Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

gavin6942 Desperate to reach the moon first, NASA sends a man (James Caan) and shelter separately, one-way. He must find it to survive; he cannot return until Apollo is ready.This film has been heavily scrutinized for being boring, dated and any number of other things. Critic Howard Thompson calls the film a "limp space-flight drama" which "makes the moon seem just as dull as Mother Earth". Some of this might be fair, some might not. Director Robert Altman, who later went on to big things, got the job through Warner Brothers' B-movie producer William Conrad (1920-1994). So maybe we are wrong to expect too much. (Although it is great to see such early performances from Caan and Robert Duvall.) Where the movie is and is not Altman's is unclear. The bulk is obviously his, but the story goes that Jack Warner (1892-1978) did not like Altman's use of overlapping dialogue, had him removed from the set, and Conrad shot some new footage. So how much did Altman get to edit into the final film?

Glen Lambert In this film Robert Duvall and James Caan portray to perfection the rivalry between aviators competing for a mission much better than The Right Stuff. The scrubbed astronaut Robert Duvall tries to wash out his replacement James Caan who he must train for the mission he himself desires. The addition of an on-board electrical power shortage in flight foreshadows the actual events encountered during the Apollo 13 mission.Although entirely fiction the film is a time machine that brings back the look and feel of the Space Race era. To see NASA Building 5 filled with Apollo and Gemini simulators is a pure delight. And the chance to experience the The Space Environment Simulation Laboratory in NASA Building 32 is an even greater delight. Unlike other movies the filming in mission control NASA Building 30 shows just how small it actually is.The cinematography in widescreen format using Panavision equipment is flawless. Although as ordered from Warner Archive digitized from a non remastered print it is crystal clear and free of flaws when projected on a 100" screen. This film is a must have for any aviation and space enthusiast.I should note that there are few special effects in this movie except for some photographic tricks with light to simulate black sky on the lunar surface. All the equipment was actual NASA simulation equipment. There was some stock footage used for the rocket launches. During the space race NASA had contingency plans for a Gemini Lander and a prototype was built. The choice to use one man was because Gemini life support was designed to support two men for 15 days. If a landing was aborted using Earth Free Return life support for one man would be taxed to it's limit.

Film_Angenieux Not a great film but very much worth it for Altman fans. In many ways it's a conventional cold war drama, but it has some wicked resonances if you see the Robert Duvall astronaut character as what he was surely meant to be: an over the top version of John Glenn: a boy scout rah rah guy who can't stand the much hipper, laid back James Caan, who is a stand-in for the real astronaut Al Shepard. (Wolfe's The Right Stuff, if I recall, has useful material on the mutual distrust between Glenn and Shepard.) Altman tries a few tricks for which he is later famous. The primary one is overlapping dialogue. Altman hated the formal style of traditional films in which everyone speaks in complete sentences and never overlaps. You can see the overlapping here, though not to the degree that comes through in later films like M*A*S*H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Still, the innovation was enough to infuriate the studio execs when they began viewing the rough cut. Hey! We can't understand half of what the actors are saying! So they fired Altman about nine-tenths of the way through shooting. Watch closely and toward the end of the picture, you'll see a change in style as the replacement director takes over. It's much more stilted (especially in the press conference). And I recall (though can't be sure at this remove, I haven't seen or read about the picture in decades) that the original ending was a tragedy, which was changed to a happy one instead.The most effective aspect of Altman's interest in sound design was what he did when Caan loses contact with ground control as he approaches the moon. Altman heightens anxiety (Caan is already worried that Duvall is endangering his life) when the radio contact picks up static and it gets hard to hear. Caan begins to feel all alone out there, millions of miles from earth. And so do we, instinctively...we want to hear what Mission Control is saying, and their words keep breaking up. Very clever: using +bad+ sound to make viewers unconsciously uneasy. It's a great way to accomplish your goal on a lower budget project.

Dave Banks Although this movie was made back in the 1960's, tonight was the first time that I ever saw it. My wife and I found it to be an enjoyable Friday night offering. This movie was not about special effects, meteors hurling through space, etc. Rather, it was about the people who comprise the team that organizes and develops the US Space program. As always, Robert Duvall was excellent, this time as an Astronaut who, because of political considerations, was removed as the person who was scheduled to become the first to land on the moon. Duvall played his character with just the right amount of anger and disappointment before becoming the instructor and motivator to the man who replaced him, also well played by James Caan. I wish the ending had been a bit longer but that is a mere quibble with what I feel is a fine movie