Marooned

Saturday is traditionally "Take out the Trash" day.

Marooned (John Sturges, 1969) Martin Caidin's book "Marooned" presented the dilemma of an astronaut stranded in Earth orbit in a Mercury capsule whose retro-rockets—designed to slow its speed and have it fall back to Earth—failed to fire. That astronaut was doomed to remain in space—although eventually, in years, its orbit would decay enough that it would re-enter the atmosphere on its own—until his meager supply of oxygen ran out and he suffocated. As a book, it was merely okay, taking into account the logistics of actually spending the money and disrupting testing schedules and safety protocols over one man's life. 

There have been some close calls. The accidents of both the American and Soviet space programs are well-documented, and Apollo 13 came within a cat's whisker of skipping off the atmosphere on its return journey after an explosion disrupted their oxygen and power supply. But, no being—since the days of testing capsules with animals—has ever been stranded in space. Technically, it happened June 2024, when two astronauts, who were supposed to only spend 8 days up at the International Space Station, had to abandon their return, and have been up there ever since. Supposedly, the new "rescue" mission was supposed to launch this week...but it's been postponed.

Now, a movie was made in 1969 based on author Caidin's book, but, by the time of its release, the space program had advanced enough that there had already been one manned landing on the Moon with another scheduled days away. So, they looked at future NASA plans—one of which would be called Skylab, a low-tech space station using a spare third stage rocket casing as the orbiter—and based the fictional "Ironman One" mission of Marooned on that. Three astronauts (Richard Crenna, James Franciscus, and Gene Hackman) go up in their capsule to rendezvous, dock and spend seven months on their ersatz, roomy space station, but when Hackman's character gets a little space-woozy after just five months, everybody decides it's time to come home and *pfft* the retro-rockets don't work. Oh, the little green-light that says they're working is on ("We're gonna decorate it for Christmas!" the commander cracks). 

Now, the easiest solution is to get back to their little crude space-station which has plenty of oxygen—their space capsule having a limited supply—but since their big engine won't work, it makes it a little out of reach, space-wise. They have maneuvering thrusters, but they don't have the oomph to do anything but spin the space-craft around. So, NASA has to figure out a way to get their astro-boys back before the air runs out in 42 hours. And that's where the proverbial pooches really get screwed. Oh, NASA's good at schedules, and launch-windows, and prepping enough Tang™, but when it comes to seat-of-your-pants Hail Mary plays, well...let's have a meeting about that.

Thank God, that Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) is, as he likes to tell everybody "head of Manned Space," and as soon as you say "Houston, we've got a problem" it's his problem, too. The thing is, after looking at all the read-outs and not being able to repeat the problem with a similar retro-rocket on Earth, he's ready to give the "it's a risky business, and we will go on in their name" speech, he's told by Astronaut Lead Ted Dougherty (David Janssen)—who's "head of Space Man," I guess—that they should launch a rescue mission with an unproven booster, an untested vehicle prototype and with a hurricane bearing down on Florida and do it in 42 hours. What could go wrong?

But, before you can say "hand me those frozen "O"-rings, Keith shoots it down as being too risky and could only make a bad situation worse. That's when he gets a call from the President—it was Nixon, at the time—who says "Make a bad situation worse? I'm all for it!" Daugherty starts training for the mission—it should be the remedial lesson to save time—but, God turns the hurricane towards Florida, delaying the launch, which leads to the decision to launch when the eye of the hurricane is over the cape. That's some precise hurricane. But, the delay will mean that the trapped crew's oxygen supply will run out.

That is, the oxygen supply for three astronauts. Two might just make it. So, Keith gets to make one of the most cringe-worthy conversations in the history of space movies:

 

Charles Keith: Jim... how do you uh... how do you evaluate... the oxygen situation? 

Jim Pruett: Um... Well, we have whatever oxygen's left in the spacecraft system. And, there are only, uh... two bottles of emergency oxygen on board, five minutes each, that's uh... ten man-minutes. Um... my backpack, and uh... Lloyd's and Stone's, but um... there's not much oxygen left in them.

