Fire is a serious threat, which is why we have the age-old example of certain necessary restrictions to free speech, that being yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre. In 1971’s The Andromeda Strain, each of four scientists are visited by government officials who inform them more formally, and rather free of emotions, that there has been a fire. The behavior of the officials is even more odd, given “fire” in this context is a codeword for a biological disaster which the scientists are to investigate. I guess nothing flusters these professionals.
This biological threat arrives courtesy of a crashed satellite that had been sent up on a fishing expedition to find extraterrestrial life. Skimming the cosmos, it captures the tiniest, yet unintelligent lifeform—a sort of living crystal. Unlike the carbon base shared by all Earth lifeforms, this is one is based on silicon. And it is completely incompatible with, and fatal to, humans and animals.
Early on while watching this, I was already thinking of another sci-fi movie I love, The Monolith Monsters, from a decade and a half earlier. That also had an unthinking menace, one that poses a threat by growing exponentially and killing every living being that comes into contact with it. While the victims in the earlier film were turned to stone, this one does something strange to blood. In one especially memorable visual, a scientist cuts open a corpse’s arm and powdered blood spills out.
One thing I love about this movie is how we follow the four scientists closely, and we never have any additional information than they do at any point in time. It is like we’re along for the investigation. And this being very intelligent sci-fi, one is left with the feeling afterwards that they are somehow smarter by association.
The four are Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid and David Wayne. Each actor is at the top of their game here, though their characters are only fleshed out as much as the plot requires. I fondly remember Reid as being so cantankerous in The Rainbow Boys, and she is basically that same person here, though being a prestigious scientist this time. She is given the most personality of the four leads, and even has some funny one-liners, such as her blanking when she sees a flashing red light, and she brushes off this lapse with: “Never could stand red lights. Reminds me of my years in a bordello.” Given the economy of the script, you know this is foreshadowing for something which will happen later.
This happens when she and Wayne are the last to arrive at the Wildfire complex where the alien goo will has been isolated for examination. Hill was the architect of this facility, a visionary approach for handling the exact scenario which has transpired. This deeply clandestine operation appears on the surface to be a Department of Agriculture outpost. And that is a smart cover, as that is exactly what the facility does at the surface level. But knowing exactly what to do once one has stepped into a nondescript supply closet reveals one is in an elevator that will take them down far below ground.
The destination is the top level of a 5-story structure. There are different decontamination steps before descending to the next level, so each floor is cleaner than the one above it. Altogether, the full procedure to get to the lowest level takes 16 hours.
Along the way, their bodies will be inspected for fungal lesions. A radiation treatment is administered, one which could result in blindness if the subject opens their eyes. Another step has each scientist don a distinctively weird looking helmet to protect them while all the hair on their bodies in singed into a fine, white ash. I’m waiting to learn of a spa that offer this depilatory treatment. There’s even a suppository step, to ensure they are as clean inside as out. One step in the process which amused me is an odd ruse to distract somebody who is about to receive a painful injection.
Nothing they experience is as terrifying as the failsafe mechanism for the facility. In the event of contamination, a nuclear warhead which the levels are structured around will be armed, and can only be disarmed by Olson, who has been tasked with bearing the key which fits into one of two substations on any floor. He will only have five minutes to fulfill that task. An aspect of this setup I found wryly amusing is each floor has two additional connections where the substations have yet to be installed—a very human flaw in an operation so advanced that it is hard to believe a human could conceive of it at all.
And the mind who thought it up, as well as everything else about this story, is Michael Crichton. His medical background brings a great deal of verisimilitude to his screenplay he adapted from his debut novel. What he would write later would be more focused on conventional entertainment, but I honestly enjoyed this movie more than any of the Jurassic Park series. The author has a brief cameo as a surgeon in a scene where military officials pulls Olson out of the surgery he’s performing. Oh, great, now there’s something else for me to worry about the next time I have to go under the knife.
A bonus feature on the Arrow Video blu-ray is an archival featurette where the author personally introduces the film to prospective viewers. Most of his talk is done in front of a rotating image of the Wildfire facility. I was astounded by what appeared to be a hologram, and could not begin to guess how it was accomplished. In another featurette, effects expert Douglas Trumbull explains how he did it. The technique somehow involved slit-scan photography and I’m embarrassed to admit that I still didn’t understand the process even after his explanation.
But those are the kind of innovative effects one gets when the mastermind of the effects in 2001 works on a feature. Handling matte work is Albert Whitlock, the master of the form. There is a particularly effective matte of a facility which includes a blinking light on a tower. The image is so effective that most people will probably not even notice the effect. Those who do can marvel at how it was accomplished.
Another impressive effect which does not call attention to itself is what I call a “maximature”, or the opposite of a miniature. The area of the fallen satellite which caught the space bug is a copper mesh. In a scene where microscopic cameras pore over that surface, some of the footage is genuine motion-controlled cameras of that kind, while other shots are of a larger-scale reproduction of the mesh, though it looks uncannily like an extreme close-up of the real thing.
There is an innovation in this film which I’m not sure whether it qualifies as costume design or physical effects, but it is something I don’t recall seeing before. In a room where two survivors from the incident site are given treatment and studied, Olson and a nurse (Paula Kelly) enter the sealed room by grabbing a bar above a porthole and then lowering their feet into spacesuits on the other side. Once arms and head are also in the suit, they can step forward, unfolding a tunnel of material connecting them to the other room as they walk. Then, when these two exit the room, they just back up to the wall, collapsing that tunnel and doing the suiting procedure in reverse.
This doesn’t seem to restrict movement much, but I imagine some medical procedures would be difficult to do when fully suited like that. I can’t help but imagine if would be a bit like doing surgery involving robotics.
And such mechanical arms are also put to use here. One particularly chilling scene is where tests are performed to see if the threat is airborne and, if so, determining the size of the particles. I know a real mouse and a real monkey did not die in these procedures, given the credits thank the participation of the ASPCA, but the scene where the monkey seems to expire deeply bothered me. A bonus feature reveals the poor thing was brought to the brink of death, which makes it seem the “preventing cruelty” part of the ASPCA was momentarily forgotten.
Even the camera work is interesting, with many shots accomplished courtesy of multi-focal lenses. These are specially-ground lenses which can keep part of an image in the background in focus at the same time as a different element in the foreground. Use of such lenses always date a film to a particular era and type of production. It is a look I like, though it can be distracting if overused, which is sometimes the case here.
The score is electronic bleeps and bloops, courtesy of composer Gil Melle. It is truly groundbreaking and appropriate for this picture, but it isn’t a casual listen, by any means. An even more interesting aspect of the score is its original vinyl release on a 10” hexagonal record, housed in a mirrored-board sleeve where the disc is enclosed into a series of flaps similar to the iris in an old analog camera.
The Andromeda Strain is a science-heavy movie, though I’m not sure how sound the science in it is, exactly. Instead, it has intelligent people approaching a problem analytically and, so long as we can follow their logic, it feels correct to the viewer. Odd how the only missteps are towards the end, with a rushed ending and, before that, the film’s one action sequence. That scene involves lasers, and I was a bit disappointed somebody felt compelled to slap on something at the end to deviate from a work many people would think is too dry. I won’t reveal the setup, but I was reminded of one of my favorite bits from Galaxy Quest, where Sigourney Weaver exclaims with anger and bewilderment why an especially ridiculous contrivance is part of a spaceship. With what happens in the climax here, it is almost like the filmmakers respected the intelligence of the audience until they suddenly didn’t.
Dir: Robert Wise
Starring Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, David Wayne
Watched on Arrow Video blu-ray