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. 

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Saturday is typically "Take Out the Trash" Day. Hope the birds don't pick at it.

 

Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Hall Bartlett, 1973) The 1970's were a weird time for book publishing. The literary landscape hadn't even seen the first novel of Steven King published, but was suffering the throes of such literary lites as Jacqueline Susann, Harold Robbins, and Arthur Hailey, while seeing the last published works of Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway. "Love Story" was the surprise of 1970—a very (very) slim novel by Erich Segal that moved people to tears and rang bells on cash registers (no beeps!) for a year.

 

Then, an even slimmer tome (144 pages, many of them black and white photographs)hit the racks in 1970 with a limited run of 3,000 books. "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," sold out, but didn't become a "thing" until 1972, where it seemed ubiquitous, not just in bookstores, but in places where "notions" and tchotchkes were sold. It remained on the NYT Bestseller List for 37 weeks.

 

As a book, it was an "odd bird," seemingly born out of the "love generation" but with a metaphorical slant towards enlightenment through self-improvement at the same time that things like Dale Carnegie, Scientology, and EST were gaining a mind-grab on the consciousness along with the multi-verse of belief systems that sprang up out of the 1960's.

The book tells the story of Jonathan—a seagull—who has become dissatisfied with his lot of fighting over food sources (usually garbage) and, instead, concentrates on flight—its possibilities, its mechanics, and the conquering of its limitations. This puts him at odds with the rest of his flock and he is cast out for his beliefs, to continue his process on his own, which he finds to be rather rewarding without the constant squawking and fighting.

Finally, Jonathan is led by a couple of other gulls to "a higher plane of existence" where he meets the seagull Obi-Wan Kenobi, Chiang, who helps Jonathan realize that he can be anywhere he wants in the Universe if he only apply himself and "begin by knowing that you have already arrived" (which sounds suspiciously like "no matter where you go, there you are"*). Finally, Jonathan decides that, rather than wander the Universe by himself, he'll return to terran roots and teach what he's learned to other gulls.

There are those who say that the best movies are made from novellas, rather than novels, because it allows you to stretch out the ideas, rather than try and condense the book for a two hour presentation. But, the film that director Hall Bartlett (he made Zero Hour!, which was the serious inspiration for Airplane!) has a hard time expanding the slight story-line into a 99 minute movie, even padded as it is with VERY serious songs by Neil Diamond. It doesn't help that it is basically a Nature film—of seagulls—where they talk to each other in voice-over (by the likes of James Franciscus, Juliet Mills, Richard Crenna, Dorothy McGuire, Hal Holbrook, and Philip Ahn), when one suspects it would be better to just feature a narration by David Attenborough—that man makes fossils fascinating.

Not sure what he could do with this, though. The film, while boasting excellent cinematography is just ham-strung by a slim story, disconnected dialogue, opaquely expressive seagulls and so many endless (and one must say) loosely interpretive and pretentious songs.** I remember watching it in the theater and being so thoroughly unimpressed that I wanted to fly out the nearest exit (something I've only done once) whether on this plane or any other. I consoled myself by watching the screen and cynically repeating the line of the woman concierge in The Producers: "Boids!, Dirty, disgusting, filthy, lice-ridden...boids!" Maybe a little humor would have helped. Maybe it should have been animated. You could do wonders with it these days with CGI and maybe a little more imagination.

"Speak for yerself, bub"

But, no. The problem is the story. Look, I've been moved by efforts of self-actualization and improvement by Larry Darrell from The Razor's Edge and even from Remy the rat from Ratatouille. But, somehow, in this context, the message just doesn't squawk through. There is nothing about a seagull trying to break the air-speed record/time-space continuum that isn't risible, physically and spiritually, and treating it so religiously with such heavy-handed profundity makes it an easy target for the Doubting Thomases, like me. There should have been something celebratory about this, not something torturous. And if I can be just as obnoxiously obvious and "on-the-nose," Jonathan Livingston Seagull is..."for the birds."

 

"Boids..."

 

 

* From the teachings of Buckaroo Banzai .
 

 ** Diamond ended up suing the producer-director for not using ENOUGH of his music, and that he had to share a music credit with composer Lee Holdridge. Richard Bach ended up suing, also, saying that Bartlett's screen-story deviated too far from the book and his screenplay. The movie crashed and burned in theaters, so I guess you have to make your money SOME way!

The Valley of Gwangi

This was written in tandem with my appearance on the Forgotten Filmcast podcast, which you can find by clicking here.

The Valley of Gwangi (Jim O'Connelly, 1969) The idea for The Valley of Gwangi had been around since Willis O' Brien—the genius behind the stop-motion animation sequences in King Kong—shopped it around the studios in 1939, with no takers for his cowboys-and-dinosaurs concept. RKO was more interested in a Kong sequel, the result of which was 1949's Mighty Joe Young, a cowboys-and-gorilla movie that O'Brien worked on with a young protege named Ray Harryhausen. 

