaster from the original negative, with mono, lossless 5.1 and stereo 2.0 audio options. In 2004 the BBFC cuts scenes of cockfighting for the DVD release and it looks as if these have not been restored (which is of course unsurprising). 

Extras on the disc include a commentary track moderated by the late Lee Gambin that features an assembly of cast and crew members including costume designer Ann Roth, actors Grainger Hines and Pepe Serna, and title designer Dan Perri. Gambin returns for a visual essay on the film (25 minutes) and there’s another visual essay from costume and film historian Elissa Rose (18 minutes) which also features comments from costume designer Ann Roth, while critic Glenn Kenny provides an appreciation of the film (25 minutes). You also get behind the scenes galleries, radio spots, a reversible sleeve and a booklet featuring new writing on the film. 

John Schlesinger’s THE DAY OF THE LOCUST is out on Blu-ray from Arrow on Monday 6th April 2026