Good code-words are like this. When guarding a gate to an air force field: car drives up with Station Commander in it. He stops and shows you his ID card (not necessary, as there's a 'distinction' visible on his car that gives him immediate access that he must put there himself. 'Good to see you sir / good morning sir.' 'Is it raining?' 'Not while I've been on duty, sir.' 'Perhaps it'll dry later.' He drives away, I stroll back to the guard office: 'Station Commander is being coerced by threats, set Bikini Black Alpha local and alert (higher authority).' I'm paraphrasing.
And of course the great Robert Wise for bringing Crichton's novel to the big screen: the same Oscar-winning director of West Side Story and (if you believe it) The Sound of Music!! But then he also did The Day the Earth Stood Still and the first Star Trek movie. What a brilliant and versatile filmmaker he was!
Not in this scene, but in the Scene where we first meek Dr. Hall, just as he's about to begin a surgery, the Anesthesiologist behind the glass with the person calling him on the intercom is Michael Crichton.
If you're someone who hasn't seen this movie and thinks it's old-fashioned and you wouldn't enjoy it, you should rethink that. This is a well written well-acted well-directed movie and even though the technology is way behind what we have now everything about it is logical for the time. When a lot of stupid science fiction movies were being made.
Two of the best sci-fi films of the 70s - Soylent Green and The Andromeda Strain. Massively entertaining and hugely thought-provoking. Soylent Green is woefully misunderstood, in particular. It contained one of the most moving scenes in all of film and it was Edward G. Robinson's last film. It should have iconic status as the first true dystopian science fiction film.
Sol and Thorn's last exchange in the euthanasia clinic was particularly touching. It was especially difficult for Heston, as he knew that his friend and co-star was dying in real life and he would probably not see him again. Robinson died shortly after finishing his scenes, four months before the film's release.
About the only time that Michael Crichton was close to original. Jurassic Park = Westworld, one of his own. Westworld = the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' ride at Disneyland, plus the 'Shore Leave' episode of Star Trek. Congo = the second Tarzan film but Tarzan was eaten as a child. Andromeda Strain = his experiences and what he heard while a medical student.
I love that they cast people who actually look like scientists and Doctors. Made it a lot more immersive. If they made it now the leads would be handsome with a few supporting actors looking like odd ducks to make it seem “realistic”. Great movie.
That was a very specific issue for Robert Wise (the director), that they not use any "stars" but rather a set of good actors who could do the roles well and play off each other, so that the audience would react to them solely as their characters.
Today, they would all be "alphabet" people with the lead being a "smartest bestest evah" POC female using an actress who can't act with the charisma of a plank.
Yes, Wayne was a fine actor. The underrated cast of actors in this film included Arthur Hill, James Olson and of course, the wonderful Canadian actress Kate Reid. Similar to the film Alien from 1979, the actors are not bankable star performers but deliver splendid ensemble work that serves the story.
For those commenting on how close this movie followed the book, you have Nelson Gidding to give your thanks to. He was a legendary adaptation screenwriter that was nominated for an Oscar. He had an amazing talent for converting an author's tone onto film and this film is absolutely a feather in his cap.
Kate Reid as Dr. Ruth Leavitt was one of the most interesting characters in the film. A female scientist wasn't in Crichton's original book. But director Robert Wise changed it for the movie. He said she brought a "tough mom-ism" to the film.
It was nice to see a female scientist brought in for brains and not just for decoration, a la Raquel Welch in "Fantastic Voyage" or Julie Adams in "Creature."
One of the things that's great about this absorbing film is that it was made in 1971 and also set in 1971 or 72 and not in "the future." The advanced large computers and computer graphics on screen of that era are fairly accurate as is the (antiquated even for 1971) paper tickertape readout machine (not seen in the clip,) which was still in use by the military.
I was around 12 when I went to the theater with an older brother and friends to see this movie. It scared the shit out of me. Of course I played it off like it didn't though. ☠️
Not exactly but close enough. Instead of laser beams trying to shoot Dr. Hall it was some sort of darts. But who cares? This is the most underrated scifi movie ever.
