Countdown (1967)Desperate to reach the moon first, NASA sends a man and shelter separately, one-way. He must find it to survive; he can't return until Apollo is ready. Director:Robert Altman |
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Countdown (1967)Desperate to reach the moon first, NASA sends a man and shelter separately, one-way. He must find it to survive; he can't return until Apollo is ready. Director:Robert Altman |
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| Complete credited cast: | |||
| James Caan | ... |
Lee Stegler
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| Joanna Moore | ... |
Mickey Stegler
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| Robert Duvall | ... |
Chiz
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Barbara Baxley | ... |
Jean
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Charles Aidman | ... |
Gus
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Steve Ihnat | ... |
Ross Duellan
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| Michael Murphy | ... |
Rick
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| Ted Knight | ... |
Walter Larson
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Stephen Coit | ... |
Ehrman
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John Rayner | ... |
Dunc
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Charles Irving | ... |
Seidel
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Bobby Riha | ... |
Stevie Stegler
(as Bobby Riha Jr.)
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The Apollo 3 crew are training when it is discovered that the Russians plan a moon landing. The Americans enact a makeshift plan to land a man on the moon first, using an older style Gemini spacecraft. Lee is chosen as the astronaut instead of Chiz, who was trained for the mission, because Lee has no military connection. Lee has three weeks to train before take-off, and will have to stay on the moon in a shelter for about a year, until an Apollo is ready to pick him up. However the Russians take off two days earlier than expected. Written by Will Gilbert
This film is not particularly noteworthy in itself, but as a benchmark in the development of science-fiction on the big screen. It marks one of the last gasps of the low-budget, hardware-driven (Rockets and Rayguns, if you like) school of sci-fi and falls well short of its contemporary "Marooned", much less merit any comparison with "2001" and other later high concept films. Altman's direction is sufficient to keep the picture moving along and the overlapping dialogue is a refreshingly sophisticated stuff. The ego clashes of the two pilot candidates for the moon flight seems a bit stilted (Duvall seems at home in the role, but Caan's not up to it), the anti-Soviet rhetoric is a bit grating at times and the female roles are essentially throw-aways. When it's time to put together a retrospective on the sci-fi genre (as has been done for war films) this one might get 15 seconds during the moonshot segment; it hardly deserves more. This film's biggest problem was (apparently) budget -- it's rare to see a film depict the props and procedures of its own era so poorly.