Marooned (1969)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

John Sturges

Writers:

Martin Caidin (novel)
Mayo Simon (writer)

Release Date:

11 December 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Three marooned astronauts. Only 55 minutes left to rescue them. While the whole world watches and waits...

Plot:

Three American astronauts are stranded in space when their retros won't fire. Can they be rescued before their oxygen runs out?

Plot Keywords:

Astronaut | Oxygen | Space | NASA | Orbit

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 3 nominations

Cast

Gregory Peck	...	Charles Keith
Richard Crenna	...	Jim Pruett
David Janssen	...	Ted Dougherty
James Franciscus	...	Clayton Stone
Gene Hackman	...	Buzz Lloyd
Lee Grant	...	Celia Pruett
Nancy Kovack	...	Teresa Stone
Mariette Hartley	...	Betty Lloyd
Scott Brady	...	Public Affairs Officer
Craig Huebing	...	Flight Director
Frank Marth	...	Air Force System Director
John Carter	...	Flight Surgeon
Vincent Van Lynn	...	Aerospace journalist
George Gaynes	...	Mission Director
Tom Stewart	...	Houston Cap Com
Duke Hobbie	...	Air Force Titan specialist
Walter Brooke	...	Network commentator
Dennis Robertson	...	Launch Director
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bill Couch	...	Russian cosmonaut (uncredited)
Mauritz Hugo	...	Hardy - Reporter (uncredited)
Kenner G. Kemp	...	Guest in Observation Room (uncredited)
Mary Linda Rapelye	...	Priscilla Keith (uncredited)
Bruce Rhodewalt	...	Computer technician (uncredited)
George R. Robertson	...	VIP (uncredited)
George Smith	...	Cape Weather Officer (uncredited)

Directed by
John Sturges

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Martin Caidin		novel
Mayo Simon		writer

Produced by
Frank Capra Jr.	....	associate producer
M.J. Frankovich	....	producer

Cinematography by
Daniel L. Fapp		(as Daniel Fapp)

Film Editing by
Walter Thompson

Production Design by
Lyle R. Wheeler

Set Decoration by
Frank Tuttle

Production Management
William O'Sullivan	....	executive production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ralph E. Black	....	second unit director (as Ralph Black)
Michael Daves	....	second assistant director
Daniel McCauley	....	assistant director (as Daniel J. McCauley)
Mel Swope	....	first assistant director: second unit (uncredited)

Sound Department
Les Fresholtz	....	sound
Arthur Piantadosi	....	sound

Special Effects by
Chuck Gaspar	....	special effects coordinator (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Lawrence W. Butler	....	special visual effects
Donald C. Glouner	....	special visual effects
Robie Robinson	....	special visual effects

Stunts
Bill M. Ryusaki	....	stunts (uncredited)
Buddy Van Horn	....	stunt double (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
W. Wallace Kelley	....	director of photography: second unit
Hal Landaker	....	video supervisor
Nelson Tyler	....	aerial photographer

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Seth Banks	....	costumer

Other crew
Martin Caidin	....	technical advisor
John Franco	....	script supervisor
George Smith	....	technical advisor
Norman Stuart	....	dialogue coach
William Widmayer	....	photographic consultant

Production Companies

• Columbia Pictures Corporation
• Frankovich Productions

Distributors

• Columbia Film-Verleih (1970) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Columbia Pictures (1969) (USA) (theatrical)
• Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Columbia TriStar Home Video (1995) (USA) (VHS)
• Columbia TriStar Home Video (1995) (USA) (laserdisc)
• National Broadcasting Company (NBC) (1972) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video (????) (USA) (VHS)

Other Companies

• Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment  camera cranes
• Sunset Gower Studios  sound stages

Also Known As:

Space Travelers (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

134 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (35 mm prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Iceland:12 | USA:TV-PG | West Germany:12 (f) | Australia:G | Finland:K-8 | Norway:12 (original rating) | Sweden:11 | UK:U | USA:G

Filming Locations:

Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

The Film Ventures International re-edit of this film (retitled "Space Travelers") was featured on an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (1988). This was also the only film featured on the show to have won an Academy Award.

Goofs:

Continuity: The stripe on Dougherty's helmet momentarily disappears while he is flying the XRV-1

Quotes:

Jim Pruett: Okay Buzz you're right. To hell with waiting for a bunch of slide-rule jockeys. We used to fix the airplanes we flew with paperclips. Lets get into our hard suits and fix this bird.
Buzz Lloyd: [smiling] Okay Jimmy.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "The Incredible Hulk: Married (#2.1)" (1978)

Gut Check

John Sturges' Marooned, based on the Martin Caidin novel, tells the story of three Apollo astronauts trapped in orbit when their main engine fails to fire, and the slow, agonizing realization that there's pretty much nothing that can be done for them.

Unless.

It's a slow movie, with Sturges taking his time (or his sweet time if you have no patience for this stuff) to build suspense and tension. Miles of film is expended detailing the boys at Mission Control and Kennedy trying to implement the "unless" I mentioned, a bold rescue mission that will arrive in the last moments of their O2, lifting off into the teeth of a hurricane, no less.

What makes the movie work are the very things that were lampooned so accurately by the boys at Mystery Science Theatre 3000, the terse acronym-filled jargon, the performances by Peck, Janssen, Crenna, Hackman, and Franciscus, and the glaringly non-CGI special effects (that looked great in 1970).

For a space-happy 11 year old, this was the ne plus ultra of movies--and the fact that the boys on the Apollo 13 had recently gotten back alive made Marooned more than a leetle beet unnerving in its topicality.

There's a moment that the movie transcends a clinical yawner, and takes on the mantle of heartbreakingly human drama. When the astronauts' wives are brought in to talk to them on small TV monitors, one after the other, and Nancy Kovack coldly tells the NASA suit "I know why we're here--we're here to say goodbye to them," you feel sucker-punched. It didn't seem real until right then.

Then the wives are warned that their husbands are "degraded," meaning they're tired, cold, and scared beyond description. Richard Crenna and Lee Grant have a touching exchange, the commander and his tough, beautiful, middle-aged wife trying to say everything to each other except goodbye. Kovack struggles with James Franciscus because her husband is the Spock of this mission, clinical and scientific. Yet he angrily assures her that they will make it. You can see him expending every bit of energy to convince her and himself that he's not a dead man orbiting.

Finally, Mariette Hartley tries to comfort Gene Hackman, who is bordering on hysteria and panic. She watches in a gut-wrenching horror as he reacts to her reading a letter the wives have written to the President. He cries and rages something like "I broke the lawn-mower, and I can't fix it and everyone is blaming me for it!" Hartley is hustled away, but she stops in dumb horror as she sees her husband on the big monitor in flight control, screaming "Don't kill me!" as Crenna and Franciscus hold him down to shoot him full of sedatives.

It's the most painful and human moment of the movie. Sturges has kept you on the edge of boredom, then wham, it's somehow all real. The movie goes from intellect to emotion in a matter of a few moments. I didn't appreciate this as an a tweenager, but God how my mouth went dry watching it a few days ago. These poor bastards are already in their titanium-shielded coffin!

The rest of the movie is predictable, but brutal in its denouement. You know that, if the men are to be saved, there's going to be some dues paid. I remember seeing Marooned at the Garland Theatre in Spokane in May, 1970. When those dues were paid, my mom was tearing up.

I thought, typical for a woman.

I was clearing my throat a lot and having trouble focusing on the screen when my family and I watched it over the weekend.

Adulthood has its upside, I guess.