Meteor

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In outer space, there is a fiery mass of rock and metal, five miles wide.
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It is coming at 30,000 miles per hour.
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Earth is in the way.
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Meteor, meteor, meteor.
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We're not talking about actors. We mean a real monster.
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I brought her back. She'll live and I'll get her another body.
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I know they're gonna catch me but don't let anyone see me like that! Please, Doctor!
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Help me!
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Biologically speaking, it's a primary importance that man should want to mate.
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Hey, that's for sure!
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You don't get all your kicks from surfing, do you?
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We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man.
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And we want to get loaded.
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You think you're gonna make a slave of the world?
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I'll see youin hell first!
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The American International Podcast.
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Are you ready?
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You've found the American International Podcast. Thanks for joining us.
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I'm Jeff Markin.
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I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
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And this week we're looking up, way up, to the impending doom that is Meteor from 1979.
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Meteor was directed by Ronald Neame from a screenplay by Stanley Mann and Edmund H. North,
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which came from a story by Theodore Parvin and Edmund H. North.
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And it was produced by Theodore Parvin and Arnold Orgrolini for Meteor Productions
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and released by American International Pictures.
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Meteor stars Sean Connery as Dr. Paul Bradley, Natalie Wood as Tatiana Donskaya,
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Karl Malden as Harry Sherwood, Brian Keith as Dr. Alexei Duboff,
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Martin Landau as General Adlon, Trevor Howard as Sir Michael Hughes,
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Richard Dysart as Secretary of Defense.
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It also stars Henry Fonda as the president, Joseph Campanella as General Easton,
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Bo Brundin as Rolf Mannheim, Roger Robinson as Bill Hunter, Michael Zaslow as Sam Mason,
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Bibi Besch as Helen Bradley, and Sybil Danning as the Skier.
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She's actually credited as the Girl Skier.
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I know of it. I tried to not be sexist.
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Because there's a boy Skier too.
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Oh yeah, there was a boy Skier who gets avalanched.
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Meteor starts surprisingly enough in space.
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There's a lot of it. You see some stars and there's actually a little bit of mist appearing too.
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Yeah, our POV is a trail of comet dust as the credits zoom past us.
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And then a voiceover tells us that outer space is limitless and timeless,
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filled with cosmic explosions and endless turbulence.
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And we get graphic depictions of the same.
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The narration continues. Space is an infinite playground for that occasional blazing visitor, the comet.
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At first, comet's terrified man. He thought they were signals of impending catastrophe.
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But he got used to them and he gave names to them and waited for them to drop by like all friends.
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Yeah, they're infrotee and they slept with his wife.
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This one has come from behind the sun, moving across the heavens at 108,000 miles an hour
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and has never before been seen by man.
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And it confused me because this isn't a movie about comets,
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but this is an important prologue, I guess.
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And then we move on and the narrator tells us about the asteroid belt,
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a vast junkyard of metal and rock orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Mars.
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Thousands of fragments, some as small as a fist, some as large as a city,
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amongst these orfias, 20 miles in diameter and undisturbed for countless generations until now.
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Don't don't don't don't let me get our title meteors extra bold.
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And then we have a very strange dissolve where it seems like a sailboat is
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corining through outer space, but it's just a really, really slow fade.
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Capturing this schooner is a smiling Sean Connery playing, Dr. Paul Bradley.
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Is this a race and he and his team are in it to win it that is until a coast guard ship pulls up alongside their schooner sirens blaring.
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Paul grabs a megaphone to talk to them to see what it is they want.
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The coast guard ship says that they've been sent by NASA to pick up Dr. Paul Bradley and is he on board?
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Paul tells them this isn't a good time he's trying to win a race here, but the coast guards orders are clear.
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Dr. Paul objects with the guardsman threatens to cut across his bow.
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So Dr. Paul relents and agrees to come in.
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And then a title font tells us that this is Monday.
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And now on land Paul is being escorted to a car.
