Soylent Green (1973)

An intelligent and engaging sci-fi detective story with a disturbing vision of the future.

Directed by Richard Fleischer
Screenplay by Stanley R. Greenberg
Based on “Make Room! Make Room!” by Harry Harrison
Produced by Walter Seltzer, Russell Thacher
Cinematography: Richard H. Kline
Edited by Samuel E. Beetley
Music by Fred Myrow
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 97 minutes
Box office: $3.6 million

Cast

Charlton Heston as Thorn
Leigh Taylor-Young as Shirl
Chuck Connors as Fielding
Joseph Cotten as Simonson
Brock Peters as Hatcher
Paula Kelly as Martha
Edward G. Robinson as Sol Roth
Stephen Young as Gilbert
Mike Henry as Kulozik
Lincoln Kilpatrick as The Priest
Roy Jenson as Donovan
Leonard Stone as Charles
Whit Bissell as Santini
Celia Lovsky as the Exchange Leader
Dick Van Patten as Usher #1

Trailer

• 2022 AD: A dystopian future world beset by climate catastrophe in the form of dying oceans; year-round greenhouse-caused heat and humidity; air, land and sea pollution; poverty; overpopulation and depleted resources.

• Population of New York City: 40.000.000

• Only the elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water and natural food at exorbitantly high prices. Their homes are gated and fortressed and they are provided with private security, bodyguards and slave / concubines referred to as "furniture."

• The bulk of the population has to contend with shortages of food, water and housing.

• NYPD detective Frank Thorn is tasked with investigating the murder of the wealthy and influential William R. Simonson, a board member of the Soylent Corporation.

• What is eventually uncovered could be more than Thorn or anyone else had bargained for…..

Read on for more......

The Ωmega Man (1971)

A time capsule of a sci-fi movie that is enjoyable to watch but lacks the impact and sincerity of its 1964 predecessor, "Last man On Earth"

Directed by Boris Sagal
Screenplay by John William Corrington, Joyce H. Corrington
Based on “I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson
Produced by Walter Seltzer
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Edited by William H. Ziegler
Music by Ron Grainer
Production company Walter Seltzer Productions
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Running time: 98 minutes
Box office: $4,000,000

Cast

Charlton Heston: Neville
Anthony Zerbe: Matthias
Rosalind Cash: Lisa
Paul Koslo: Dutch
Eric Laneuville: Richie
Lincoln Kilpatrick: Zachary
Jill Giraldi: Little Girl
Anna Aries: Woman in Cemetery Crypt (not actually shown in the film)
Brian Tochi: Tommy
DeVeren Bookwalter: Family Member
John Dierkes: Family Member
Monika Henreid: Monika Henreid
Linda Redfearn: Family Member
Forrest Wood: Family Member
Rachel Benson: Family Member
Stewart East: Family Member
Steve Goldstein: Last Boy
William Henry: Stricken Man
Henry Kingi: Family Member
Tanya Samova: Family Member
Fred Trombley: Family Member

Trailer

(Spoilers Follow Below......Please excuse the liberties taken with characters, dialogue and events!)


Robert Neville’s Audio Diary

Entry

Another day and another way to blow off steam and sooth my nerves by burning rubber in my (now deceased) convertible. Popped in an 8-track tape and let the music and the breeze flush the cares away when instinct suddenly slammed on the brakes and long practiced intent fired a few rounds of automatic fire at a shadowy figure flitting by a window inside a building.

Anyway, off I roared in the convertible but soon after I rounded a corner and as I tried to avoid junk lying scattered on the street, I crashed the car and got a flat tire for my troubles. Well, never mind. Cars are there scattered around ready for the taking, much like everything else: money, gold, you name it. No value, no-one to guard it all and no body to clean up the goddamn mess!

Not to worry. Just a short stroll to a dealership and hey presto – a new car! I found myself a nice little convertible in the showroom but “can’t say I’m crazy about the paint job.”

I also wasn’t too crazy about the corpse sitting at his desk in the showroom or the sight of the three-year old 1975 calendar mockingly marking the final days of civilization, together with the picture of a scantily clad woman. How may more reminders do I need that I’m the last remnant of humanity and of my solitude and loneliness?

