The Black Hole


1h 37m 1979
The Black Hole

Brief Synopsis

Researchers discover a lost space ship on the edge of a black hole.

Film Details

Also Known As
Black Hole, Space Station One
MPAA Rating
Genre
Horror/Science-Fiction
Fantasy
Release Date
1979

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 37m
Sound
70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints), Dolby (35 mm prints)
Color
Color (Technicolor)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
2.35 : 1

Synopsis

Near the end of their five-year mission through space in search of alien life, the crew of the Palomino comes upon the largest black hole ever discovered, with the long-missing starship Cygnus at its edge. The only human onboard, reknowned scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt, does not want to be rescued, but plans to enter the black hole and take the Palomino's crew with him.

Crew

Lloyd Ahern

Camera Operator

Wayne Allwine

Sound Effects Editor

Nick Alphin

Sound

Robert Ayres

Production

Bob Barbash

From Story

John Barry

Music

John Bloss

Production Manager

Robert Broughton

Camera Coordinator

Don Capel

Key Grip

Bill Couch

Stunts

Art Cruickshank

Photography

Howard Curtis

Stunts

Gerry Day

Screenplay

Art Dudley

Other

Harrison Ellenshaw

Production Designer

Peter Ellenshaw

Digital Effects Supervisor

Peter Ellenshaw

Production Designer

Peter Ellenshaw

Miniatures

George Fredrick

Sound Effects Editor

Dominic Fulford

Stunts

Len Glascow

Stunts

Joe Hale

Digital Effects Supervisor

Leon R Harris

Production

Bob Hathaway

Sound

Ben F Hendricks

Sound Effects

Robert Herron

Stunts

Billy Jackson

Stunts

Gene Johnson

Production

John Joliffe

Sound Effects Editor

Melvin Jones

Stunts

Stephen Katz

Sound Effects

Chuck Keehne

Costume Supervisor

Ted Kierscey

Animator

William Kilduff

Camera Operator

Nicholas Vincent Korda

Assistant Editor

Richard H. Landau

From Story

Dorse A Lanpher

Animator

Danny Lee

Digital Effects Supervisor

Fred Lucky

Assistant

Eustace Lycett

Photography

James Macdonald

Sound Effects

Henry A Maffett

Sound

John Mansbridge

Art Director

Robert Mccall

Art Director

Katee Mcclure

Stunts

Thomas B Mccrory

Assistant Director

Steve Mceveety

Production Assistant

Steve Mceveety

Miniatures

George F Mcginnis

Mechanical Special Effects

Frank R. Mckelvy

Set Decorator

Gregg Mclaughlin

Editor

Tommy Mcloughlin

Other

Arthur Miller

Photography

Christopher D Miller

Assistant Director

Ron Miller

Producer

Gloria Montemayer

Hair

Joe Moore

Assistant Director

Stevie Myers

Stunts

Sandra K Nelson

Script Supervisor

Terry Nichols

Stunts

Alan Oliney

Stunts

Ronald Oliney

Stunts

Conrad Palmisano

Stunts

Joseph A Parker

Sound Effects Editor

Regina Parton

Stunts

Frank Phillips

Director Of Photography

Frank C Regula

Sound

Al Roelofs

Art Director

Jeb Rosebrook

From Story

Jeb Rosebrook

Screenplay

Wilbur Russell

Props

Bobby Sargent

Stunts

Terry Saunders

Miniatures

Robert J. Schiffer

Makeup Supervisor

Christopher Seiter

Unit Production Manager

Ed Sekac

Photography

Roger M Shook

Set Decorator

Herb Taylor

Sound Supervisor

Louis Terrusa

Sound Effects Editor

Bill Thomas

Costumes

John Van Frey

Sound

Robert R Wilson

Camera Operator

Al Woodbury

Original Music

William J Wylie

Sound Effects

Film Details

Also Known As
Black Hole, Space Station One
MPAA Rating
Genre
Horror/Science-Fiction
Fantasy
Release Date
1979

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 37m
Sound
70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints), Dolby (35 mm prints)
Color
Color (Technicolor)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
2.35 : 1

Award Nominations

Best Cinematography

1979

Best Visual Effects

1979
Peter Ellenshaw

Articles

The Black Hole


Walt Disney Studios was in an identity crisis when it entered the space movie race with the ambitious live-action production The Black Hole in 1979. Disney's family features were losing ground and producer (and soon to be Walt Disney Company CEO) Ron Miller was trying to make the studio relevant in the contemporary filmmaking culture of blockbuster hits. In the wake of the success of Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Miller turned to a project that had been in development at Disney for years, a science-fiction adventure titled Space Probe-One. After numerous rewrites and conceptual overhauls from a parade of writers, the renamed The Black Hole went before the cameras in late 1978 under the direction of Gary Nelson, a TV veteran with a handful of feature film credits to his name, among them Disney's Freaky Friday (1976). It was a bold experiment for the studio: a budget that ultimately climbed to $20 million, a cast of name actors (if not quite major stars), and (most radically) the first PG-rated release in Disney history.

