"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. NASA director Keith (Gregory Peck) spends most of the film evaluating a possible rescue mission, comforting the crew's nervous wives, and trying to control the cynical press. Eventually chief astronaut Ted Dougherty (David Janssen) blasts off on a rescue mission, while the men are slowing dying of oxygen deprivation.
The final sequence is quite excruciating, as the oxygen-starved crew begins to act irrationally while both Dougherty's ship and a Soviet ship converge on the crippled spacecraft. Pruett sacrifices himself so that the others may live, leading to a somewhat muddled ending.
The astronaut actors give fairly decent performances. Crenna gives a lazy interpretation of a person somewhat weary of spaceflight, Franciscus is the young and handsome optimist, and Hackman goes rather crazy, in true unstable Ernest Borgnine style. The actresses playing their wives (Lee Grant, Mariette Hartley, and Nancy Kovack) are given little to do besides wring their hands and look worried the entire time. Gregory Peck, as Keith, understates his role so much that he appears to be unconcerned about his soon-to-be-dead crew. Janssen does a good job as the maverick chief astronaut who is determined to rescue his friends. Scott Brady plays a chattering NASA announcer.
The special effects are dated but not bad for 1969. However, "Marooned" could have been a much more exciting movie if not for the long, draggy sequences of the astronauts drifting around in space and bemoaning their fate. The movie then goes over the top at the end, with the crew going uncomfortably berserk as they run short of oxygen. It's not a bad film, it's not great—but it will take you back to the days of the early moon landings.
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. NASA director Keith (Gregory Peck) spends most of the film evaluating a possible rescue mission, comforting the crew's nervous wives, and trying to control the cynical press. Eventually chief astronaut Ted Dougherty (David Janssen) blasts off on a rescue mission, while the men are slowing dying of oxygen deprivation.
The final sequence is quite excruciating, as the oxygen-starved crew begins to act irrationally while both Dougherty's ship and a Soviet ship converge on the crippled spacecraft. Pruett sacrifices himself so that the others may live, leading to a somewhat muddled ending.
The astronaut actors give fairly decent performances. Crenna gives a lazy interpretation of a person somewhat weary of spaceflight, Franciscus is the young and handsome optimist, and Hackman goes rather crazy, in true unstable Ernest Borgnine style. The actresses playing their wives (Lee Grant, Mariette Hartley, and Nancy Kovack) are given little to do besides wring their hands and look worried the entire time. Gregory Peck, as Keith, understates his role so much that he appears to be unconcerned about his soon-to-be-dead crew. Janssen does a good job as the maverick chief astronaut who is determined to rescue his friends. Scott Brady plays a chattering NASA announcer.
The special effects are dated but not bad for 1969. However, "Marooned" could have been a much more exciting movie if not for the long, draggy sequences of the astronauts drifting around in space and bemoaning their fate. The movie then goes over the top at the end, with the crew going uncomfortably berserk as they run short of oxygen. It's not a bad film, it's not great—but it will take you back to the days of the early moon landings.