Nothing like a visit to the cinema to cure feelings of loneliness so off I went to catch “Woodstock” screening "for the third straight year." Sure I know all the words and the goings on in the film by now – but I also know what those young, poor, naïve, dumb bastards on the screen and those in the audience back then didn’t know. All the peace, love, happiness and flowers in the hair, the new explanation, the people in motion; ALL of it would soon turn to shit ‘coz no-one bothered to listen or see what was goin’ on. And now the message of youth is endlessly repeated to an audience of one in a deserted cinema.

“The fact that if we can't all live together and be happy; If you have to be afraid to walk out in the street; If you have to be afraid to smile at somebody, right? What kind of a way is that to go through this life?” Well, we sure as hell found out, didn’t we? “They sure don't make pictures like that anymore.”

As I sat alone in the darkness of the cinema pondering and ruminating on what has come to pass, sure enough I failed to notice the approach of darkness outside with the setting of the sun. Night-time always heralds the approach of something too dark and terrifying to contemplate – something which can only be held at bay by the light!

Read on for more.....

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

An important and innovative sci-fi classic film but one that is often overrated

Trailer

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke
Produced by Stanley Kubrick
Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth
Edited by Ray Lovejoy
Production company: Stanley Kubrick Productions
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 142 minutes
Budget: $10.5–12 million
Box office: $146 million

Cast

Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman
Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole
William Sylvester as Dr. Heywood Floyd
Daniel Richter as Moonwatcher, the chief man-ape
Leonard Rossiter as Dr. Andrei Smyslov
Margaret Tyzack as Elena
Robert Beatty as Dr. Ralph Halvorsen
Sean Sullivan as Dr. Roy Michaels[3]
Douglas Rain as the voice of HAL 9000
Frank Miller as mission controller
Edward Bishop as Aries 1B lunar shuttle captain
Edwina Carroll as lunar shuttle stewardess
Penny Brahms as stewardess
Heather Downham as stewardess
Alan Gifford as Poole's father
Ann Gillis as Poole's mother
Maggie d'Abo as stewardess (Space Station 5 elevator)
Chela Matthison as Mrs. Turner, Space Station 5 reception
Judy Keirn as voiceprint identification woman (Space Station 5)
Vivian Kubrick as Floyd's daughter, "Squirt"
Kenneth Kendall as BBC announcer

Opening sequence

The film opens with pitch blackness – a complete absence of light and matter as if at the moment before the universe came into being. On this science and religion can agree: in the beginning there was darkness until...until….until, and that is what the sustained musical note sets us up for as it gradually rises to a crescendo of sound.

Our expectation is then met with the view of our planet suspended in the inky void of space with the sun seeming to emerge from behind and above it. Celestial gases and gravity have long worked their magic gradually coalescing to form light and life-giving stars and planets and solar systems, so many of which come together to form constellations.

By some miracle, this single planetary jewel (perhaps one might be forgiven thinking - the only one in the universe) has been blessed with the addition of a single seemingly unique and miraculous element – LIFE!

Read on for more

SILENT RUNNING (1972)

A melancholy sci-fi film that makes you think about what could happen, and is in fact happening to our planet, along with the consequences for us all if no action is taken.

Directed by Douglas Trumbull
Written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, Steven Bochco
Produced by: Michael Gruskoff, Marty Hornstein, Douglas Trumbull
Cinematography: Charles F. Wheeler
Edited by: Aaron Stell
Music by: Peter Schickele
Production company: Universal Pictures
Running time: 89 minutes
Budget: $1,350,000

Cast

Bruce Dern: Freeman Lowell
Cliff Potts: John Keenan
Ron Rifkin: Marty Barker
Jesse Vint: Andy Wolf
Mark Persons: the Drone
Steven Brown: the Drone
Cheryl Sparks: the Drone
Larry Whisenhunt: the Drone
Joseph Campanella: Neal - Berkshire' Captain (voice)
Roy Engel: Anderson (voice)

Trailer

Spoilers follow below....