Minor nit, but you do not always want the movie version to simply follow the book. The first animated film based on the beloved "Asterix the Gaul" was disliked by the creators of Asterix for the simple reason that the film did nothing that they could not have been done in a comic strip. The second Asterix film "Asterix and Cleopatra: The Greatest Story Ever Drawn" specifically had things that could not be drawn in a comic-- singing and dancing. Outside of a comic strip, the "Asterix" character of Cacophonix the Bard presents the problem that nothing that could be recorded will be as bad as the readers imagine his music to sound like. One of the best lines in the film "The Watchmen" is a departure from the graphic novel. A few short paragraphs' worth of Jon Osterman's final thoughts before he expects to die are replaced with the simple "I experience fear, for the very last time" which keeps the pace of scene progressing at a brisk pace. Douglas Adams was very aware that different media tell stories in different ways, which is why the narrative of "The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy" was rewritten from the radio play to the book, rewritten again for the television series, and a final time when it was made into a movie. The film "V for Vendetta" improved upon the graphic novel by incorporating aspects of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which nobody predicted and happened after the graphic novel was published. Telling the same story as the book is not bad, but when a book is made into a movie, it is not wrong to change the story in ways that make the story work better as a film.
@@richardbell7678 "True Grit" (Wayne version) follows the book almost to the tee, including dialog. I'm a stickler for accuracy. I didn't mind Peter Jackson adding some things to "The Hobbit.'' But otherwise, he butchered a beloved story.
This is one of the only films from the time that does NOT feel dated or silly. I bought the book. Had never heard of Michael Crichton. But took a flyer. LOVED it. Then they announced the movie version. FUKKIN loved it!
Saw this movie at Butterworth Air Base, Malaysia, whilst serving in the Royal Australian Air Force. Saw the trailer on a Thursday night. On Friday saw the novel on display at the base canteen. Read the book; finished it Sunday, then saw the movie Monday night. There were only two minor changes in the movie. Been a Michael Crichton fan ever since.
@@nnthayer Very good. Became an immediate Micheal Crighton fan. Read most of his books. Have The Terminal Man, Runaway and the first three Jurassic Park movies in my collection.
When I was in the hospital recently the nurses would raise and lower the bed in order to make it easier on themselves. It reminded me of the elevator scene in the agricultural station.
3:02 I like how the director did a 3-way split screen here instead of the usual back-and-forth two-shot for the dialog. They do this in a few other spots in the movie and it's visually interesting. You don't see this in mainstream movies anymore.
John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix from 1966 began with that cinematic trend of visual storytelling followed by The Thomas Crown Affair and The Boston Strangler two years later.
The optical split-screen was a stylish affectation for directors and editors for some years in the 1960s. It crept into a lot of places, even documentaries (Woodstock) and animation (A Boy Named Charlie Brown) and hung on as a vestige in television opening titles (The Odd Couple) years after it fell out of fashion.
1:01 -- Note that the driver's side front door is ajar as the 1966 Plymouth Belvedere sedan is barreling down the dirt track. No wonder it is so dusty inside. Following this, I really enjoyed the super low.tech front gate at this multi-million dollar underground supersite. The Walt Disney World inspired "forever expanding broom closet" takes the cake, however.
The book got me started in the science fiction genre. When I finished the last page, I went right to the first page without setting the book down and read it a second time.
I first saw this when I was a kid. When she said the red lights reminded her of her years in a ‘bordello’ I had no idea what a ‘red light district’ or a ‘bordello’ was. I thought she meant she spent time in some third-world war zone. Wondered why the old guy thought this was funny!
This might have been one of the first Sci-Fi novels I read back around 1970 as a freshman in high school. Led to a long line of tree killing, lol. Can't believe how many people thought it was a real event, lol. It's also crazy the films Wise directed, from Run Silent. Run Deep to The Andromeda Strain to The Sound Of Music... How different each one was...
