USA, 1979
107m
35mm film, Panavision (anamorphic), colour, 2.35:1
English
An American science fiction film directed by Ronald Neame.
Plot Summary
The asteroid Orpheus collides with a comet and an 8km chunk of rock is diverted onto a collision course with Earth. With Manking facing extinction, NASA wants to use its illegal orbiting nuclear weapons platform Hercules, but even that won’t be enough to stop the meteor. Only if the join forces with the Soviets, who also own an illegal nuclear weapons satellite, will the Earth be saved?
Credits
Crew
Director: Ronald Neame
American International Pictures, Meteor Joint Venture, Palladium Productions
Executive Producers: Sandy Howard, Gabriel Katzka
Producers: Arnold H. Orgolini, Theodore R. Parvin
Script: Stanley Mann, Edmund H. North
Story: Edmund H. North
Director of Photography: Paul Lohmann
Editor: Carl Kress
Music: Laurence Rosenthal
Sound Mixer: Jack Solomon
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky
Make Up: Del Armstrong, Edwin Butterworth, Hallie Smith-Simmons
Hair: Sugar Blymer, Lynn Del Kail
Visual Effects Supervisor: Margo Anderson
Visual Effects: William Cruse
Production Designer: Edward C. Carfagno
Cast
Sean Connery (Dr Paul Bradley)
Natalie Wood (Tatiana Nikolaevna Donskaya)
Karl Malden (Harry Sherwood)
Brian Keith (Dr Alexei Dubov)
Martin Landau (General Adlon)
Trevor Howard (Sir Michael Hughes)
Richard Dysart (Secretary of Defense)
Henry Fonda (The President)
Joseph Campanella (General Easton)
Bo Brundin (Manheim)
Katherine De Hetre (Jan Watkins)
James G. Richardson (Alan)
Roger Robinson (Bill Hunter)
Michael Zaslow (Sam Mason)
John McKinney (Peter Watson)
John Findlater (Astronaut Tom Easton)
Paul Tulley (Astronaut Bill Frager)
Allen Williams (Astronaut Michael McKendrick)
Bibi Besch (Helen Bradley)
Gregory Gay (Russian premier)
Zitto Kazann (hawk-faced party member)
Clyde Kusatsu (Yamashiro)
Links
See also
Armageddon (1998)
Deep Impact (1998)
A Fire in the Sky (1978)
Jishin retto (1980)
Extracts included in
AIP: Fast and Furious (1985)
Screen Test: 17 January 1980 (1970-1984)
Press
1979
Cinefantastique vol.9 no.2 (Winter 1979) p.33
Obviously getting back at Irwin Allen for pushing special effects at the expense of character development when they collaborated on The Poseiden [sic] Adventure, director Ronald Neame uses his-and our-allotted time to poke fun at Soviet-U.S. hypocrisy (both countries refuse to own up to orbiting nuclear missiles which, in tandem, could stop the meteor) and to play out the traditional feud between dumb politicals and even less astute military brass. Further, Neame feels compelled to personalize every pre-collision strike by zeroing in on one soon-to-become disaster victim. Like everything else in their $17-million B movie, this approach is terribly civilized and self conscious. The big special effects consist of some solid work (the Hong Kong tidal wave), some tinted stock footage (the New York fragment shower), and a bootleg skiing death (from New World Pictures’ Avalanche). The nearing threat may be more credible than most, but it’s also twice as boring: a slowly revolving chunk of coal. Back in 1951, George Pal and Rudolf Mate managed this whole business with a lot more panache in When Worlds Collide. – from a review by Glenn Lovell
1980
Monthly Film Bulletin vol.47 no.552 (January 1980) p.9
As effects go, and effects rather than surprises (or any real plotline) are what the producers have banked on, Meteor looks decidedly old-fashioned and second-hand: the lump of volcanic rock, five miles in diameter, hurtles interminably at eighty thousand miles per hour; Hercules and Peter the Great turn (where’s the drama?) a laborious one hundred and eighty degrees; the destruction of Manhattan starts promisingly, but is then, unaccountably, all but forgotten – the millions killed (presumably) remain tastefully unmentioned, and the last shot has the feted Dubov leaving for home, a toy Fozzie Bear protruding from his luggage. Other ingredients of the disaster movie are carelessly stirred into the pudding. […] The initially spectacular avalanche aside, Ronald Neame never comes close to convincing that (as Bradley predicts in the event of the meteor landing) a new Ice Age is at hand. – from a review by John Pym
References
Periodicals
- Cinefantastique vol.9 no.2 (Winter 1979) p.33 – review (by Glenn Lovell)
- Films in Review vol.30 no.10 (December 1979) p.632 – review (by Tom Rogers)
- Monthly Film Bulletin vol.47 no.552 (January 1980) p.9 – credits, synopsis, review (by John Pym)
- New Musical Express 26 January 1980 p.28 – article (Meteorballs! by Dick Tracy); review (by Harry George)
- Variety vol.297 no.10 (9 January 1980) p.100 – note (Of 219 film openings in 1979, 170 preemed in West End sites)
- Weng’s Chop no.9 (August 2016) pp.54-62 – illustrated article (Surviving the 1970s disaster film: Giant meteors, tidal waves, crippled jumbo jets & towering infernos by John Harrison)
Newspapers
- Correio da Manḥ, TV 21 August 1998 p.30 (Brazil) Рreview
Books
- American International Pictures: A Comprehensive Filmography by Rob Craig p.255
- American International Pictures: A Filmography by Robert L. Ottoson pp.328-330 – credits, synopsis, review
- The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction by Phil Hardy (ed) pp.350; 351
- Escape Velocity by Bradley Schauer p.176
- Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures by Mark Thomas McGee p.317
- Film Review 1980-81 by F. Maurice Speed (ed.) p.135
- Horror and Science Fiction Films II by Donald C. Willis p.254
- Jules Verne on Film by Thomas C. Renzi pp.89-90
- Nuclear Movies: A Filmography by Mick Broderick p.87
- Rock ‘n’ Roll Monsters: The American International Story by Bruce G. Hallenbeck pp.279-280; 295
- Science Fiction Films of the Seventies by Craig W. Anderson pp.233-235
- Screen World vol.31 (1980) by John Willis p.74 – illustrated credits
- Variety Science-Fiction Movies by Julian Brown (ed.) p.73 – credits, review
- The World of Fantasy Films by Richard Myers p.106
