The Andromeda Strain (1971)

The Andromeda Strain
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Nelson Gidding from a novel by Michael Crichton
1971/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix rental

Dr. Mark Hall: Most of them died instantly, but a few had time to go quietly nuts.

A wordy, but visually impressive, movie about a deadly organism from outer space.  Turns out fact is scarier than fiction.

A satellite returns to Earth and the inhabitants of a nearby town all drop dead (literally in their tracks).  That is all but an aging wino with an ulcer and a perpetually squalling six-month-old baby. A team of scientists (Arthur Hill, David Wayne, Kate Reid and James Olson) are all summoned immediately to the massive and strictly hush-hush Wildfire Laboratory to try to identify and defeat the killer.

I hope it is not too much of a spoiler to reveal that we are dealing with a crystalline organism, which may be an intelligent alien being.  The story is devoted to the methodical efforts of the scientists to understand how the organism works, how it spreads and how to defuse it.  They also have to worry about the lab self-destructing if they are unsuccessful.

If I have to pick between an alien plague that is taken seriously and the current situation in my homeland where a real-life deadly, but containable, virus is made the subject of politics and virtually ignored or derided by a sizable chunk of the population, I know which one I would choose.  Would that life could resemble art.

As a movie, this is a little talkier than I would prefer but the effects and the settings are amazing.  Considering this was done before CGI makes it even more spectacular.  Wise does his usual competent job and even tries out a few of the New Hollywood’s tricks.

The Andromeda Strain was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Film Editing.