Charles Keith: Well, you'll have to save your backpacks for the EVA transfer.

Jim Pruett: Yeah I know that. 

[pause] 

Jim Pruett: 55 minutes, 

[longer pause] 

Jim Pruett: we'll be dead by then. 

Charles Keith: Well, only if you... continue to use oxygen at the present rate...

Jim Pruett: Well, uh, we can't cut down. 

Charles Keith: Let's... think about that... 

Jim Pruett: Do, uh... do you want us to lower the partial pressure again? 

Charles Keith: No, we've examined that, it won't work... 

Jim Pruett: Well we're lyin' here like corpses now... uh... what else can we do?

Charles Keith: You must... think... 

[astronauts exchange glances, realizing the unspoken implication of Keith's statement] 

Jim Pruett: Yeah, we're... thinkin'... 

Charles Keith: Are we talking about the same thing? 

Jim Pruett: Yeah. 

Charles Keith: Why don't you... talk it over. If you could... work out something... it would be of great help... 

Jim Pruett: Yeah we'll talk it over.

Charles Keith: I must point out Jim, that any *effective* action must be taken immediately... 

Jim Pruett: Look, don't tell me what to do! We've been takin' your god damned orders and where the hell are we? From now on WE'RE gonna make all the decisions! Whatever we do, you're OUT OF IT! 

Charles Keith: Oh I uh... appreciate what you're saying Jim... and I agree with you... You're exactly right...

  

MAD Magazine (#138, October, 1970) had a field-day with that dialog:

As a "space-kid" growing up, eyes glued to the television every time a space mission happened, this seemed absolutely ludicrous (we hadn't had a death in space yet, only during training, and NASA's lucky streak on their space-flights was nothing short of amazing, but you couldn't tell me that). I was already sitting in my seat, arms folded tightly across my chest with a scowl on my face as the depictions of the vehicles in orbit around the Earth wouldn't have passed muster as a "simulation" the networks always used when they didn't have "picture" for what was happening during their coverage (and that was pretty dicey, even though it inspired the movie Capricorn One and hundreds of resultant conspiracy theories).

Look, I was 14 and that's an age when "fair" is a foreign concept. But, Marooned was released a full year after 2001: a Space Odyssey, with its pristine special effects, and I considered this movie one giant leap backwards. Nothing looked right, or even realistic. The space hardware was pristine, no wads of aluminum foil hanging off the ships (used to reflect sunlight and heat at the time), no wear-and-tear, and they resembled the older Aurora models I used to cement together, in fact, I could have sworn at the time I saw glue on the obvious seams of the Marooned ships. These days, I'm more charitable, but back then, I considered the movie "a travesty"—big word for 14!—but, I told my Dad I liked it...hey, he took me to the movie. I was a punk but I wasn't an ingrate.

And the thing won an Oscar for special effects. Granted, it's only competition was Krakatoa: East of Java (and, as we all know, Krakatoa was WEST of Java, so those were some pretty special effects!). You think you've got a gripe with your favorite picture not winning an Oscar? I've got you beat. I'm torqued because this one DID win an Oscar.

David Janssen flying out of the eye of a hurricane.

Marooned has one big Legacy feature: it's the most expensive, star-filled movie ever to have been featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (albeit in a truncated form entitled "Space Travelers") as the first episode of their fourth season. This is the version of the movie that I prefer to watch.

So, the stranded astronauts still in orbit dredged up the memory of this movie. And I've read a lot of pearl-clutching and rending of garments over their fate, being stuck in orbit floating around Earth with plenty of food, water, oxygen, and the best view in the Solar System. You want to know how the astronauts who've been marooned on the ISS feel about having to stay when they were only scheduled for 8 days? NPR interviewed another member of the astronaut corps and her reply was telling: "Well, I can tell you what the rest of us astronauts down here feel—we're jealous!"

 

Now, that's The Right Stuff. 