The best SF movie to follow after Kubrick's 2001 (my all-time favourite movie ever) which borrows the same visual aesthetics of futuristic clinical sterility from that with the stunning set design of the Wildfire Facility and was VFX legend Douglas Trumbull's first film after working with Kubrick.
I would also put Colossus:The Forbin project in the discussion of best sci-fi film following 2001. Eric Braeden does a great job that explored what happens when a supercomputer, which handed control of America's weapon systems, becomes sentient. You can also see foreshadowing of the internet as well as privacy issues.
@@jamesrawlins735 People always go on about Skynet. Colossus was far more convincing. Why would it need a bunch of killer robots when it controlled the nuclear missiles?
@@cindydott452 And Colossus became even more powerful when it connected with Guardian (which was the Soviet equivalent). Btw - D.F. Jones, who wrote the novel the movie is based on, wrote two additional Colossus books - in the second novel Colossus is replaced by an even more powerful computer which ends up abolishing all war and poverty, and two sects emerge - one that worships the computer as a deity and another that is set on destroying it. The third novel actually deals with an invasion by Martians (yes it gets weird) whose goal is to take half of Earth's oxygen (radiation from the Crab Nebula will kill all Martians unless they can have an oxygenated atmosphere). In the end humans retreat to Mars. Entertaining but one of the stupidest sci-fi novels (as if Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay were involved.)
I lover the sign over the facade of the buildings. It is for those lost tourists who not been machine gunned to death already on their way to here ion the middle of triple-nowhere. I know, I know, off-the-grid living is all the rage now, but this is truly pretty much off-the-planet living.
Local mayors and other such creatures would wish to visit this cash cow from the government to see if they can squeeze more out of it. Think 'Boss Hogg'. The signs are for those poor, lost, idiot souls.
Actually, it wasn't. Crichton published five novels prior to "The Andromeda Strain" under pseudonyms Jeffrey Hudson ("A Case Of Need") and John Lange ("Odds On", "Scratch One", "Easy Go", and "Zero Cool").
I stumbled across this movie on TV in the mid 1970s. I knew nothing about it and was totally blown away. That's how I saw the first Alien movie too. I had NO idea what to expect. All I had seen was the poster with the "egg" and the "nobody can hear you scream" slogan. This made it 10 times better. That's the best way to see any movie, ... with a totally blank slate. Previews and trailers show too much now. Spoilers.
Funny thing is, that's how I saw E.T. My friends and I were expecting an alien horror flick, not "boy meets alien." It was till a good movie, but not what we were expecting. =^[.]^=
I remember watching the 1st hour or so on 📺 in about 73', i begged my folks to stay up as the first hour is quite captivating. With commercials it probably ran from 8pm - 11. I was 11 years old. My bedtime was most likely 9, as a young boy i loved sci fi. I may have gotten an extra half hour & was sent packing upstairs at 9:30. ⏳ime flys 😁 I recall finding out that the sets on this classic inspired the sets on CSI Miami
I read the book, as a kid, in the late '70s. Scared the shit out of me. Not because it was scary, but because, even then, at 14 years old, I knew that we had the capacity to annihilate ourselves. It's a dread I continue to live with. And I am not comforted lately.
"Welcome to project TickTock" "TickTock? There must be some mistake" "No, this IS Project TickTock... oh wait... Were you after Project Wildfire?" "Yes that's right" "We get this a lot. You wanted the SECOND dirt track turn off, not the first."
They made a major mistake in this move regarding contamination. Broken seals wouldn't normally cause contamination of protected areas. Dangerous areas are always kept at a lower air pressure, so if a seal breaks, the air always flows in. Sometimes it's done in the reverse though. I used to work in a police forensics lab. The inside was entered via an airlock, and the lab was kept at a higher pressure than the outside, to prevent sample contamination.
yes but where does the pump push out the air to keep pressure low. in hospitals its filtered and thrown out. cant do that here. and storing it in compressed containers for weeks of pulled out air isnt an option (air moves at speed of sound so you must keep taking out air of a rome to keep ressure lower constantly.)
@@sadev101 Could easily be heated to high temp, irradiated with HE ultraviolet and or neutrons, passed through an acid and or alkali bath, etc. Nothing biological could survive.