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The coast guard official tells Paul that there's a plane to Houston waiting for him.
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As Paul enters the vehicle, he asked the guardsman if he would have really cut across his bow.
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The official says yes, but I would have rammed you and go straight to the bottom sir says the official with a salute.
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Dr. Paul turns a fiery glare on the guardsman as the car he just said in whisked him away.
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Now we're at NASA's Lyndon Johnson Space Center where Dr. Paul is dropped off in front of the building.
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And he tells the striver to wait for him as he trots up the stairs and inside.
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Inside and out of office Dr. Paul sees a secretary whose name is Gladys.
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She tells him that he owes her $10. She got her hand to cap down and golf.
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Paul notices that he has a packed bag sitting in the chair across from her.
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It's yours she confirms as he goes into the inner office going in Paul sees Harry Sherwood play by Carl Maldon waiting for him.
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And there are others in attendance, including General Easton, the by Joseph Campanella and Sam Mason, the commander in NASA and Peter Watson flight director.
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Sam Mason was really familiar to me from the soap opera world.
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He was on guiding light for generations and he was also on one life to live, which is where I saw him.
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Harry offers scotch and tells everyone to take a seat at the table as he begins to debrief Paul and what's going on.
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Paul says he left NASA five years ago and wants to know why he's back here now.
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Harry hands Paul his drink and finds the others to help themselves to the bar.
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Then Harry explains that a new comment has been discovered.
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This one was headed towards the asteroid belt.
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At that time the challenger to space module, which was test with exploring Mars and staffed by General Easton Son Tom amongst others.
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Was nearby. So Harry said he changed their program so that they could be nearby this upcoming cosmic collision.
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And we see in flashback how the conversation went down.
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The challenger crew asks how this change in plans will affect the mission.
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Commander Sam Mason tells them about the comment and they want challenger to head towards the asteroid belt in part beside Vespa and tick lots of pictures.
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Tom Mason asked Sam to tell his dad hello for him, even though his dad is standing right there watching.
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And then we return to present day here again says that this all took place last Friday. Then yesterday Sunday at 1100 hours challenger pulled up alongside Vespa as planned.
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And up back on the challenger, the crew is there taking pictures.
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This is again Sunday morning. They waited there for 90 minutes until the comet hits.
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And as anyone with half a brain might anticipate when a comet batches into a meteor there's going to be some debris scattering everywhere.
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And that indeed is what happens as the astronauts watch in the command center watches the video link.
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The comment hits orpheus and orpheus is blasted into pieces. Everyone watches helplessly as the fragments fly out as Sam general eastern Harry, etc.
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Look on in silent horror doing absolutely nothing a massive chunk of orpheus hurdles itself towards the module.
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Reality probably happened hours ago because of the speed of the video link as it's about to hit the astronauts drift away from the window.
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But that didn't really help anything. The chunk obliterates the spacecraft. The camera zeroes in on general instance on the emotional face.
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Back in the present Harry Monday morning quarterbacks is called he should have figured that that that general eastern tells Harry he shouldn't feel guilty.
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We'd all have given the same orders he says the news is not yet gone public. But Harry is going to have to put on a press release as soon as they're done with this meeting.
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Paul wants to know why he's been called in and that's when Harry drops the bombshell a chunk of orpheus a pretty sizable one is headed towards Earth.
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There are a bunch of smaller fragments coming along with it, but they need to be too concerned about those ones. It's the big one they're worried about.
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And it's going to hit in six days. Dr. Paul yells that is why we put hercules up there. Hercules is an arms satellite officially meant to destroy any incoming dangers such as this one but unofficially to point weapons at the enemies of the US.
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Areas more to say though is convened a meeting at NASA HQ in Washington DC tomorrow. Harry once Paul there.
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Harry spots off a list of names of which Paul is familiar to try to entice him to come to this meeting.
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Harry hands Dr. Paul a dossier effects about orpheus for his plane reading material and then tells him his room is booked and glad us at the front desk has all his financial arrangements.
