Marooned

Plot synopsis:
Images of natural scenery. Then cut to the launch of a space rocket. Three astronauts go in that rocket: Jim Pruett (Richard Crenna), Clayton Stone (James Franciscus) and Buzz Lloyd (Gene Hackman). Back at base, Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) wonders if after eight months in space they could perform the easiest manual tasks. Once in space the astronauts take off their helmets. They lose backup for some reason. Keith decides to bring them down. A journalist (Vincent Van Lynn) explains about the retro-fire and their return. The mission Director (George Gaynes) decides that they need to use the primary thrust, because the secondary is damaged. The communications officer (Tom Stewart) tells the astronauts that. They use the retro-fire.There's a tropical storm and the weather specialist (George Smith) says it'll complicate things. Keith wants to give the mission for lost, and gives an officer 48 hours to rescue the astronauts. They only have another aircraft which has never been tasted and an inexperienced crew. The rules say there should be no rescue mission.Oxygen is scarce, and that's their main concern. Keith tells them not to do anything stupid... like trying to repair the engine!!! The astronauts take sleeping pills because the less movement and anxiety they have, the less oxygen they'll use. Buzz hesitates to have his.The three wives arrive to say goodbye to the astronauts. Celia Pruett (Lee Grant) can't say that she loves him, although he says so. She talks about insurance and the house. For goodbye, they stayed silent. She caresses the screen. Teresa Stone (Nancy Novack) talks about his mission and a project she wants to do. Betty Lloyd (Mariette Hartley) tries to console Buzz, who becomes hysterical. She starts reading a letter she's written to the President (John Forsythe). He interrupts her and says everybody blames him because everything's falling apart.The launch of the rescue mission can't be accomplished because of the bad weather. Keith speaks to the media. Journalists like Hardy (Mauritz Hugo) and Walter Brooke ask about another possible plan, and Keith says there aren't. An PR officer (Scott Brady) explains it.Another plan is thought of. The computer technician (Bruce Rhodewalt) is already working on it. The astronauts are dizzy. The XRV has already been launched. It's insinuated that they should kill one of them so that the other two can survive. Before killing anyone, they'll try to mend the engine.[A funny moment in MST3k 401 when the robots decide that Joel will be the one to die in a case like that on the film because they are cute robots which don't need oxygen. Joel is left feeling lonely and depressed.]Jim's suit gets torn and he dies. Keith tells the news to Celia. A VIP (George R. Robertson) is tense. Rescue is close, so Buzz and Clayton decide to go for it and open the hatch door, although Huston disagrees. Clayton pushes Buzz towards rescue, but he seems to pass it; and Clayton falls dizzily back inside the rocket.Ted Dougherty (David Janssen) rescues Buzz. Another astronauts gives oxygen to Clayton. He and Buzz have survived.--written by KrystelClaire

Tags: psychological

Review:
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.
The specifics are covered very well in previous users' comments (and in Roger Ebert's ***/**** review), so I won't repeat them here.There is one thing I'd like to clarify, though, if I may:Anyone looking at the user ratings and user comments should take into consideration that a (very) abbreviated version of this movie was shown on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 as "Space Travelers." I'm a pretty hardcore MST fan myself, and I agree that it was a funny episode.
Other times, particularly when the original is cut to pieces (this one lost approximately 1:15 of its 2:15 running time, while "gaining" some lousy incidental music and a shabby new title sequence*), I don't think it's right at all.If you want to watch an interesting, thought-provoking sci-fi drama, "Marooned" is a good bet.
This creepingly slow space drama was mainly conceived, I'd posit, as a showcase for the acting talents of the four leads: we're treated to Hackman, Crenna and Franciscus playing the astronaut trio trapped in space, and Peck as the no-nonsense controller back on the ground whose attempts to return them to Earth make up the bulk of the running time.Sadly, 'bulk' is right when it comes to this movie: it's way overlong, with much of the length consisting of repetitive dialogue sequences or scenes which add little to the narrative.
And I'll admit that things do get quite thrilling in the last half hour, when we're treated to the kind of suspense that should have been present all the way through.The actors are the main reason to tune in these days: it's hard to fault any of them, but I think Crenna gives the best performance of the lot as a compassionate family man.