The viewer is at first treated to a close-up view of a slice of nature in all its colorful and vibrant splendor. The camera takes us on a journey through water droplet speckled plant-life along with glimpses of its insect, amphibious and other denizens.

As the camera pulls out, our view is jarred by the sudden appearance in the shot of a section of an artificial surface feature which appears to be a metal foot-ramp. Next we see a monk-like robed human figure and behind and above him a star-strewn view of space. This is not what might at first have been expected.

The robed individual is Freeman Lowell, one of four crewmen aboard American Airlines space freighter Valley Forge. Lowell is the resident botanist and ecologist who maintains the various plants, cultivates the crops and attends to the animal life, all of which are contained in enormous, geodesic greenhouse domes attached to his and other large spaceships.

The lush foliage being framed against the pitch black of outer space and contained within a marvel of human technology makes the existence of the flora and fauna all the more remarkable and miraculous.

“On this first day of a new century, we humbly beg forgiveness and dedicate these last forests of our once beautiful nation, in the hope that they will one day return and grace our foul Earth. Until that day, may God bless these gardens and the brave men who care for them.”

This is the not too distant future, where all plant and animal life on Earth is becoming extinct. What remains has been preserved in the domes of the 2000 meter long orbiting space freighters. The plan or mission is to eventually return the preserved plant and animal life to earth. The Valley Forge, is part of a fleet of freighters currently located just outside the orbit of Saturn.

Freeman Lowell is passionately and one might say obsessively dedicated to his work of preservation and conservation. Not so, however his crew-mates whose main priority is to return to Earth after their one-year deployment to space.

“Do I have to put signs up here to keep you guys off my grass?”

The tranquility of the scene is rudely disrupted by the antics of Lowell’s crew-mates who burst in on Lowell driving motorized buggies, tearing up the soil and nearly bowling Lowell over. Blowing off steam and having fun is a lot more appealing to Lowell’s crew-mates than dedication and respect for what’s around them and their responsibility toward it.

In the next few scenes featuring his interaction with his crew mates, Lowell comes across not just as some hippie drop-out intent on merely shunning civilization. Instead, this is a man who appreciates the natural world and all that it offers, who is adept at working in partnership with technology as a tool and one who can play a mean hand of poker which suggests skill at strategy and bluff. He probably just prefers the natural world and technology to his fellow ass-hole human beings and is fully committed to the ideals behind the forest preservation mission.

More importantly, Lowell appears to be a hopeless and naive optimist who fervently believes that the authorities back on earth have indeed paid attention to his communications and that “they're about to re-establish the parks and forest system” with him as director. After all, he’s spent the last eight years dedicated to the project and that “here's no way they're gonna announce cutbacks, not after this amount of time.”

“You don't think that it's time that somebody cared enough to have a dream?”

What Lowell doesn’t seem to understand is the fickle and self-absorbed nature of human beings as alluded to by crewman Wolf who tells him, “it's been too long, Lowell, people got other things to do now.”

This sentiment is underscored by a radio transmission from Con Central in which their boss, Anderson informs the crews of the fleet that orders have been received to “abandon, then nuclear destruct, all the forests and return our ships to commercial service.”

It is at this point that something within Lowell’s psyche seems to snap and begins to unravel. It is as if there is no place in the universe anymore for logic, reason, for rationality, for a sense of right and wrong. To him, such a destructive course of action as the blowing up of the Earth’s last remaining forests in space is just “insane.”

"Rejoice in the Sun"

♪ Fields of children ♪

♪ Running wild ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Like a forest is your child ♪

♪ Growing wild ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Doomed in his innocence ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Gather your children ♪

♪ To your side ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Tell them ♪

♪ All they love will die ♪

♪ Tell them why ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Tell them ♪

♪ It's not too late ♪

♪ Cultivate one by one ♪

♪ Tell them to harvest ♪

♪ And rejoice ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

(Joan Baez)

A future time where all flora and fauna is extinct on Earth.

The planet's ecosystems exist only in large pods attached to spacecraft.

Commercial interests have now taken precedence.

The pods are to be jettisoned into space and destroyed by nuclear devices.