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Paul picks up his bag and in clip tones says he will attend the meeting. Why don't you stick a broom up my ass I can sweep the carpet on my way out.
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I hear Sean Karen is terrible. I know. Why don't you say it then?
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I just took a broom up my ass. I can sweep the carpet on my way out.
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He departs throwing another steely glare back at Harry.
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In the next scene Paul arrives at his hotel in Washington is greeted by a man dressed in green and wearing a top hat probably giving Sean Connery flashbacks to Darby O'Gill and the little people in his hotel room.
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Paul switches on the TV where the big news is that Dr. Paul Bradley dropped out of the sailboat race. This is despite the fact that a press release was literally put out that the shuttle challenger to was destroyed.
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Nobody cares about that after hearing his name mentioned for forfeiting the race it turns the volume down on the TV is soon to be XY if is put in note in his luggage that says what's going on.
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So he picks up the phone and calls her. Yes, her how the kids are doing and she seems to want to chat but Paul can't really discuss what he's doing in Washington. So he hangs up.
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He tries to read his dossier but then focuses on the hotel room ceiling lamp which dissolves into an orbiting satellite packed to the gills with missiles.
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They looked a little alike. Harry's warning about orpheus echoes in his head. Then we see the teacher their meteor as it slowly hurdles earthward.
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Now it's Tuesday. The destroyed shuttle is on the front page of the paper. I guess that sailboat race is yesterday's news.
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Dr. Paul is reading it in the back of a car on his way to the meeting when he gets there he enters the conference room to find that he's the only one in the room.
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There's some cool space shuttle models there too. Very burst through the door and apologizes for being late. So was everyone else says Paul either they're in the wrong room or no one else is coming.
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Harry confesses that no one else is coming. He never called anybody else. All he needs is Paul because he was the one who launched hercules.
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The pa has some issues with the way things have been handled with hercules since his exit from master. He's still salty. It currently has its 14 missiles pointed toward Russia and that was not its intended purpose.
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Harry gets snippy right back at Dr. Paul. That meteor is five miles wide and it's definitely going to hit us. Shit says Paul.
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Shoot. And then the two discuss strategy. A general adlan is going to be a problem as are about a hundred other government types.
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We're more worried about the political ramifications of turning hercules on the meteor instead of Russia.
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So Harry wants Paul to help him get things moving along so hercules can be used in the way it was originally intended.
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It will take some doing because the politics involved but this is a matter of life and death.
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Those rockets have got to be realigned and we have exactly five days he says.
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And now we're in Russia as a doctor. DuBoff is talking to some government officials about how orpheus could obliterate Russia.
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But when he suggests that they call the US government he's immediately shot down. They can't do that without the chairman's okay.
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In a meeting in Washington the same sentiment is being held against the Russians. Harry Paul general Easton and several other men are sitting at a conference table.
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Edit by the secretary of defense. Contact the Russians will not be under consideration without the secretary say so.
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Harry says he sure the Russians are likely aware of the meteor and are probably wondering what the US is doing about it.
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Which at that moment is nothing. That's the purpose of this meeting to figure out what they're going to do.
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Harry proposes the obvious solution is to use hercules as per its original intention. But General Adlon, played by Martin Lando, is against the idea the US government has never admitted to the existence of hercules.
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And since it's being used in contradiction to every piece treaty ever signed the admission of its existence would be a great source of embarrassment to the country.
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But Harry says this is bigger than all of that.
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Secretary of Defense says this meaning is for figuring out what to do. Nothing's been decided yet.
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As hercules is the only thing that they can use then he and General Adlon starts sniping at each other general Adlon doesn't like the idea of the public calling them liars and warmongers.
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Harry thinks they'll be even less thrilled to find out that a meteor is going to destroy the earth unless they know that the government has a plan to fight it.
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Then the secretary of defense asked for Paul to describe the devastation or fierce will cause.
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Paul says they have a five mile piece of rock traveling at 30,000 miles per hour.