Instead, you get a fully realized and believable view into what might happen if some of our astronauts became stranded in space.Personally, I was invested fully into the film and felt sad when the movie ended, the same way I feel when I finish a good book.
We get to see a young Gene Hackman,years before his breakout in THE FRENCH CONNECTION, andcareer-best performances from David Jansen, Mariette Hartley,Richard Crenna, and James Franciscus.The production values are first-rate, and the scenes set in NASAfacilities on the ground are the most realistic ever filmed, bettereven than APOLLO 13.
OK, the film is plodding and the over caution and dourness of Gregory Peck's Dr. Keith gets irritating, but James Franciscus, stalwart of many a tv movie and dodgy international co-production, puts in a career best performance as the scientist-astronaut struggling to keep a grip on not only his faculties, but those of his fellow astronauts.
Three astronauts played by Richard Crenna, James Franciscus and Gene Hackman who have been in a space station climb aboard their Apollo craft to come home and the engine says no.Marooned in orbit the ground control crew led by Gregory Peck scratch their heads and try to figure out what to do before the trios air supply runs out.
Based in great performances by Gregory Peck, Richard Creena, Gene Hackman, David Jansen and all the great crew, this Apollo-era film is a good movie for entertaining and a short view of the Space Program in the early 70's.
for whatever reason,Marooned just didn't do a heck of a lot for me.i found it a b it too slow going,and too melodramatic at times.that's not to say it's a poorly made film.on the contrary,it's well done for the most part.the acting is believable from all involved.and the premise is one that should be gripping:three astronauts end up stuck in space,while their oxygen runs low.but for some reason it failed too engage me on a more than moderate level.the only thing i can think of is the dialogue,which was sometimes a bit hokey,in my opinion.still,this is just one person's opinion.but for me,Marooned is a 4/10.
Fortunately, the astronauts (Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman and James Franciscus) all do an exceptional job and tend to give the film a lot more feeling.
American astronauts Jim Pruett (Richard Crenna), Buzz Lloyd (Gene Hackman), and Clayton Stone (James Franciscus) have been living in the new space station for five months.
The marooned astronauts start to come apart emotionally, and it's meant to be high drama when Gene Hackman finally freaks out, but all we in the audience can think is, "Didn't these men get the necessary training for this type of disaster?"...
Greg Peck was enough of a box office draw, but _Marooned_ has him, Gene Hackman, James Franciscus, Richard Crenna, David Jannsen--and they all deliver high caliber performances.
John Sturges was a venerated director at the time, and in this movie he continued to make epic use of his camera.An earlier review compared the Mission Control scenes in _Marooned_ to those in _Apollo 13_, and observed that the ones in _Marooned_ are better, more realistic.
I love both movies, but I wholeheartedly agree with him.In the current age of space travel, one could only wonder what a remake of _Marooned_ would be like if they incorporated the shuttle orbiters, and the International Space Station into the story.One more thing, and this is important.
If you're a special effects nut; if you can't get enough of Lucasfilm, and any science-fiction film ever done by Steven Spielberg, then you're going to despise this movie..._Marooned_ is more on the tragic, introspective, narrative side of the fence.
Anyone who wanted to travel in to space in the early years of the program was specially selected because of their psychological strength so this fact based but it does seem strange that what is being said is " Well chaps things are looking bad and if they don't work you'll slowly suffocate to death thousand of miles out in in space " to which the reply " Okay try and not let this happen mission control " as if the characters are discussing the menu in a restaurant .
That said it is preferable than watching Ben Affleck and other Hollywood pretty boys throwing objects about screaming " Get me in to a damn space rocket " and other mock heroics MAROONED is a film from another era when humanity just achieved the greatest endeavor in human history by landing men on the Moon and safely returning them back to Earth .
Marooned is the story of three astronauts (Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman, James Franciscus) who are stranded in space after a mechanical problem prevents their return.
Gregory Peck gives a fine performance as Charles Keith as the director of NASA manned space flight Charles Keith, who finds himself leading the race against the clock to launch a rescue while keeping the crew in orbit alive.