Woman in the Moon (1929)

Woman in the Moon (aka Die Frau in Mond, Fritz Lang, 1929) It's the 52nd anniversary of the first Moon Landing by humans (and yes, it did happen and it happened five more times—which brings up the question "why would you fake it six times?"), but movie-makers had been imagining such a scenario for almost as long as there have been movies. There is, of course, A Trip to the Moon, made in 1902 by Georges Méliès, but another one—at least the one that survives—is Fritz Lang's fanciful adaptation of his then-wife's novel "Die Frau in Mond" which was produced two years after his landmark work, Metropolis.

The story tells of an industrialist, Wolf Helius (Willy Fritsch), who visits a scientist, Professor George Manfedt (Klaus Pohl), living in decrepitude after being laughed out of academia by his vision of traveling to the Moon. Manfredt speculates that there is valuable mineral deposits on the Moon, including gold, which would make such a journey economically advantageous—no need for any sort of political one-ups-manship to stimulate such a reckless adventure. Helius begins plans for such a journey. But, there are complications.

A cadre of rival industrialists have been following Manfredt's work, and they dispatch a spy (Fritz Rasp), using the name "Walter Turner", to gain access to the plans. They rob Helius, gaining access to the research, and demand to be part of it, or else they will make attempts to sabotage the project. With so much at stake, Helius agrees to their demands and the man named "Turner" is allowed to accompany the flight.

Also on board will be Helius' two assistants, engineer Hans Windegger (Gustav von Wangenheim) and Friede Velten (Gerda Maurus)—for whom the moon-ship, Friede, is named. The two have recently announced their engagement, a proposal that Helius privately disapproves of, as he is also in love with Frieda. The ship is launched, but, unbeknownst to the vital but conflicted crew, there is a stowaway on board, the youngster Gustav (Gustl Gstettenbaur), who is an avid collection of pulp science fiction magazines.

Now, look. The thing about science fiction, however the media it is presented in, is that it is actually "Prescience"-fiction—a leap of imagination that takes a look at the world and pre-cognitions what it will be in the future. This is always a bit problematic, for there is more than a chance, as we advance through the years, with ever more diverse discoveries and technologies, that the imagineer will get as much wrong as they can get right. When the year 2001 arrived, it was ruefully noted that the movie 2001: a Space Odyssey—as strenuously researched as it was—was wildly off the mark. Not only were there no manned flights to Jupiter, but we were decades from its achieving its vision of Pan-Am shuttles routinely flitting into space (and, in fact, by 2001, Pan-American had gone out of business!). It did get I-pads right, though...

So, one can look at The Woman in the Moon and chortle with the advantage of hindsight about there being gold, or water (found with a divining rod?), or a breathable atmosphere on the Moon, or that the gravity might be equal to Earth's, or that such a primitive craft could make it there.*

But, look at what they got right: The flight would have to be achieved with a multi-stage rocket; the launch vehicle is constructed in an industrial building and then tracked to a launch-pad; they get "G"-forces right, putting the passengers in horizontal beds; although technically wrong, when the rockets are shut off, the crew experience micro-gravity—at one point, the engineer flicks a bottle so he can drink the floating water "bubbles" as has been so often demonstrated on space-flights—using foot-straps to negotiate around the craft; it's the first instance of a "countdown" to launch (a minor point, but still...).

It's eerily prescient. And one is struck by such scenes as the crew reacting visibly to their first "Earth-set." 

Or maybe not so prescient. Maybe, it's cause and effect. Scientists Hermann Oberth and Willy Ley were advisers to the film, and it was very popular at the German VfR, which counted among its members a young student named Wernher von Braun.

Director Fritz Lang lived long enough to see the first Moon landing in 1969. For real, this time.

* Uh-huh. One of the conspiracy theories I "love" is that we couldn't have gone to the Moon in the 1960's because the technology was so primitive back in those days. By today's standards, sure, but, also, these days out more intricate technologies are much more fragile—go ahead, drop your I-phone, which has more computing power than the Apollo computers had bolted into their control panels. What is true is that, today, we might have the technology to fake a moon landing—but we didn't in the time they occurred.