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Its striking force would be equal to two million five hundred thousand megatons of TNT. That's ten orders of magnitude greater than the largest earthquake ever recorded.
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It would throw five billion tons of earth into the atmosphere block a fair amount of sunlight and likely bring about another ice age.
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General Adlon thinks that Harry could be wrong. He was wrong when he said that shuttles to the asteroid belt and Harry is affronted.
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I don't have to listen to this. He shouts as everyone starts figuring at the table.
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Paul stands up and grabs his jacket from a coast stand. The secretary of defense asks him where he's going. I need air says Paul.
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He's done his job. He's told them what would happen if the meteor hits now it's up to them to decide what to do about it.
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When they're ready for him, Paul tells them he'll be in the bar across the street.
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Once he's gone, the secretary of defense tells the others that he's got to run this by the president.
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Harry reminds the secretary that there's not much time.
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And then we see the meteor is still on the way.
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We keep cutting to that not really an impressive looking hunger rock is it.
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Now we're at the bar with Paul and we see on the television that the BBC has gone live at the meteor story.
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Paul is having a drink and Harry comes in to join him and then on the television the American reporter comes back on and says he considers it deplorable that they're getting their news from the BBC while the US government has so far declined to address the situation.
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Harry considers it deplorable that he's been sitting at the bar for over two seconds now and he doesn't have a drink in front of him.
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So Paul orders him a drink.
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Harry tells Dr. Paul they are letting the president decide what to do. What if he says no asked Dr. Paul.
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Harry tells a long wind story about how his son is a stomach ache and when a doctor recommended an epnectomy his wife wanted to wait and see if the kid got better on his own.
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But when she was asleep, he took the kid to the hospital and had them perform the surgery.
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The next day his wife was happy that everything turned out okay. You get my point.
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Ask Harry. Paul smiles and nods. Then he asked how they can get the nuclear warheads on hercules reposition without Harry's wife going about it.
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And then he'll do it. That's the only way. And then someone calls the bar for Harry after taking the call.
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He and Paul go back to work in the next scene. Harry's on the phone with the secretary of defense as Paul reads a printout that confirms hercules is light.
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We'll find out what that means in a sec.
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So now they're meeting in the oval office with president Henry Fonda.
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The president is in an awkward position. You'd if they admit to the existence of hercules the rockets they have won't be enough to keep the media from its current trajectory.
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Don't need even more rockets. He asked the secretary of defense if they have more rockets not in space.
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Sir, he says then what are we supposed to do asked the president. Harry asked if the president will confirm that the Russians have their own version of hercules with missiles pointed toward the US.
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Yes, but they'll never admit it says president Henry Fonda and Paul says that they will need the combined weaponry from both satellites to destroy the meteor.
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Everything so they can make Russia cooperate on this president Henry Fonda puts Dr. Paul in charge of hercules for the duration of the crisis until his general adlon give him every assistance.
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Adlon says I hope I'm public spirit did enough and president found a cut some off. I'm sure you are. And then Harry tells president found that they're flying to New York City tonight.
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The president tells him to listen to his press conference that evening. He believes he's got a solution to that problem.
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That evening the president makes the official statement on the media and says that the country's based minds are already working on a solution. They have had the foresight to launch an armed defense satellite with its weapons pointed towards space to prevent the arrival of any foreign element that might enter the earth's atmosphere on a course for destruction.
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It has been named hercules, but he continues the firepower on hercules isn't going to be enough for the matter at hand.
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But fortunately the Russians are known to have a similar satellite of their own orbiting the earth. He doesn't know what they call it, but the US government is aware of its existence and the combined firepower from both satellites just might be enough to save the planet.
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Over at the Kremlin, the Russians watched the American president peer pressure them into helping on the plane. Dr. Paul watching the president says the game is on in the Kremlin.
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And the chairman says that they will agree to discussions with the United States and that Dr. Dubov will attend Dr. Dubov says the volga is about to overflow its banks and we're arguing about swimming lessons and then the phone rings in the Kremlin and the chairman answers.
