Peter Hyams'
Capricorn One distorts an interesting thriller premise,
embracing gimmicks over theme and character. Noted for sequel-izing
2001: A
Space Odyssey, Hyams has created film remakes or adaptations as varied as
High Noon (
Outland) and
The Narrow Margin (
Narrow
Margin) and is said to be completing a remake of Fritz Lang's
Beyond a
Reasonable Doubt. Of all his pictures, the most affecting so far is his
relatively forgotten 1974 film
Our Time, a story of a frightened girl
who seeks an illegal abortion.
When NASA discovers that their Capricorn 1 spaceship has a faulty life support
system, Dr. James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) takes drastic action to save the
Space Program from termination by an unfriendly White House. Astronauts
Brubaker, Willis and Walker (James Brolin, Sam Waterston & O.J. Simpson) are
yanked from the capsule just before launch and spirited away to an isolated and
abandoned airbase. Kelloway shows the confused spacemen a prepared TV setting
representing the surface of Mars, where they'll act out the televised parts of
the mission for home viewing. The astronauts balk until Kelloway infers that a
refusal to cooperate will mean that they'll have to be killed!
The astronauts grudgingly cooperate, on a 'patriotic' basis. Video special
effects are used to simulate the lower gravity in the Mars tele-transmissions.
But when the empty Capricorn 1 capsule burns up on re-entry into the
atmosphere, the spacemen realize that they have become targets for murder --
Kelloway can't let them reveal that the mission was faked.
Capricorn One became a surprise hit when Warner Bros. needed a picture
to fill the gap left by
Superman: The Movie, which couldn't be finished
in time for its summer 1978 play dates. Less a space movie than a conspiracy
thriller, Hyams' film sets up an outrageous premise and then abandons it in
favor of audience-friendly chase scenes. The picture comes to life only near
the end, with an exciting aerial combat between a crop dusting biplane and two
helicopters.
After the political assassinations of the 1960s and the revelations of illegal
secret activities by the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., the notion of sinister
conspiracies suddenly seemed less fantastic. Alan J. Pakula's notable
The
Parallax View invents a secret corporation that recruited assassin-patsies
to take the blame for political assassinations.
Capricorn One cynically
extends the paranoia to the Space Program's Mars project, but has come up with
a fantasy that doesn't satisfy the minimum requirements of paranoid politics or
technical feasibility. According to Hyams' script, NASA reacts like Stanley
Kubrick's HAL computer, choosing to deceive the world and commit wholesale
murder rather than "die" for lack of funding.
There's nothing wrong with basing a thriller on an unlikely premise, but
Capricorn One shortchanges its characters to focus on its own faulty
plot mechanics. Investigative reporter Robert Caulfield (Elliott Gould) detects
the conspiracy by witnessing the mysterious disappearance of a NASA technician
(Robert Walden) and noticing an inconsistency in the behavior of an astronaut's
wife (Brenda Vaccaro). Caulfield gets absolutely nowhere until it's time to
unmask the conspirators. He trades poorly written sexual banter with a briefly
glimpsed fellow reporter (Karen Black). His relationship with editor (David
Doyle) is so perfunctory that they swap self-conscious movie clichés
instead of dialogue: "Here's the exasperated but loyal editor bailing the
reporter out of jail."
The movie ignores its woefully underwritten astronauts during the months-long
Mars mission. We know the film isn't working when Dr. Kelloway feeds his
astronauts five pages of nonsense explaining why it's necessary to deceive the
entire world and make them all into reprehensible liars. Faced with this crisis
of conscience and character, the astronauts passively accept the unethical
proposal. O.J. Simpson stares blankly and James Brolin looks as though his
feelings have been hurt. Sam Waterston offers limp quips: "Oh, the marvels of
American science. Here we are millions of miles from earth, and we can still
send out for pizza." The film's portrait of America's finest, most courageous
heroes isn't very flattering.
