Three NASA astronauts struggle to return to Earth alive after a malfunction strands them in orbit. As diminishing oxygen supplies and growing anxiety take their toll on the men, back on Earth arguments are bragging about the benefits of the space program in general and their flight in particular.
Click here to see the rest of this review...
The review of this Movie prepared by Chris Oakley
Three American astronauts are returning from several months at a space station when the retro rockets on their command module, "Ironman," fail to fire and they are stranded in orbit. Mission Control debates whether a rescue flight can reach them before their oxygen runs out (for extra tension, a hurricane is headed for the launch area!), and a Soviet spacecraft also tries to make contact. The three astronauts are played by Crenna, Hackman (very early in his acting career, though he was 39), and James Franciscus. Peck is head of the space program, Janssen mans the rescue craft. Lee Grant and Mariette Hartley may be seen briefly among the wives. Director John Sturges, nearly forgotten today, was at the end of a long career that included 30 films in the 1940s and 1950s as well as such classics as "The Magnificent Seven," "The Great Escape," "Gunfight at the OK Corral," and "Bad Day at Black Rock." The movie was based on a novel by Martin Caidin, who had plotted a single astronaut stranded in a Mercury-style capsule, then rewrote the book for the Apollo program and the movie. (He became better known as the author of _Cyborg_, which inspired the TV series "The Six Million Dollar Man.") Ironically, the film was released in December of 1969, after Apollos 11 and 12 had walked on the moon, and four months before ill-fated Apollo 13 had its infamous mishap. "Marooned" won an Oscar for its special effects, which were impressive at the time but look comparatively rudimentary today. A slightly cheesy but still entertaining piece of work.
The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