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It's the president of the United States on the phone for him.
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And now it's Wednesday and the media continues its trajectory towards earth and back on earth where in New York City, specifically the American telegraph and telephone company.
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Dr. Paul and Harry check in and head down the elevator to where they're going to be headquartered.
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This is a subterranean operation room built next to an old subway tunnel under the Hudson River. This is apparently a better solution logistically than setting up a control room in Houston.
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No one would ever believe that they'd set up rocket launching capability here under the busiest city in the world.
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The eggs of the elevator and are met by General Adlin. The general informs him that the Russian scientists is due to arrive and voices his displeasure and inviting the Russians into their facility.
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No one cares.
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Then he takes Paul around to introduce him to the crew. He meets Ralph Mannheim, Chief Technician, Jan Watkins, trajectory analysis officer, and her quote unquote assistant, Alan Marshall, and Bill Hunter in charge of tracking.
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Bill interrupts to say that there's a certain Michael Hughes from the Juddville Bank Observatory who wants to speak with Dr. Paul.
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Sir Michael says that the first splinters from the media are will hit in 24 hours and that they're hard to track unless they come in clusters but they're over there trying their best.
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Matt is just calling to make contact. The Harry returns to tell Paul that Dr. Duboff will be arriving at 730 that evening.
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And then we see the Russians land in New York City and Dr. Duboff is warmly greeted by Harry. And we know this because Dr. Duboff's interpreter translates for him.
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Her name is Tatiana Dunn-Sky played by Natalie Wood.
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Now it's Thursday and Dr. Duboff is meeting with General Adlin and their respective translators. Duboff is acquiring as to hercules' specs and firepower, but General Adlin is reluctant to give out that information.
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Advising that Duboff speak with Dr. Bradley, Paul and Harry enter 14 rockets each carrying 100 megatomb bomb Paul volunteers.
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Egrids Dr. Duboff with a handshake and ask why so many translators are necessary. Adlin says it's established procedure for each member to have their own translator to ensure things are being translated correctly.
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Paul says that the first thing they need to do is to start trusting each other. And if it's some no difference to anyone else, don't take the prettier of the two translators.
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Tatiana blushes. Harry introduces her. Her name is Tatiana Dunn-Sky. She's an astrophysicist and Dr. Duboff's English voice.
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Adlin's translators introduce but Adlin's feelings are hurt. So he says that since they're redundant there, they'll go and ask to talk to Harry outside of the office.
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Harry vows to calm Adlin down. Through Tatiana, Dr. Duboff tells Dr. Paul that Adlin is not pleased to see him.
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Outside the office, Harry tells General Adlin that he knows this is a difficult position for him, but Adlin cuts him off saying that he's spoken to the Secretary of Defense, and he's been told that under no circumstances are the rockets on hercules to be realigned until the Russians admit to having their own satellite.
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And will agree to realign their rockets as well. Harry tells them to make 100 copies of that memo, schedule 100 meetings to discuss it, and by that time the media will have hit and it will no longer be an issue.
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Nothing to argue about anymore. Through Tatiana, Dr. Duboff clips to Dr. Paul that the US will have a hard time hitting the media with their rockets aimed at Russia.
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Dr. Paul admits that the US system is called Hercules and asked for the cutesy name that the Russians have given their rockets.
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Duboff coiley asks how one can name something that does not exist.
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Who put up the satellite called Peter the Great? Its warheads pointed at the United States, asked Paul pointing to a map of known satellites orbiting the Earth.
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Peter the Great is represented by a glowing red star.
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Duboff suggests that might have been the Chinese and Paul's size. If Peter the Great does not exist, they're on a business. But if it does exist, Paul would need to know what it's carrying and what frequencies they'd have to use to align it with Hercules.
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In the purposes of discussion only, Duboff says through Tatiana that if he were involved in the creation of such an illegal weapon, then he could theoretically answer these questions.