Apollo 11 (2019)

One for the Nerds
or
"It's a View Worth the Price of the Trip"

Apollo 11 (The Imax Experience) is a new film by Todd Douglas Miller using old film by NASA that has sat in vaults for years and years and years gathering Earth-dust, with no eyes to peer upon them and wonder. Why? Budget cuts—it takes man-hours to review the reams of data and artifacts of the Moon Landings and NASA—at the time—was busy with other things like 1) trying to land men on the Moon and 2) trying to legitimize its budget and very existence once having done so.

What sets this documentary apart from the many that will be seen this week is its source material—for much of it, particularly the launch of the initial Saturn 5 booster rocket to send the crew on the first leg of its mission and its recovery 8 days later, was shot using 70mm film, which—when you see it in IMAX (which is how I saw it)—is startlingly clear and defined. One wonders at the power of the Saturn 5 engines vibrating out of focus at the launch, so close you can practically see rivets, or the sense of how hot it was in the viewing stands, every trail of sweat and every pore on the faces of the viewers.

One would think one had seen it all, but Miller (working for CNN Films) takes a different approach—excising all narration, any commentary, footage of talking heads, or witness verification, even (that staple of CNN documentaries) "expert impressions"—to tell the complete story with raw film and audio (enhanced, as always, for dramatic purposes) taken as it happened. One might think this was a simple process, but consider this—nobody had bothered syncing the 32 channels of audio (11,000 hours worth) recorded over the radios in Houston Control with the footage they had shot. Just the thought of that process makes this old recording engineer break out in more of a sweat than if I'd been sitting in the Florida stands that hot July day of the launch.

Certainly, there may be things folks might not want to see—there are one too many shots of Johnny Carson in the stands for me—and Miller does make the footage tell a comprehensive story, especially in the films opening minutes when he has the most material. Once the film settles into the mission itself, footage becomes more scarce and he does a fine job of stretching out the trip without feeling like you're watching reel-ends and discarded footage. Anything that you need to know not provided by the live audio is produced with some nifty graphics with no one having to point out that it was a historic mission or that "this was a critical moment for the crew." It assumes our intelligence—human beings DID go to the Moon, after all—and doesn't waste time with the obvious.

The men—and one woman—of Kennedy Launch Control.

This certainly pays off in certain sequences: the actual landing footage, which we've probably seen more than enough times (but cleaned up to 8k resolution which makes a huge difference), from a single movie camera stuck in a corner of the Lunar Module's triangular windows at an odd angle, properly synced to the audio (this time), while graphics read out speed, altitude, and more importantly—fuel. It would be inaccurate to say that the LM was running on fumes when it landed, but it had certainly gone past the point of safety—your car's gas reminder indicator would have gone off quite awhile before...but Armstrong couldn't look for the nearest gas station. He had to commit...or quit. It's nerve-wracking...especially when you see the moment between alarms, warnings about fuel, that Armstrong sees that they're heading for a dangerous crater, takes over manually and jams the Lunar Module forward to avoid it...while he's running out of fuel.

Another nifty touch...I found it nifty, others might see it as a snooze—the sequences where Apollo 11 fires its engines behind the Moon to fall into its gravity well, and the critical moment when they have to fire it again to get out of orbit and return to Earth. Miller just lets the film run while putting up a graphics display showing speed, length of firing of the engine...read-outs...you watch the speed indicator drop (or speed up) while watching the actual results of it on the film. It feels like you're in the driver's seat and there's a palpable sense of "being there" watching the Moon slow down as the speed drops—and jolt forward when it starts up again. That was a fun little ride.

And Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins? The guys who had to pull it off and had been scrutinized, examined, thrown in the glare of a spotlight never anticipated, and, uniquely were isolated before and after the Mission? They're laconic. Collins was the jokester among the crew and even his humor was martini-dry. But, in the suiting up for the launch, you can see it in Armstrong's eyes. The pressure. He looks like he's barely gotten any sleep the night before. And after the prescribed steak-and-eggs breakfast (which feels a bit like a last meal), he puts on all the gear—they all do, and there's a tentativeness to their expressions. Armstrong was a reticent guy, not much of a smiler, but the determination and antsiness on his face are palpable. He may put on a "public grin" for the cameras walking to his transport, but there is no joy in it, and, indeed, there won't be a smile visible until Aldrin snaps one of the few shots of him during the Mission—all the Moon walk shots are of Aldrin, except two (and in one of them, he's reflected in Aldrin's face-mask)—after they're back inside the Lunar Module. 