Then there's the crew of Ironman One stranded in orbit: commander Jim Pruett (Richard Crenna), pilot Buzz Lloyd (Gene Hackman) and science astronaut Clayton Stone (James Franciscus) who all give nice, subtle and believable performances (especially in Hackman's case thanks to a nice character arch).
The film is both solemn and cold: as expected, it’s meticulously detailed – down to the irritating over-use of up-to-date jargon such as ‘So-and-so systems Are Go’, ‘Roger’, ‘Wilco’, etc.Incidentally, while the presence of an all-star cast may have boosted its box-office potential (for the record MAROONED came hot on the heels of Stanley Kubrick’s even more bewildering but, ultimately, far more entrancing 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [1968]), it distracts from the unfolding drama: Gregory Peck’s constricted role of the seasoned but stoic overseer would become a staple of 1970s disaster epics – here, he’s the head of the program who has to decide what to do when a shuttle’s re-entry fire malfunctions and the three-man astronaut crew is stranded in space (MAROONED can then be seen as the APOLLO 13 [1995] of its day, though the particular mission that film depicts would only occur in 1970!).
An ex-colleague of theirs now employed in the Control Room (David Janssen) is the only one who believes that a rescue mission is possible in the restricted time-frame before the oxygen supply runs out; in fact, Peck has to be prodded by the U.S. President himself to take the challenge during a fairly risible sequence in which, distraught by the precarious situation he’s facing, Peck’s also pulled over on a highway by a couple of cops for over-speeding – even so, this remote chance is almost lost when the launch site is beset by a hurricane!
I have just seen it for the first time and was simply blown away by it.MAROONED is bumped down to 8/10 from 9/10 for me due to a somewhat clumsy ending, and one or two other low points in an otherwise astonishingly good sci-fi drama that easily equals APOLLO 13 when unfair comparisons of special effects are removed from consideration.This is a near-masterpiece.
A suspense thriller set in space, Marooned is the plight of a base commander (Gregory Peck) trying to get three astronauts (Gene Hackman, Richard Crenna, and James Franciscus) back to earth when their mission fails.
An Oscar-winner for "Best Special Visual Effects," the film also picked up nominations for "Best Cinematography" and "Best Sound." It was later retitled Space Travelers.Great for fans of science fiction; others need not apply.
This creepingly slow space drama was mainly conceived, I'd posit, as a showcase for the acting talents of the four leads: we're treated to Hackman, Crenna and Franciscus playing the astronaut trio trapped in space, and Peck as the no-nonsense controller back on the ground whose attempts to return them to Earth make up the bulk of the running time.The film stands on its own very credibly with a great storyline which leaves you sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to see what is going to happen to the astronauts trapped in outer space.
2001, Apollo 13, even Countdown have music scores.Some people say that this movie is realistic, but in real life, NASA flight directors and normal mission control men can't talk to the spacecraft.
Perhaps this is a little overstated and corny for some people but it kept me hanging on, this is all the more touching and completely unexpected with the very strange twist at the end, where political differences not to mention the cold war are trumped by humanity at it's frail best....Gregory Peck's strong leadership, David Jansen's relentless attitude of never giving up the battle to save the astronauts {he is very, very missed} And like a lot of films I love, the ending is bitter sweet , a costly victory, a victory with tragedy but yet a victory that transcends.....I remember once this film came up in conversation with the other person saying "oh, you must mean "Apollo 13" ....well , often fiction turns into reality in a very big way.
An all-star cast saves this movie, as Gregory Peck plays the role of manned space director (Dr. Keith) to a T.
The special affects reflect the technology of the time, and, as should be expected, are not up the the what would be expected in a more recent movie.This brought me back to the days long ago when I would take time out to watch every manned launch on television.I would recommend this movie, as well as Apollo 13, to anyone who is interested in what the Space Program was like about the time the United States first put a man on the moon..
It's going to take the dedicated patience and expertise of NASAS mission engineers(Gregory Peck and David JAnssen),love and endurance of the astronaut's wives(Mariette Hartley,Lee Grant and Nancy Kovack) as well as the "Travellers" themselves,to try to get back from what could be a slow and unfathomably tragic fate in space.While I can think of far more worthy films of trashing(a la wisecracks from puppets and a human among other ways),this one's biggest crime may've been the melodramatic license it took which,to be sure,would become somewhat a centerpiece of 1970s tragedy's via natural/man-made disaster stemming from technology(something that would make Irwin Allen a fortune!).