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Duboff is fine with talking in the hypothetical and tells him that theoretically Peter the Great is armed with 16 rockets, each carrying the same mega tonnage as the US rockets are carrying.
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Dr. Duboff grins like he's very pleased with himself as Tatiana translates this for Dr. Paul. That gives us a billion plus Dr. Paul says theoretically.
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Dr. Duboff smiles again and raises his eyebrows.
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Theoretically Duboff agrees in English.
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Now it's Friday and we're somewhere snowy, apparently Siberia. A man mocks back to his hut and he sees the meteor in the sky. He goes inside with his family but then goes back out to look at the meteor.
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He calls to his wife, she gathers the children and the family flees of the meteor crashes behind a mountain.
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And now we're at the United Nations where the Canadian delegate reports to everyone that there was an earthquake style disturbance in Siberia and calls on the Russian delegate to give more details. The Russian delegate requests a recess so he can consult his countrymen before divulging any more information.
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And the meteor is still on its way.
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And now we're back at the US Underground Control Center and Alan, chance assistant, is asking you about the Russian interpreter.
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Jan says she's very nice, very pretty and to forget about her. Then she turns and gives Alan a kiss. So apparently he's not only assisting in the workplace.
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Jan hands a report to Dr. Paul and Dr. Duboff then tells Tatiana that she made a few improvements to her living quarters. Tatiana admires Jan's scarf on her already gal pals. That's so cute.
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Jan leaves and Dr. Duboff tells Tatiana that he needs a nap and so he lies down on a couch. It's right there. Tatiana tells Dr. Paul that Dr. Duboff has acclimated to the hours here. He's got jet lag.
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Paul has Tatiana how long she's been with Duboff. She says she's known him for 10 years but has only been with him for five.
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He asks how she got into astrophysics and she says that she used to work at a flight control center. She learned English because her mother gave her English books as a child.
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When she was older, she worked as a translator for a scientist who I believe defected to Great Britain. I'm trying to follow her story and she followed him there.
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Paul says it's nice talking to her. Thank you says Tatiana, but we've been talking for two days. I've been talking to you Duboff says Paul. Now I'm talking to you, you. Very attractive he adds.
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She tells Paul how the guy she followed Great Britain arranged for her to attend university and when she returned, she was an astrophysicist.
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She was always fascinated by space. That's how she met her husband, a cosmonaut.
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She says they were together for three years. Did any of you didn't return from an exploratory mission?
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Dr. Paul had seen pretty bummed to find out she was married and this perks him up a little bit. He asked if she's seeing anyone now and she says not really.
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The report comes through from Sir Michael Hughes that there's a cluster of splinters visible over Italy. The people of Italy watches the meteors sweep through the night sky.
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Then Sir Michael Hughes reports that the meteors have all burned up in the earth's atmosphere and this turned out to be nothing more than a fireworks show.
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Both Sir Michael and Dr. Paul are chuffed, but then General Adlon is there to crow that this was all a big nothing burger.
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It's obvious that all the meteors are going to burn up and this has all been a colossal waste of time and resources.
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And they can all go home now. Dr. Paul is incensed or fierce will not burn up in the atmosphere.
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Adlon that they don't need any aggro from him, but Adlon doubles down. Nothing calamitous has happened yet.
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And so he's leaving and he won't return until the president puts the center back under his control.
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And then Dr. Dubov starts throwing a tantrum of some kind, which Tatiana does not translate for us.
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Dubov continues raging in Russian as he enters another room and picks up the phone. Tatiana says that he wants to speak with Russian embassy.
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And Harry happily goes over to help him. Apparently he knows the number of my heart.
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It seemed like Harry was upset at first, but then looking back on what the same means.
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He must have been pretty excited to realize that this is finally happening.
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Now we're back at the United Nations where the Russian delegate announces that they will add their firepower to that of the United States.
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And he brags that they developed their missile system first before the United States just to defend against meteors and stuff and definitely not as a tool of war.