The crew of Valley forge and other ships can return home to earth.

Botanist and crew member Freeman Lowell has tended the plants for eight years.

How will the dedicated Lowell take the news?

Is the earth destined to lose the last of its forests and living creatures?

Read on for more....

Demon Seed (1977)

A chilling prescient and deceptively complex sci-fi thriller of a film

Directed by Donald Cammell
Produced by Herb Jaffe
Screenplay by Robert Jaffe, Roger O. Hirson
Based on novel, “Demon Seed” by Dean Koontz
Music by Jerry Fielding
Cinematography: Bill Butler
Edited by Francisco Mazzola
Production companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Herb Jaffe Productions
Distributed by United Artists (United States), Cinema International Corporation (International)
Running time: 94 minutes
Box office: $2 million

Cast

Julie Christie as Susan Harris
Fritz Weaver as Alex Harris
Gerrit Graham as Walter Gabler
Berry Kroeger as Petrosian
Lisa Lu as Soon Yen
Larry J. Blake as Cameron
John O'Leary as Royce
Alfred Dennis as Mokri
Davis Roberts as Warner
Patricia Wilson as Mrs. Trabert
E. Hampton Beagle as Night Operator
Michael Glass as Technician #1
Barbara O. Jones as Technician #2
Dana Laurita as Amy
Monica MacLean as Joan Kemp
Harold Oblong as Scientist
Georgie Paul as Housekeeper
Michelle Stacy as Marlene
Tiffany Potter as Baby
Felix Silla as Baby
Robert Vaughn as voice of Proteus IV

Film Clip

A human has created

a machine…

Now the machine

wants to create

a human!

*********

“A beautiful woman…

A master computer…

The most shocking act

Of creation ever imagined!!”

*********

A woman...

imprisoned

and

forcibly impregnated

by an

artificially intelligent computer!

“Fear for her!!!!”

Read on for more.....

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

A thoughtful and absorbing post apocalyptic movie that has soul

Directed by Sidney Salkow, Ubaldo B. Ragona
Produced by Robert L. Lippert
Screenplay by Logan Swanson, William F. Leicester
Italian version: Furio M. Monetti, Ubaldo B. Ragona
Based on “I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson
Music by Paul Sawtell, Bert Shefter
Cinematography: Franco Delli Colli
Edited by Gene Ruggiero
Italian version: Franca Silvi
Production companies: Associated Producers Inc.; Produzioni La Regina
Distributed by American International Pictures (US), 20th Century Fox (International)
Running time: 86 minutes

Cast

Vincent Price as Dr. Robert Morgan
Franca Bettoia as Ruth Collins
Carolyn De Fonseca dubbed for Franca Bettoia's voice in the English release of the film.
Emma Danieli as Virginia Morgan
Giacomo Rossi Stuart as Ben Cortman
Umberto Raho (billed as Umberto Rau) as Dr. Mercer

“By night they leave their graves, crawling, shambling, through empty streets, whimpering, pleading, begging for his blood!

Do you dare to imagine what it would be like to be... the last man on earth... or the last woman?

Alive among the lifeless... alone among the crawling creatures of evil that make the night hideous with their inhuman craving!”

“HOW MUCH HORROR CAN YOU FACE?

...where lifeless hands reach out for the warmth of human flesh

...where terror walks on tiptoe begging for the blood of...

The Last Man on Earth!”

A plague devastates life on Earth and turns all of humanity into the living dead!

Dr. Robert Morgan is the sole unscathed human survivor on the planet.

For three years his daily routine consists of killing the zombie-like creatures by night and fortifying his house for his own safety by day.

With his wife and daughter having been taken by the outbreak, Morgan faces a constant battle against loneliness while trying to preserve his sanity.

But is there any point to all this?

It seems that the odds are against this last remnant of humanity……

Trailer

Read on for more........

Countdown (1968)

A rather dry, less than exciting but well-acted snapshot of the space race during the Cold war period of the late 1960s. The film deals with complex emotions and human behavior instead of technology but suffers from a lack of tension and suspense.

The Soviets are about to launch a manned mission to the moon.