Somewhat Problematic Sci-Fi. More than thirty years since its release, MAROONED is obviously far more dated than, say 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, when it comes to special effects, plot, and dialogue.
When one sees great actors like Gregory Peck or Gene Hackman strait-jacketed by banality, it is not too terribly pleasant to see.Where MAROONED scored points with me is that its very plot was almost repeated in reality just four months after it opened, with the perilous flight of Apollo 13 in April 1970.
Much like the later APOLLO 13, though less successfully in terms of cinematic value, MAROONED showed both the space crew and the people at Mission Control trying their level best to solve the problem, though THIS particular film is daring in showing a rescue mission assisted by the Soviets, ferociously unusual in the Cold War hysteria of the 1960s.To sum it up, MAROONED is not an outright masterpiece; it is too long, and the dialogue too bland for it to really work perfectly.
It is food for thought that this piece of art was in the public arena some months before Apollo 13 and that even 25 years later NASA still has difficulty - apparently - in covering all the bases for space flight problems.If you have already voted on this, then take another look and you will see that there is way more good than bad movie-making here, and that 5/10 is not justified..
Three astronauts (Richard Crenna (in charge and tries to hold a steady resolve despite what his three man crew is up against), Gene Hackman (who spends an exorbitant amount of time holding onto his sanity), and James Franciscus (seemingly always held together, calm, and confident despite the obstacles before them)) are stranded in orbit around the earth after a mechanical failure to their retros leaves them stranded in space awaiting a hopeful rescue mission before their oxygen runs out.
Peck, as the NASA man in charge of the space mission, encounters a number of ensuing crises he will need to avert in order to be successful in rescuing the three men trying to remain calm and docile so they conserve what little oxygen still available to them.I think Apollo 13 (1995) will come to mind when viewers watch Marooned (1969) as the plots are similar in ways.
Crenna's fate as he leaves the shuttle to make a "repair to the engine" (a share of dialogue between him and Peck imply more to this than what is presented on its face), Hackman's mental breakdown while talking to his wife, Franciscus' laid-back, all-smiles, psychologically sound astronaut who seems to take matters a bit more sufficiently despite the peril that remains an antagonist, the three wives (Lee Grant, Nancy Kovack, and Mariette Hartley) trying to keep their composure during what is a horrific ordeal, Peck and Jannsen butting heads over what to do to save the astronauts, the 42 hour rush-job to scrape together a ship capable of leaving the earth and meeting the shuttle in space, a developing hurricane which might cause the rescue mission to be halted, and the astronauts in the shuttle trying to hold it together although they have every reason to be distraught provide plenty of melodrama that help to bring a respectability to the film, keeping it from being a total disappointment.
Three astronauts -- Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman, and James Franciscus -- are sent into space for five months to measure the effects of extended stay.
At 2 hour and 15 minutes it does drag a bit.When you rate the cast, this was an A-List with Gregory Peck, David Janssen, Richard Crenna, James Franciscus, & Gene Hackman heading up the list.
And for its time, the special effects here were really quite good.But the real strength of the film here is the script and the acting.Was Gregory Peck ever anything less than brilliant.
"Marooned" is an interesting film but falls short of its potential, instead becoming yet another thriller with lots of slow stretches before some frenzied action at the end of the film.Astronauts Pruett (Richard Crenna), Lloyd (Gene Hackman), and Stone (James Franciscus) have spent months in space aboard a cramped space station and are returning home when their spacecraft suffers a malfunction and cannot re-enter the earth's atmosphere.
The film works on two levels with the pragmatic director of the NASA Space Program Charles Keith, Gregory Peck, at first giving up on the astronauts feeling that saving them is a lost cause but then being forced to change his mind.
This movie stinks unless you watch the MST3k episode which is very funny.Gene Hackman, Dick Crenna, and Jimbo Franciscus play uptight American astronauts who get 'stranded' in earth orbit.