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Back down in the station, Paul Harry Tatiana and Dubov are drinking a toast to the cutting of the red tapes surrounding the use of the Russian satellite and its weapons.
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But the shots for everyone Dubov adds F the Dodgers to his toast.
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You did? Yes he did.
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Now we watch in real time as both satellites rockets are realigned and their course is diverted.
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This is a very long scene. Good for us, but bad for the moviegoers.
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Rolf Mannheim declares that the situation is nominal and then they get a report from an observatory.
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There is difficulty realigning the rockets on hercules.
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After a quick recalculation, everything is a go for launch.
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Now we wait till we see the whites of its eyes says Harry.
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"Oh 700 Sunday," says Dr. Paul.
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Now it's Saturday and we're in the Swiss Alps.
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A girl's skier goes into the lodge.
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She's just a skier.
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She's cut it as girl's skier.
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As she enters the cafe, a meteor strikes the mountain causing an avalanche.
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An unfortunate skier is outrun by the crashing snowfall.
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Everyone on the ground comes out to watch a wall of snow headed their way.
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By the time they think to run, it's too late. They get buried in it.
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Some try to take cover back in the cafe, but the building is crushed under the snow.
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Back in the US, Paul Dubov and Tatiana are watching the newscast on this event.
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The reporter says that there have been apple anches here before, but nothing like this.
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Made units are overwhelmed and help us being sent from around the world.
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It's an unprecedented disaster with a lot of casualties.
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The whole tragedy is heightened by the loss of 12,000 contestants in a cross-country ski race.
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Then they show us actual cross-country ski race footage with the contestants on the ground there.
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In order to explain why we don't see them buried by the snow, they say that the helicopter and camera people fortunately got away before the snow hit.
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Then the newscaster says the question on everyone's mind is where will tragedy strike next?
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What of the big one, closing in on Earth at 30,000 miles per hour, due to hit on Sunday?
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In the White House, President Henry Fonda is also watching the report with a concern, along with Harry and the Secretary of Defense.
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And the reporter says they can only hope that the President of the United States will save us as he promised.
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The President turns off the television and asks Harry for an update.
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Harry says that because of their varying locations, the missiles will have to be launched at different times.
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The Washington satellite will launch theirs first, and hercules the missiles will be launched 40 minutes later.
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Then they will both be in position to meet the meteor at the same time.
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Maybe Harry explains that once the missiles have launched, the satellites are programmed to rely on their own internal systems for decision making.
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And since this has never been done before, there's no way to tell the odds of the expected and hope for outcome.
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The President asks him, well, what will happen should the mission fail?
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Then says Harry, the meteor will impact Earth two hours after that.
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Hit it, Mr. Sherwood, said the President, get rid of it!
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In space, we see that the meteor has now passed the moon. It's pretty darn close.
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Down in mission control, almost everyone gets another sleep before impact day, but a few people are still awake.
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Rolf and Dr. Diablo are playing chess, and Dr. Paula watches from an office over their heads as we transition to Sunday.
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It's meteor day.
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Yay!
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We're in Tatiana's room.
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We know it's hers because they're Russian nesting dolls sitting on the dresser.
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Also, there's a note from Jan. She's given Tatiana the scarf that she had admired.
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Tatiana is tying it around her neck, and she goes down to see Paula who's in Athan's office.
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She asks him if he's eaten. He says he's had some coffee, and she tells him that solid food works better, and he agrees that she may be right about that.
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So they head down to the canteen to get some food.
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It should chat on the way down. She asks about his kids. He has two a boy and a girl.
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And then she wants to know about his falling apart marriage, which she discovered by quizzing Harry Sherwood.
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Paula says it'll have to have a talk with Harry. Tatiana apologizes if she was out of line talking to Harry about Paula.
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But Paula says it's okay. If his Russian was better, he'd have been asking Dubov about her.
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He tells her that there's really no reason they're getting divorced. They're just not compatible.