A space probe captained by the quietly authoritative Robert Forster (Jackie Brown, 1997) stumbles across the black hole and finds a seemingly derelict ship floating on the fringes of the gravitational well. The massive haunted house of a spaceship suddenly lights up into a stunning vision of glass and latticework, glowing like an ember in the night. The crew finds the long-lost Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell in a wild-man beard), a quite literally mad scientist who has created an army of robots to run the otherwise abandoned craft and now plans to ride it into the black hole. Anything for science.

The impressive production is hampered by a clumsy story, a murky metaphysical ending, and some of the most stilted dialogue ever to emerge from a film screen. The script suggests a space-age 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with Schell (Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961) as an interstellar Captain Nemo with a Hitler complex. In keeping with the Disney references, his robot bodyguard, Maximilian, a satanic-looking behemoth in crimson and black, was modeled after the devil in the final segment of the animated classic Fantasia (1940).

Anthony Perkins has the designated Spock role as Dr. Alex Durant, an emotionally closed-off intellectual fascinated by Reinhardt's maverick ideas and impressed by his achievements. The rest of the probe's crew –Yvette Mimieux's telepathic scientist and empathetic balance to Perkins' prickly logical character, Joseph Bottoms' junior pilot and impulsive young crewman, Ernest Borgnine's crusty reporter, and the roly-poly floating robot Vincent, resembling a Fisher-Price toy take on R2-D2 and voiced in decidedly C-3PO tones by Roddy McDowall – is more suspicious, and rightly so. The rest of the film delves into the secret of the silent robot drones - viewed by Forster conducting a funeral in space in one haunting scene - and the real story behind the mutiny of Reinhardt's "abandoned" ship.

The science of this fiction is as hokey as the drama, but the imaginative art design and excellent special effects are magnificent. Peter Ellenshaw, the acclaimed matte artist and Disney effects veteran who won an Oscar® for his work on Mary Poppins (1964), was lured out of retirement to oversee the production. (His son and heir apparent, Harrison Ellenshaw, painted the amazing spacescapes and richly detailed mattes for the production). After failing to come to terms with Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic to use the Dykstraflex camera system used in Star Wars, Disney engineers created an even more technologically advanced computer controlled system, A.C.E.S. The film's crew rose to the challenge with special effects even more elaborate and richly complex (if not as visually dynamic) than the pioneering effects work of Star Wars. The science is pure fantasy but the scale and intensity of the imagery is breathtaking, from the ominous first sighting of the ghost ship eerily floating in space to the stunning image of a fiery meteor rolling through the ship's enormous hull while the human occupants flee to safety.

John Barry's gorgeous score, with the bass ominously carrying much of the melody, provides a lyricism missing from so many bombastic sci-fi scores and sets a tone of unease that the drama never manages to match. The cast loses the battle with the stilted dialogue and Nelson's direction is more successful in showing off the elaborate and lovingly detailed sets than in creating dramatic tension. Critics were not kind to The Black Hole and audiences failed to respond, giving Disney its most expensive commercial failure to date. Yet the imaginative production design and layered special effects have given the film a minor cult status among sci-fi movie fans. For all the advances in digital effects in the succeeding decades, the craft and care and creative ingenuity of the deep-space spectacle is still impressive.

Producer: Ron Miller
Director: Gary Nelson
Screenplay: Jeb Rosebrook, Bob Barbash, Richard Landau, Gerry Day
Cinematography: Frank Phillips
Film Editing: Gregg McLaughlin
Art Direction: John B. Mansbridge, Robert T. McCall, Al Roelofs
Music: John Barry
Cast: Maximilian Schell (Dr. Hans Reinhardt), Anthony Perkins (Dr. Alex Durant), Robert Forster (Capt. Dan Holland), Joseph Bottoms (Lt. Charles Pizer), Yvette Mimieux (Dr. Kate McCrae), Ernest Borgnine (Harry Booth).
C-98m. Letterboxed.