@@PointyTailofSatan true.. i did think of that myself but i realised i had to constrain this to the alien materialin the movie andromedra strain...and the treatments you mentioned would not have worked on this dangerous material.. also i wonder if you can push a gas through a liquid fast enough as to keep the airpressure low inn a building yet sow enough that it would not pass through with bio material still unscaved
@@sadev101 In reality, a form of life like the Andromeda Strain is impossible. It's supposed to convert energy to matter. Creating a single gram of matter would require conversion of all the energy of an exploding atomic bomb. The author was a med student, not a physicist. He didn't know.
I'm missing part of the conversation here, it show that there are four comments, I can only read two, but thanks for the information. Voted up! I don't know why RU-vid is doing this, but it's irritating.
Saw this in the theater. Right at one of the most dramatic parts, it suddenly thundered really loud and shook the theater. Everybody screamed and jumped out of their seats. God had perfect timing that night.
Then and today, films / movies are rated for their sex and violence, not their stimulating ideas and rationality (equally dangerous in their own way). ;-)
Wonderful movie. It's dated, but setves as the basis for many a talking point. The interesting thing is that some newer films talk about Bio-safety level 5, which isn't technically feasible and would just be a semi-enhanced BSL4 facility.
Yes, LOL, but I think if they're going to go through all that trouble building a secret gigantic underground multifloored laboratory, they'll make the storage room door automatically lock and seal when the elevator is in use.
The lineage of great sci-fi films before this one is a pretty short list - “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) naturally comes to mind ( the first "Planet of the Apes" came out the same year ) - but before that what was there ? "Star Trek" - and even though the medium was TV rather than big screen feature film - early first season episodes did deal with mysterious disease outbreaks; “The Naked Time” ( an easily spread infection caused loss of all inhibitions and cares) - “Miri” ( a planet where adults were all killed by a "strange disease" but children survived) - then in season 2; “The Immunity Syndrome” - ( a massive single cell organism in space drains all energy - and life - from all living beings - and it’s about to reproduce when Spock discovers a way to destroy it) - and "The Omega Glory" (a virus reduces human bodies to piles of salts, potassium and carbon - but they discover human bodies develop antibodies to the disease within a few hours if they just remain on the planet surface for that long) - so once again - it seems the evolution of great sci-fi in TV (and film) - owes a great debt to Gene Roddenberry and his stable of brilliant writers.
H-bomb test installations are/were just like this. But not so glossy!. You can never imagine how much fun/horror they had. Andromeda strain would have been just another day at the office. Nice one.😎
I wonder... Weird. I use to know a Game Master Six, got covid toes that one. despite the quarantine for ny... Cool name you have there. staying happy and occupied?
@@earlmcraw5606 Boys and girls, can you say "apophenia"...? Granted, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you -- but ever hear of post hoc, ergo propter hoc? There *were* other things with the name Andromeda many years prior to Crichton's novel, y'know -- a constellation, a galaxy, a mythological figure...
If you like this film then check out "Phase IV" which was made a couple of years after The Andromeda Strain. There is a bit of similarity in the setting and the plot ("alien invasion" without any monsters.)
I just did the audiobook for the Andromeda strain a few weeks ago. It was all men and that was 1968. By 1971 there were women scientist at the top of their field.
Yes..that will allow you to enter Area 51..where they keep the aliens and flying saucers..you just keep telling yourself that...because that's where they are. Sure it is.
This is the "Matrix" of the 1970s. It is amazing Micheal Chrichton wrote the book Andromeda Strain and Jurrasic Park both made into blockbuster movies of their times. All the computer screens were created no mat drawings.
@@stevetheduck1425 Yes, I attended college in California and spoke to one of the team of computer specialists hired to generate the images displayed in The Andromeda Strain. The 3-D rendering of Wildfire took over a month to generate with the computers available.
"It's a great place to grow pot" THAT is how you cast a woman in a traditionally male role. Working in a majority male environment will give you a sarcastic wit really quick.