Kelloway performs his bogus Mars landing on live TV instead of with pre-taped
video segments, a very risky proposition. What if the power blew in the
hangar-TV set, or if one of those movie lights burned out? Skilled video
effects experts shift the TV image to slow motion for certain astronaut
actions, in a way highly unlikely to deceive trained eyes. In this respect the
movie is fairly insulting. The most immediate parallel I can think of is the
ridiculously unconvincing faked war footage seen in the similarly themed
Wag
the Dog (1997).
For a conspiracy to succeed, the number of people "in the know" needs to be
very small. Only a handful of conspirators are shown in
Capricorn One
but the events imply that hundreds must be involved. A space launch employs an
army of technicians, all triple-checking each other's work. Many NASA employees
must have seen the three astronauts leave the spaceship. During the flight,
many in the control room would be aware that the rocket is being remote-guided
from Earth, and that no astronaut health status telemetry is coming in. The
redundant, intensely monitored communications systems can't be jiggered to
falsify transmissions from space without scores of experts knowing.
Capricorn One's widening conspiracy doesn't stop there. Dr. Kelloway
must also have the cooperation of the military to run his secret TV studio in
the desert, and further cooperation to undertake a massive search-and-murder
campaign across the Southwestern desert. I suppose we can assume that the
gunmen that arrest Caulfield are only impersonators pretending to be government
agents, so the F.B.I. isn't necessarily part of the conspiracy. But the gunmen,
astronaut-tenders and pilots must be
somebody. Does Kelloway have entire
"black ops" murder squads at his disposal? If he does, forget the faked Mars
landing, because the entire country has already been taken over by thousands of
nefarious Blue Meanies, the shadowy "they" that secretly run the
government.
Earlier conspiracy thrillers generated political paranoia to express larger
concerns.
The Parallax View made impossible assassination schemes seem
plausible. Sydney Pollack's
Three Days of the Condor ended with the bald
message that America will accept any crime or foreign war, as long as the
government delivers cheap gasoline.
Capricorn One indicts half the U.S.
Government, and then sidesteps the consequences of its premise by entertaining
us with an exciting thriller chase. The final scene freeze-frames before
anybody has a chance to point fingers, scream bloody murder or take poison.
We're left with a half-baked movie.
Capricorn One also seems designed to avoid as many 'dull' dramatic
scenes as possible. The astronauts see their wives only by television. Guest
stars Karen Black and Telly Savalas were probably hired for a day apiece, along
with actors David Doyle, David Huddleston and James Karen. When Robert Walden's
nosy technician suddenly disappears, we feel cheated. Like most of the cast, he
hasn't been given a chance to make an impact.
Lionsgate's DVD of
Capricorn One is a solid enhanced transfer that
replicates cinematographer Bill Butler's sharp images and showcases Jerry
Goldsmith's punchy score. Lionsgate expands its horizons by including a
featurette and an entertaining commentary. Director Peter Hyams talks about
sifting through official lies while serving as a reporter in Vietnam. He's
realistic about his film and proud of its technical achievement. One of Hyams'
inspirations came from a statement made by an astronaut. During a launch, the
astronaut mused over the fact that he was sitting on an enormous tower of
explosives, riding a spaceship in which each part was designed and assembled by
the lowest bidder.
Hyams doesn't talk much about the budget shortcuts, such as the fact that most
of the desert scenes, including the aerial stunts, seem to be filmed adjacent
to the familiar Red Rock Canyon area north of Palmdale, California.
Unfortunately, his "helicopters as characters" aerial choreography has dated
badly. The bug-like copters turn as if to speak to one another, and behave like
hound dogs on the scent. They also fly in tight formation at all times, a risk
that's both unnecessary and counterproductive for a desert search. Hyams does
point out the film's excellent miniatures, and explains the scheduling problem
with
Superman that gave
Capricorn One a top summer distribution
slot.
The featurette places writer-director Hyams opposite an historian and a UFO
phenomena buff for an uneven discussion. They cover Hyams' other inspiration,
the persistent claims by conspiracy theorists that the Apollo moon landings
never happened, and were faked just as seen in
Capricorn One.
For more information about
Capricorn One, visit
Lionsgate.To order
Capricorn One,
go to
TCM Shopping.
by Glenn Erickson
