![]() While viewers are celebrating the successful liftoff, the men intended to be inside the ship are 300 miles away, landing on a deserted runway in a Lear jet! Meanwhile, everything in the control room appears normal.Ī riveted crowd watches as the craft lifts off on the earth's very first manned space flight to Mars.ĭetails of the launch are duly reported by (yet another well-known face) Alan Fudge. ![]() The trio is spirited away by van to a waiting helicoptor. At his request, the astronauts are about to receive some startling news.Īlthough they're all hooked up and ready to go, veteran character actor Paul Picerni opens the hatch and insists that they exit the spaceship and accompany him immediately. Inside the control room is NASA honcho Hal Holbrook. (You may note Nancy Malone as his wife, who recently popped up in our Susan Oliver tribute.) Busy character actor Lou Frizzell presents the men with a Bible to take with them and Milton Seltzer appears here as one of many technicians on site.įrom a safe distance, a crowd has gathered to mark the occasion.Īmong the crowd are various dignitaries including a congressman played by David Huddleston in a deliciously sly and smarmy performance. and this movie enlists familiar faces in virtually every role. Simpson (well before he became the infamous figure we now know.) ![]() The crew consists of wisecracking Sam Waterston, reliable commander James Brolin and one O. Sure, there are parts that aren't 100% plausible, but it's so deftly directed, unsettling and compelling that the result is a memorable thriller that packs a wallop.Īfter a stunning piece of credits music by Jerry Goldsmith, the movie begins with benign narration, detailing the imminent departure of the title space vehicle, as it prepares for takeoff.Īfter sixteen years, from conception and planning to actuality, things are finally all set and the trio of astronauts is about to board the craft. Capricorn concerns a mission to Mars that doesn't go at all as planned, resulting in dire consequences for several people. Warren Beatty had hit pay dirt with The Parallax View (1974) and others followed suit, making viewers squirm in their seats at the idea that certain parties would stop at nothing to see their secret agendas unfold as planned. One thing though, try to watch it in widescreen - somehow they showed the 4:3 full-frame version on TV here, which was a major drawback considering the movie's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.I have always wanted to pay tribute to today's movie here at Poseidon's Underworld and having recently been reminded of it in the comments section of another post, here we are! Capricorn One (1977) is one of a wave of conspiracy flicks that hit screens in the wake of the Watergate scandal. So much for the plot, the rest is yours to find out about. They figure that now that they're all supposed to be dead, the government will have them killed for real. That is, until their real-life landing capsule disintegrates while re-entering the earth's atmosphere. Things go somewhat well and although the astronauts really begin to resent the big swindle they were drawn into, nobody really notices. It's got everything in place to fool the public about an actual Mars landing. Upon arrival, they are told that they'll have to play make-believe using the facility's very own "Mars" sound stage. When three would-be Mars astronauts are secretly pulled out of their capsule just minutes before liftoff due to a malfunctioning life support system that would have meant certain death, they are quickly transferred to an abandoned air force base out in the desert. Unmistakeably based on the real-life "moon hoax" pseudo-conspiracy, it takes the issue one step further and explores just how far your government might go to cover up its own incapacity and silence everyone who gets in its way (Ironically enough for that matter, the moon landings are portrayed in this movie as a non-hoax and really did take place). This movie is indeed a noteworthy sci-fi/conspiracy flick, even after all these years.
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