And it's a smile of relief. They'd done it. All the potential disasters that Armstrong had deliberately worked against in the simulators back in Houston—resulting in many crashes (to Aldrin's chagrin)—did not happen. Well, they happened. But, Armstrong had a support system back in Mission Control that could radio back in seconds that his targeting computer was getting over-loaded from three sources of information...and tell him to ignore it...keep flying. Stick the landing. That's your job. Everything else is nothing.

It's probably why Armstrong comes back effusive in his praise of the technicians. They had his back 240,000 miles...and a one 1/4-second delay away. Yeah, it may seem like a three man job...but only because hundreds of people were checking all the things the crew didn't have the bandwidth...or time...to learn about the millions of details that went into landing on the Moon.

And we're still learning about them some 50 years later.

Armstrong can smile after his day on the Moon...finally.

The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff (Philip Kaufman, 1979) Something of a miracle. Not just getting into Space. Making a movie of Tom Wolfe's distillation of the effort from the days of breaking the sound barrier post-WWII to the age of astronauts. Wolfe stripped away the Iron Curtain of PR flakkery to tell the story of the men who put their hides on the line to go farther, faster and higher than the earth-bound. And do so on "live" TV. Or in secret during a race for Space with the Russians. Wolfe opened the guarded doors of the test-pilot fraternity and told tales and punctured myths, while simultaneously creating myths anew—of the laconic "other" quality of pilots that pulled them out of scrapes, channeled their fear and kept them climbing the pyramid: the indefinable, ephemeral "right" stuff.

The book was optioned for the movies, but was considered too unwieldy and too expensive to turn into a film. But Philip Kaufman, one of the up-and-coming USC film-school grads took a bare-bones, low-tech approach to the effects, combined it with stock footage of the well-documented space program, and combined it with an irreverent sophomoric humor that combined Wolfe's myth-busting with SNL spoofery. 

But just as Wolfe found a new glory glowing inside the heart of the flummery he was burning away, Kaufman found interesting cinematic ways to illustrate those truths and celebrate the gung-ho heroism of a team of competing fly-boys. Chuck Yeager is a horse-riding cowboy of Western tradition riding in to town to take on a challenge. John Glenn's description of "fire-flies" while in orbit, is tied to the bonfires of Australian natives praying for his safe return. And in this stunning sequence, two disparate incidents from Wolfe's book unite the newly-be-knighted Astronauts with their spiritual mentor and comrade-in-wings.

It starts with the arrival of a new test-jet—The Lockheed NF-104 Starfighter, which Yeager believes can break a record for altitude. With his wing-man, Ridley, he does an inspection of the jet working his way back to the exhaust port, which Kaufman pulls in on.
Kaufman takes us into the dark-hole of the jet-engine, and inside we hear echoing voices and whistles and the sound of drums, and before we can register the change, we're not in the negative space of the engine anymore, we've transitioned to another channeled tube of energy—we're traveling through a tunnel riding atop a limousine from an astronaut's perspective...
...as President Lyndon Johnson stands on a flag-draped stage and welcomes the seven Mercury astronauts to an out-sized barbecue in Houston--the new home for the Manned Space Center, as well as the astronauts and their families. Their homes, their furnishings are all paid for by the Houston developers who are benefiting from Johnson's earmarks. The Mercury 7 are living the good life, while the Man who Broke the Sound Barrier makes a run for space.
Both these incidents happened and are mentioned in Wolfe's book, but they took place months apart, while Kaufman has them happening simultaneously. To what purpose will become clear later, but in the meantime, we follow Yeager (Sam Shepard) as he vaults into the sky, his pilot's gear now more closely resembling the astronaut's flight-suits.
And in one spectacular shot, we see space bend and warp as we approach the feathery layer of a cloud-ceiling, then go through it...
...and the picture fades to an incident from that barbecue--an odd detail that Wolfe found funny and sad and a bit pathetic, but Kaufman turns into visual poetry. For some reason, the Houston event organizers chose as one of the entertainers stripper Sally Rand, now in her 60's, doing her famous "fan-dance" that had wowed 'em at the 1933 Chicago's World Fair. But that was thirty years previous. And the elderly Rand tottered around the stage. To what end, no one can say.
But Kaufman takes that incident and marries it with a running theme throughout the film. The Moon has been a beckoning image throughout The Right Stuff, and now, as the clouds that Yeagher is punching through become the delicate feathers of Sally Rand's fans, she dances to an orchestral version of the melancholy "Clair deLune," by Debussey.