 

It was not the most stable work to be a stop-motion animator. Special effects movies were no guarantee of box-office, the meticulous one-frame-at-a-time process usually played havoc on scheduling for release, and Hollywood was more interested in what they could do fast and cheap. Plus, special effects...if not done well...had a way of cheapening everything else. Special effects movies were a niche market, as well, even more risky to have a hit.

The Valley of Gwangi began production on a high—Harryhausen's work was featured in a box office success—the Hammer film One Million Years B.C. (although one would argue that people were going to see Raquel Welch in an improbable fur bikini rather than Harryhausen's dinosaur fights). Harryhausen had partnered with Charles H. Schneer, with whom he'd made a few adventure films in the 1950's and early 60's. After One Million Years B.C.—which Schneer had nothing to do with—the two settled on a formula similar to their fantasy/adventure films of the earlier time...only they'd add a buxom female lead to the mix.

Gwangi begins with the discovery of a body in a remote corner of the Mexican desert. Carlos (Gustavo Rojo) finds a member of his gypsy band unconscious clutching a burlap bag in which something is moving. Cut to the T.J. Breckinridge Wild West Show trudging into a small Mexican town, the latest stop in their tour. Watching is Tuck Kirby (James Franciscus), who's working for the competing Buffalo Bill show and wants to buy the Breckinridge outfit out. Two things will get in his way: Manager Champ Connors (Richard Carlson) doesn't like Kirby due to his past history; and T.J.Breckinridge (Gila Golan) who has taken over ownership of the show after her father's passing, and is the other party in Kirby's "past history."

T.J. won't sell—she has a secret attraction that will make the show's fortune. And who better to show it to than her competition/former lover? It's a tiny horse—the one found in the desert—and she's sure that the creature will be a sensation. Kirby thinks so, too, enough that he wants to find out where "My Little Pony" was found. A gypsy boy Lope (Curtis Arden) thinks he knows the answer and in their search they come across a paleontologist (Laurence Naismith), who has a fossilized footprint of just such a small animal that he's also searching for.

The presence of the little horse, called El Diablo at the Wild West Show and eohippus by the paleontologist, is a source of conflict among the local gypsies who believe that removing the creature from its home in the Forbidden Valley will bring about a curse that will doom everyone forever, and the scientist conspires with them to steal the critter and return it home, ostensibly to ward off any evil, but from the prof's standpoint, he'll be able to discover where it originated. When the horse-napping is discovered, Kirby, Connors and Breckinridge all ride out in the desert, following the trail of the thieves.

They get more than they bargained for. The Forbidden Valley is the last vestige of a prehistoric kingdom, home to many sorts of dinosaurs, all ferociously ready to do a lot of biting. Of course, Carlson sees these things and goes into "Carl Denham"-mode* wanting to capture the most lethal of the beasts and make him a star attraction of the Wild West show. Surprisingly, T.J. thinks this is a grand idea. Kirby thinks they're all nuts—"the only thing I want to bring back alive is myself!"

Hubris being hubris and movie formula being movie formula, an allosaurus is brought back to the show...and chaos ensues...right at show-time (it just goes to show you what you miss if you arrive late!). How will a turn-of-the-century Mexican town get rid of a rampaging dinosaur? After all, there aren't any available major power lines nearby...they haven't been invented yet! And history doesn't help as the chances of a big asteroid hitting are a bit remote.

It's entertaining, but, golly, it is dumb. But give credit to the actors to playing their scenes with deadly earnest. The look of incredulity on Franciscus' face when he sees his first dinosaur is a nice study in less-is-more, not over-playing it, just a look of "how the heck am I going to break THAT?"** Franciscus was a small "a" actor who was impressive on the television screen but not so much in movies. His character stays refreshingly consistent as a slightly seedy roustabout, who could turn at any moment despite wearing the whitest of hats...and suits. The other actors are either troopers...or they're dubbed.

And one has to admit that a Blu-Ray presentation of this feature won't be an improvement unless they do some major tweaking of the special effects sequences, especially in the colorization. It's been pointed out that "Gwangi" (with a soft 'g") keeps changing hue without any mention of having camouflage ability. And in most of the stop-motion scenes, the dirt surrounding the creature is consistently a different shade than the dirt in the film-footage. It's as if Gwangi is being followed by a spot-light. Those details are heard to tweak when you're going one frame at a time...or the film-stock used in the process let them down. In whatever case, it's enough noticeable on video to slightly disappoint.

Still one can't do anything but marvel at what Harryhausen was able to do at the time, going frame per frame, with the film footage projected behind it. The subtle lip curls, the almost required animal behavior—before Franciscus notices Gwangi, there's a moment or two of waiting, so the dino scratches its head!—the intricacy, even given the jaded perspective of a CGI-niverse is a wonder to behold. 

 

King Kong was the 8th Wonder of the World. Harryhausen was the 9th.

 * Carl Denham is the relentlessly crass entrepreneur who insisted on bringing King Kong from Skull Island to New York, presenting it as "the 8th Wonder of the World."

 

**