The Andromeda Strain – 1971
Director
Robert Wise

Writers
Michael Crichton (novel)
Nelson Gidding (screenplay)

Cast
James Olson, Arthur Hill
David Wayne, Kate Reid

Good but too faithful to the book,

Adaptation of Michael Crichton’s best seller. An outer space satellite crash lands near the isolated town of Piedmont, New Mexico. Everybody there suddenly dies–except for a small baby and an old man. Some top scientists are called in to investigate–Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill), Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid), Charles Dutton (David Wayne) and Mark Hall (James Olson). They discover a deadly bacteria that may be growing and wipe out civilization–but how did the child and old man live?

Crichton’s book was pretty difficult to read but was interesting. This movie tries to be faithful to the book and it succeeds–but that’s the problem. The book could easily have been tightened but they didn’t do that. What was interesting to read just simply does not translate well to the screen. The pace is very slow and the movie runs 130 minutes! To make matters worse the scientists are given no real characterizations. They’re walking clichés–nothing more. Even the book gave them more dimensions. Also a lot of the technology here is laughably dated–but I can’t fault the movie for when it came out. All that aside it is well directed by Robert Wise–there’s some nice use of multiple screens occasionally. Also the actors are very good in their roles despite having nothing to work with. Olson and Reid come off best. But the whole thing is just too slow! Moving things along a little faster could only have helped. For the acting and direction I give this a 7.