by Sean Axmaker
The Black Hole

The Black Hole

Walt Disney Studios was in an identity crisis when it entered the space movie race with the ambitious live-action production The Black Hole in 1979. Disney's family features were losing ground and producer (and soon to be Walt Disney Company CEO) Ron Miller was trying to make the studio relevant in the contemporary filmmaking culture of blockbuster hits. In the wake of the success of Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Miller turned to a project that had been in development at Disney for years, a science-fiction adventure titled Space Probe-One. After numerous rewrites and conceptual overhauls from a parade of writers, the renamed The Black Hole went before the cameras in late 1978 under the direction of Gary Nelson, a TV veteran with a handful of feature film credits to his name, among them Disney's Freaky Friday (1976). It was a bold experiment for the studio: a budget that ultimately climbed to $20 million, a cast of name actors (if not quite major stars), and (most radically) the first PG-rated release in Disney history. A space probe captained by the quietly authoritative Robert Forster (Jackie Brown, 1997) stumbles across the black hole and finds a seemingly derelict ship floating on the fringes of the gravitational well. The massive haunted house of a spaceship suddenly lights up into a stunning vision of glass and latticework, glowing like an ember in the night. The crew finds the long-lost Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell in a wild-man beard), a quite literally mad scientist who has created an army of robots to run the otherwise abandoned craft and now plans to ride it into the black hole. Anything for science. The impressive production is hampered by a clumsy story, a murky metaphysical ending, and some of the most stilted dialogue ever to emerge from a film screen. The script suggests a space-age 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with Schell (Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961) as an interstellar Captain Nemo with a Hitler complex. In keeping with the Disney references, his robot bodyguard, Maximilian, a satanic-looking behemoth in crimson and black, was modeled after the devil in the final segment of the animated classic Fantasia (1940). Anthony Perkins has the designated Spock role as Dr. Alex Durant, an emotionally closed-off intellectual fascinated by Reinhardt's maverick ideas and impressed by his achievements. The rest of the probe's crew –Yvette Mimieux's telepathic scientist and empathetic balance to Perkins' prickly logical character, Joseph Bottoms' junior pilot and impulsive young crewman, Ernest Borgnine's crusty reporter, and the roly-poly floating robot Vincent, resembling a Fisher-Price toy take on R2-D2 and voiced in decidedly C-3PO tones by Roddy McDowall – is more suspicious, and rightly so. The rest of the film delves into the secret of the silent robot drones - viewed by Forster conducting a funeral in space in one haunting scene - and the real story behind the mutiny of Reinhardt's "abandoned" ship. The science of this fiction is as hokey as the drama, but the imaginative art design and excellent special effects are magnificent. Peter Ellenshaw, the acclaimed matte artist and Disney effects veteran who won an Oscar® for his work on Mary Poppins (1964), was lured out of retirement to oversee the production. (His son and heir apparent, Harrison Ellenshaw, painted the amazing spacescapes and richly detailed mattes for the production). After failing to come to terms with Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic to use the Dykstraflex camera system used in Star Wars, Disney engineers created an even more technologically advanced computer controlled system, A.C.E.S. The film's crew rose to the challenge with special effects even more elaborate and richly complex (if not as visually dynamic) than the pioneering effects work of Star Wars. The science is pure fantasy but the scale and intensity of the imagery is breathtaking, from the ominous first sighting of the ghost ship eerily floating in space to the stunning image of a fiery meteor rolling through the ship's enormous hull while the human occupants flee to safety. John Barry's gorgeous score, with the bass ominously carrying much of the melody, provides a lyricism missing from so many bombastic sci-fi scores and sets a tone of unease that the drama never manages to match. The cast loses the battle with the stilted dialogue and Nelson's direction is more successful in showing off the elaborate and lovingly detailed sets than in creating dramatic tension. Critics were not kind to The Black Hole and audiences failed to respond, giving Disney its most expensive commercial failure to date. Yet the imaginative production design and layered special effects have given the film a minor cult status among sci-fi movie fans. For all the advances in digital effects in the succeeding decades, the craft and care and creative ingenuity of the deep-space spectacle is still impressive. Producer: Ron Miller Director: Gary Nelson Screenplay: Jeb Rosebrook, Bob Barbash, Richard Landau, Gerry Day Cinematography: Frank Phillips Film Editing: Gregg McLaughlin Art Direction: John B. Mansbridge, Robert T. McCall, Al Roelofs Music: John Barry Cast: Maximilian Schell (Dr. Hans Reinhardt), Anthony Perkins (Dr. Alex Durant), Robert Forster (Capt. Dan Holland), Joseph Bottoms (Lt. Charles Pizer), Yvette Mimieux (Dr. Kate McCrae), Ernest Borgnine (Harry Booth). C-98m. Letterboxed. by Sean Axmaker

Quotes

Something caused all this. But what caused... that cause?
- Dr. Hans Reinhardt
The word "impossible," Mr. Booth, is only found in the dictionary of fools.
- Dr. Hans Reinhardt
There are three basic types, Mr. Pizer, the wills, the won'ts, and the can'ts. The wills accomplish everything, the won'ts oppose everything, and the can'ts won't try anything.
- V.I.N.CENT
To quote Cicero: rashness is the characteristic of youth, prudence that of mellowed age, and discretion the better part of valor.
- V.I.N.CENT
Vincent, were you programmed to bug me?
- Lieutenant Charles Pizer
No sir, to educate you.
- V.I.N.CENT

Trivia

Disney's first PG-rated movie.

To film the special effects for "The Black Hole", Disney originally wanted to rent the Dykstraflex camera system (the first computer controlled camera) from Industrial Light & Magic. However, the price and rental terms were unacceptable so Disney went to their acclaimed engineering division to come up with their own version. What resulted was Disney's A.C.E.S. (Automated Camera Effects System), which was radically superior to the Dykstraflex system, the "Mattescan" system, which enabled the camera to move on a matte painting (which was previously impossible), and a computer-controlled modeling stand. At the time, this put Disney technologically ahead of ILM.

Dr. Reinhardt's ship is called the "U.S.S. Cygnus." The first black hole was discovered in the constellation Cygnus.

The film contains over 550 visual effects shots, including over 150 matte paintings.

At the time of its release, the movie featured the longest computer graphics sequence that had ever appeared in a film.

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States Winter December 1979

Released in United States Winter December 1979