Meteor – 1979
There’s No Place On Earth To Hide!
Director
Ronald Neame

Writers
Stanley Mann
Edmund H. North screenplay
Edmund H. North story

Producers
Sandy Howard executive producer
Gabriel Katzka executive producer
Arnold H. Orgolini producer
Theodore R. Parvin producer
Run Run Shaw producer

Cast
Sean Connery – Dr. Paul Bradley
Natalie Wood – Tatiana Nikolaevna Donskaya
Karl Malden – Harry Sherwood, NASA
Brian Keith – Dr. Alexei Dubov
Martin Landau – Maj. Gen. Adlon
Trevor Howard – Sir Michael Hughes
Richard A. Dysart – Secretary of Defense (as Richard Dysart)
Henry Fonda – The President
Joseph Campanella – Lt. Gen. Easton
Bo Brundin – Rolf Manheim
Katherine De Hetre – Jan Watson
James G. Richardson – Alan Marshall
Roger Robinson – Bill Hunter
Michael Zaslow – Sam Mason
John McKinney – Peter Watson
John Findlater – Astronaut Tom Easton
Paul Tulley – Astronaut Bill Frager
Allen Williams – Astronaut Michael McKendrick
Bibi Besch – Helen Bradley
Gregory Gaye – Russian premier (as Gregory Gay)
Clyde Kusatsu – Yamashiro
Burke Byrnes – Coast Guard officer
Joseph G. Medalis – Bartender (as Joe Medalis)
Charles Bartlett – Guard
Raymond O’Keefe – Guard
Henry Olek – Army captain
Peter Bourne – UN president
Stanley Mann – Canadian UN representative
Ronald Neame – British U.N. Representative
Philip Sterling – Russian UN representative
Arthur Adams – Ghana UN representative
Fred Carney – United States UN representative
Sybil Danning – Swiss girl skier
Meschino Paterlini – Swiss boy skier
Johnny Yune – Siberian man (as Jon Yune)
Eileen Saki – Siberian woman
Christine Anne Baur – Communications Center technician (as Chris Baur)
Paul Camen – Communications Center Technician
Dorothy Catching – Communications Center technician
Bill Couch – Communications Center technician
William Darr – Communications Center technician
Joan Foley – Communications Center technician
Paul Laurence – Communications Center technician
John Moio – Communications Center technician (as Johnny Moio)
Read Morgan – Communications Center technician
Conrad E. Palmisano – Communications Center technician (as Conrad Palmisano)
Tony Rocco – Communications Center technician
Jesse Wayne – Communications Center technician
Carole Hemingway – Gladys (Sherwood’s secretary)
Clete Roberts – Network newscaster
Stu Nahan – Football announcer
Osman Ragheb – Osman Ragheb
Yu Wing – Chinese fisherman
Yau Tsui Ling – Chinese fisherman’s wife
Ricker Slaven – Canteen worker (as Rick Slaven)
James Bacon – News reporter
Yani Begakis – News reporter
Selma Archerd – Woman in subway
Domingo Ambriz – Boy with radio
Peter Donat – Narrator, opening sequence (voice)
Simon Cadell – BBC news reporter (uncredited)
George Golden – Newspaperman (uncredited)
Arthur Tovey – Newspaperman (uncredited)

Review by Noel Baily

In a word, “tame”…perhaps “lame” as well!
Made 28 years after WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE and 20 years before DEEP IMPACT midst the 70’s craving for disaster movies, this film was a mini-disaster of a different kind. Same old premise – an outsize chunk of rock, some 8 kilometres across, heading towards Earth with zero survival potential on impact. A major talk-fest (much like DEEP IMPACT) but with the added disadvantage of really laughable FX. At best, the fateful comet looked like a stale chunk of bread up close and personal.

Connery, Wood and Landau especially looked like they wished they were anywhere but on the set of this movie. As was traditional in the 70’s other big name stars like Trevor Howard would stick their nose into proceedings for a few minutes to give the pic some additional clout. It made no difference, it was still a big yawn fest.

Really undistinguished mud-splattering finale in NY that was about as exciting as the final credits. Not so mush a pathetic film in the wash-up, simply a boring one with a majorly low entertainment factor. The makers of DEEP IMPACT went down the same road inexplicably.

Review by Theo Robertson

When You`ve Seen One Meteor Movie …,
The one thing I dislike about Sean Connery is his inability to pick a decent script , I mean just think of all the substandard movies he`s starred in . I imagine though when big Sean saw the script for METEOR he thought he might be onto a winner seeing as it was a sci-fi disaster movie and these two genres were all the rage in the 1970s . Unfortunately by the time this was released the disaster genre had been killed off by turkeys like THE SWARM and THE CASSANDRA CROSSING while many sci-fi films were being produced solely to cash in on the success of STAR WARS with quality science fiction taking a back seat . By 1979 I doubt if a cinema audience could stomach another star studded disaster movie , especially if it had SF overtones as did THE SWARM and THE CASSANDRA CROSSING before it

As was later shown in other meteor films like the sentimental one with Robert Duvall and Morgan Freeman and that one with Bruce Willis , ( You know the one that was utter crap )the problem is the audience is left twiddiling their thumbs waiting for the meteor to hit planet Earth at the end therefore the story has nowhere to go which makes for a very predictable movie , and METEOR isn`t helped by its less than special effects . Does anyone remember that 1960s British movie GORGO ? Remember when people were getting crushed by falling rubble and it was so obvious that the rubble was falling masonary superimposed over the camera ? Well here the exact same technique is used to show a mighty avalance and a gigantic tidal wave enveloping densely packed population centres . It probably didn`t look all that convincing in 1979 and it looks laughably fake today

METEOR is just another disaster movie but it lasts for less than two hours so perhaps we should br greatful for that