A desperate bid by the US to land a man on the moon before the Soviets do.

An Apollo moon program that isn’t ready to launch yet. 

A rushed preparation to send a single astronaut in a modified Gemini capsule to land on the moon.

He is to remain alone on the moon in a lunar shelter for a year until an Apollo mission can rescue him.

BUT.....

Who will be selected for this hastily prepared and perilous mission and can it succeed?

Directed by Robert Altman
Produced by William Conrad
Screenplay by Loring Mandel
Based on “The Pilgrim Project” by Hank Searls
Music by Leonard Rosenman
Cinematography: William W. Spencer
Edited by Gene Milford
Production company: A William Conrad Production
Distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Running time: 101 minutes

Cast

James Caan as Lee Stegler
Joanna Moore as Mickey Stegler
Robert Duvall as Chiz Stewart
Barbara Baxley as Jean
Charles Aidman as Gus
Steve Ihnat as Ross Duellan
Michael Murphy as Rick
Ted Knight as Walter Larson
Stephen Coit as Ehrman
John Rayner as Dunc
Charles Irving as Seidel
Bobby Riha as Stevie Stegler

Trailer

(Spoilers follow below....)

We are transported back to the late 1960s, a time we recall being one of change, the rise of counter-culture and impending social and political turmoil. Shielded from all of the ructions of the times within the bubble of the Gemini and Apollo moon programs, we find three astronauts training in an Apollo 3 simulator with their main concern consisting of having their session being aborted abruptly with the “third orbit coming up.”

The astronauts inhabit a world of buzz and crew-cutted, skinny-tied, narrow-trousered and short shirt-sleeved mission focused dedication to the achievement of a history-making goal: sending a man to the moon.  

♪♪ Johnny we gotta make a moon shot

Or the Russians will leave us behind

So get ready soon and we'll drop you on the moon.. ♪♪

Read on for more

Francois Truffaut’s, Fahrenheit 451 (1966) - Part 2

 

Commentary

(Some spoilers below...)

Background & Production

Truffaut’s film is based on Ray Bradbury's famous novel, Fahrenheit 451. It was Truffaut's first color film and his only non French-language film. At the 1966 Venice Film Festival, Fahrenheit 451 was nominated for the Golden Lion.

In a detailed diary Truffaut kept during the production, he referred to Fahrenheit 451 as being his "saddest and most difficult" film-making experience, mainly because of intense conflicts between Werner and himself, about which much has been made by others. For instance, Oskar Werner supposedly cut his hair for the final scene to create a continuity error, being motivated by his hatred for the director. For the last two weeks, both men reportedly didn't speak to one another. Still, what work place doesn’t have conflict and difficult interpersonal relationships? Not all films that have cast and crew holding hands and singing Kumbaya turn out to be masterpieces. It’s the end result that counts and in the case of Truffaut’s film, it’s a pretty good result.

Julie Christie was originally cast as just Linda Montag, with the part of Clarisse being offered to Jean Seberg and Jane Fonda, with even Tippi Hedren being considered. Truffaut ultimately decided that Christie be cast in both roles as two sides of the same coin so to speak. Julie Christie agreed to star in this film for $200,000, while her asking price at the time was $400,000.

The film was shot at Pinewood Studios in England. The monorail exterior scene was taken at the French SAFEGE test track in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire near Orléans, France. It was dismantled shortly after filming. The film featured the Alton housing estate in Roehampton, south London, and Edgcumbe Park in Crowthorne, Berkshire. The final "Book People" book reciting scene was filmed at Black Park near Pinewood. It was hoped the weather would improve for the final days of shooting. Instead, it had begun snowing during the night. The presence of snow in the final shots was unexpected and unplanned but proved to be effective.

The production work was done in French, as Truffaut spoke virtually no English but co-wrote the screenplay with Jean-Louis Richard.

The movie's opening credits are spoken rather than displayed in type, which suggests what life would be like in a society in which the printed word is banned.