And it's lovely.*
Kaufman stays on his images of empty space and feathers and lights, then to shots of the astronauts and their wives reacting to the irrelevance and embarrassment of it all. And then, something strange happens....
John Glenn (Ed Harris) looks over at fellow astronaut Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), with whom he's had a contentious relationship...
...and Shepard's not even watching the stage-show. He's lost in thought...
...as is Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin).
Glenn turns to look at Gus Grissom (Fred Ward)...
...who is already looking at him.
Grissom turns and looks at his buddy, Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid)
...who is his usual grinning self, but he's subdued. We transition back to Sally Rand...
... and a blaze of kleig-lights to Yeager trying to "punch a hole in the sky."
Yeager reaches top altitude, then his engines give out and he's given one tantalizing glimpse of the stars in space...
...before his fighter-jet begins to rapidly tumble back to Earth.
Unable to bring it under control, Yeager makes a fiery ejection...
...and Kaufman holds on him--trailing smoke, because as we'll see his helmet is on fire--and we watch his long, long fall through space as he tumbles through the silence--a modern Icarus...
...who disappears into the clouds.
The clouds fade back to the feathers of Sally Rand.
...and to the astronauts, who are somewhere else.
Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank) begins to look pensive.
Walter Schirra (Lance Henriksen) acts like he hears something...
Glenn, on edge, looks to Grissom and Cooper...
Grissom is wary...
Cooper, head bowed, tentatively looks up...
as does Slayton...
And Shepard cranes his gaze to the ceiling...
We transition to Sally Rand, and on the soundtrack we hear a distant boom.
With a hard cut, we're back in the California desert.
Reverse angle to an ambulance approaching in the shimmering desert heat.
The driver points ahead "Sir? Is that a man?"
Amid the smoke and heat-waves, a silvery shape emerges.
"Yeah," says Ridley (Levon Helm), "you bet it is."
As the music swells, Yeager carrying his parachute, his face burned, but still chewing gum, approaches the ambulance.
Yeah. You bet it is. It's great film-making, too. And a brilliant sequence by Kaufman that shuffles real time a little, but makes a point about the competitiveness of air-men, giving way to a brotherhood. All of the men in the sequence have competed with each other as well as Yeager to be "at the top of the ol' pyramid," going faster and higher than any person before. The astronauts were test-pilots competing with Yeager, then signed on to become astronauts, "spam in a can" in the test-pilots' jargon, achieving a fame Yeager never would...until Wolfe's book...and this movie

Now at this Houston fete, the astronauts "tune in" to Yeager's struggle, as if linked. Backed by an echoing ochestral version of "Claire DeLune," it is haunting and haunted, communicating viscerally, if not literally, of the bond between the men—Indefinable.

"The Right Stuff."

* It is. And that is true because of Kaufman's direction and Deschanel's cinematography, but also—very importantly—to Peggy Davis, at the time, of the San Francisco Opera Ballet, who performed the dance, but more importantly, CHOREOGRAPHED it. She's in the credits, but I didn't know of her until folks who'd been there on-set, and Ms. Davis' niece, wrote in to share their memories. Thank you all.