Truffaut’s “Fahrenheit 451” doesn’t offer us a sleek whiz-bang typical sci-fi 'futuristic' view of the future. Unlike Bradbury’s book, there is no deadly mechanical hound. Bradbury wasn’t focused on anticipating the possible great technological advancements of the future. Instead of such details, he would focus on presenting “what if?” scenarios and considering implications and consequences for humanity. What we do have though in the film version are commuters traveling via monorail and living rooms with wall screens uncannily resembling our own 21st century HDTV sets. The houses are uniform ‘60s style modernist functional but soulless structures that seem to contain retro gadgets like the wall phones. Even the red fire engines look like dinky Tonka toys rather than massive high-tech futuristic beasts. Such elements seem to suggest to the viewer that we are dealing with a world that is not too far removed from our own experience.

Read on for more....

Francois Truffaut’s, "Fahrenheit 451" (1966) - Part 1

An excellent adaptation of a great novel and in keeping with the spirit of Bradbury’s classic story.

Trailer

“Fahrenheit 451” is a 1966 British dystopian sci-fi film directed by François Truffaut, starring Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, and Cyril Cusack. The film is based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury. The story is set in a future tightly controlled society in which the government deploys firemen to incinerate all literature in order to prevent any independent thinking that might upset the established order of things.

This post concentrates on Truffaut’s film version of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” Any mention or consideration of Bradbury’s excellent novel is confined to “The Points Of Interest” section in the next post (part 2).

Note: In the world of “Fahrenheit 451” books and print have been banned and upon discovery are put to the flame and burned to ashes. Therefore, the story’s synopsis will be in the form of a mp3 file which you can download here:

Mp3 File Film Synopsis

PDF Download (Film Synopsis)

BBC Radio Play Adaptation

EPUB/PDF Book 

Audiobook

Full Film Link

©Chris Christopoulos 2021

Marooned (1969)

This tightly structured, well-acted and workmanlike film is beautifully directed and neatly combines aspects of human behavior and technological dilemma.

Directed by John Sturges
Produced by M. J. Frankovich
Screenplay by Mayo Simon
Based on “Marooned” by Martin Caidin
Cinematography: Daniel L. Fapp
Edited by Walter Thompson
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Running time: 134 minutes
Budget: $8–10 million

Cast

Gregory Peck as Charles Keith
Richard Crenna as Jim Pruett
David Janssen as Ted Dougherty
James Franciscus as Clayton Stone
Gene Hackman as Buzz Lloyd
Lee Grant as Celia Pruett
Nancy Kovack as Teresa Stone
Mariette Hartley as Betty Lloyd
Scott Brady as Public Affairs Officer
Frank Marth as Air Force Systems Director
Craig Huebing as Flight Director
John Carter as Flight Surgeon
Walter Brooke as Network Commentator
Vincent Van Lynn as Aerospace Journalist
George Gaynes as Mission Director
John Forsythe as The President (voice only)
Tom Stewart as Houston Capcom
Bill Couch as Cosmonaut

1969 Trailer

Spoilers follow below....

“Spacecraft systems are go”

The early morning serene stillness slowly heralds the dawning of a new day. At the same time an acronymed and abbreviated staccato countdown proceeds toward another dawning of a new day in which the fabric of Nature’s tranquil curtain is about to be rent by the rude sharp thrust of humanity’s spear of technological optimism.

Three U.S. astronauts (commander Jim Pruett, "Buzz" Lloyd, and Clayton "Stoney" Stone) are to be the first crew of an experimental space station on an extended duration mission.

Their Apollo spacecraft is named, “Ironman One,” conjuring up impressions of Marvelled invincibility and superhuman powers. The mission seems to exude supreme confidence and after a successful launch which appears to be quite routine and within the capsule (despite the bone-jarring lift-off) surprisingly serene and sedate, it is observed by one of the astronauts, “Hey, it looks like a fine day down there! I can see all the way from Gibraltar to Greece. Coming up on the terminator, should be in our first sunset in a few minutes.”

The only thought given to any problem or difficulty seems to lie with obtaining a clearer picture for the cameras.

After 22 minutes into the flight, the crew will set about “the business of the flight plan” involving a rendezvous on docking with the Saturn 4B orbital laboratory. The lab is very much like the Skylab of the 1970s we’re familiar with.

Routine, predictability, training and technology combine to achieve the successful completion of the docking procedure with the orbital laboratory into which the crew of Ironman One will transfer and where they will live and work for the next seven months.

According to the Public Affairs Officer, “this will be a test of the spacecraft, the systems and most of all the men in preparation for interplanetary deep-space missions which are now being planned.”

Apparently with the moon landings under its belt and with rendezvous and docking procedures along with extra vehicular activities having become something of a walk in the park, humanity is now optimistically setting its sights further afield, perhaps in this case to Mars.

About five months into the mission problems begin to emerge in which it is observed there is a serious decline in the ability to perform simple manual tasks, along with lack of sleep, fatigue and weight loss. Lloyd in particular has begun to exhibit erratic behavior and substandard performance. His physical appearance and demeanor speaks volumes. Equipment is beginning to fail, mistakes are being made and the wrong kind of problems and priorities are being fixated on.

In the face of these developments, NASA management decides to end the mission early.

After closing down the S-4B lab, the Apollo spacecraft prepares for separation followed by automatic sequence of retrofire. Routine, predictability, training and technology should combine to enable them to start their “descent across Australia towards the splash point in the Pacific some 400 miles south of Midway Island.” All they now need to do is wait for confirmation of retrofire….

“Ironman One, Ironman One, this is Houston CapCom, do you read?”

Space is no place for hubris and over-confidence. If care is not taken and respect is not given, space will kill you. Humans are not evolved to live and work in space for very extended periods of time. The only way that can be achieved is to terraform the new environment or bio-engineer humans to cope with the hostile conditions.

There is only in reality the thin skin of a spacesuit, a spacecraft or habitat that separates one from being alive or being sucked into oblivion. Technology does fail and humans do make mistakes and space is unforgiving of both.

If the recent process of extended lockdowns and social distancing has taught us anything, it is that being social and gregarious creatures, humans can experience difficulties when cut off from normal social activities and interactions. No selection process can possibly anticipate and eliminate all the possible psychological and other group dynamic factors and problems that are likely to occur on extreme long duration space flights and planetary colonization.

Nor will public affairs spin be able to completely and effectively white wash this supposed “successful prelude to the long-term space voyages that some day will be normal and routine…” as after a tense period of attempting to communicate with Ironman One, the message is received, “We have negative retrofire. Negative, no burn.”

Read on for more.....

Panic in Year Zero! (1962)

 (a.k.a. End of the World)

Oscar-winner actor Ray Milland’s sole directorial effort stands as a simple but brutal sci-fi film that exposes the ugly aspects of human nature during the struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic nuclear nightmare.

Directed by Ray Milland
Produced by Arnold Houghland, Lou Rusoff
Screenplay by John Morton, Jay Simms
Story by Jay Simms
Music by Les Baxter
Cinematography: Gilbert Warrenton
Edited by William Austin
Distributed by American International Pictures
Running time: 93 minutes
Budget: $225,000

Cast

Ray Milland as Harry Baldwin
Jean Hagen as Ann Baldwin
Frankie Avalon as Rick Baldwin, son
Mary Mitchel as Karen Baldwin, daughter
Joan Freeman as Marilyn Hayes
Richard Bakalyan as Carl
Rex Holman as Mickey
Richard Garland as Ed Johnson, hardware store owner
Willis Bouchey as Dr. Powell Strong
Neil Nephew as Andy
O.Z. Whitehead as Hogan, grocery store owner
Russ Bender as Harkness
Shary Marshall as Bobbie Johnson
Byron Morrow as Evacuee from Newhall
Hugh Sanders as Evacuee from Chatsworth

Trailer

Standby for an important address to the nation by the President of the United States:

What if it all went horribly wrong on that fateful day in 1962!

Los Angeles 1962….

A family leaves for a camping trip...

A nuclear attack destroys the city...

Chaos begins to reign supreme...

Old values and ideals crumble...

A father fights to keep his family alive….

“This is civilization’s jungle after the jackals of society have ruthlessly ravaged it, ending the world of decency!”

Read on for more.....