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Yes, if she's ever thought of living anywhere else, he tells her she'd like it here. We've got everything.
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We've got power cuts, strikes, unemployment, race riots, and a terrific crime rate.
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But before she can accept that tempting offer, a report comes in that another splinter is hit.
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This one blew two engines off a TWA jet near Hong Kong, and then hit the ocean, causing a 100-foot tidal wave to roll towards the city.
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In Hong Kong, there's panic in the streets as people are fleeing the incoming tidal wave. It crashes onto the shore and the city of Hong Kong is flooded.
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We focus it on one man who tries to save his wife, baby, and dog. They run out of their house, but they cannot run the wave.
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It strikes drowning the entire city, including the family. Then we see the control center that have been reporting into the US is lost as well.
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Now it's dawn in America, and President Henry Fonda is making an address to the nation.
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In 15 minutes, Peter the Great will launch its rockets. Then 40 minutes later, Hercules will launch its rockets.
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But right now there is nothing they can do but wait, stay in their homes, have faith, and they'll let them know when the danger is passed.
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In mission control, we're counting down to the Peter the Great launch, and it goes off without a hitch. And we watch the rockets go into space.
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Then General Adelaan appears and asks Tatiana to convey his congratulations to Dr. Dubov, and then he apologizes to Dr. Bradley.
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Harry accepts on his behalf.
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It's now three minutes to launch time, and the launch instructions have been relayed to Hercules.
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Then a transmission from Sir Michael Hughes comes in. He says they picked up another splinter, a big one, insheaded their way, the US Eastern Seaboard.
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Dr. Paul asked about time of impact, and Sir Michael says so right about now, but we're 90 seconds from launch.
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We wait, says Dr. Paul. Harry says that if they don't fire the Russian rockets won't be able to do the job.
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We wait, says Dr. Paul.
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It's now 40 seconds and counting.
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In the shard approaches.
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At 30 seconds, Jan takes Alan's hand. When the countdown reaches zero, Busters are fired and the launch commences.
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Pew! Everyone watches as they take off, but then that meteor splinter blows past the statue of Liberty through the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
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Oh my God. And hits a bunch of buildings, including the AT&T building, housing mission control, as Manhattan explodes and collapses.
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So does the mission control office. And yet the rockets fly on.
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The ceiling starts to fall in. The lighting fixtures fall. Ralph Mannheim is crushed under his desk. Equipment falls from the walls, and the stairway collapses to the ground.
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And the missiles continue their journey toward the meteor.
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Paul prize open the elevator doors. And we see that the shaft is full of debris. Everyone is trapped down there.
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Dubuff has a large cut in his head. And Paul and Harry pull Ralph Mannheim out from the rubble. Paul checks the Tatiana's all right. And she tends to Dubuff's wound.
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And Paul moves on. And finds that General Edeland was questioned killed by Pauling debris.
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It's just poetic justice room to come back just in time to get killed. Then that same observatory reports to the backup control center in Houston.
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Where General Eastern is manning the cons. We are told that everything is nominal. General Eastern calls DC to tell the Secretary of Defense and the joint chiefs that everything is A1 with those rockets.
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And that it's 66 minutes to impact. And they confirm that there's been no contact from New York City. And that the city itself is in shambles. And indeed we see a crater where Manhattan used to be.
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Dr. Bradley returns to the others and Alan asks him to come with him. Paul finds that Jan Watkins was another victim of the destruction.
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He pulls away some debris to confirm that she's dead and she is. Or Alan or Tatiana. Harry says that they can get out through the support room and that everyone should bring flashlights.
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He tells Dr. Paul to lead everyone to the subway tunnel and that he'll go pick up the stragglers. But all is not well in the subway tunnel. The walls appear to be cracking and the wood support beams are creaking.
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Paul tells everyone to hold back as he scouts on ahead. Back in Houston, General Eastern calls into Washington to inform them that two of Peter the Great's rockets have malfunctioned with 35 minutes to 42 seconds until scheduled impact.
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And their margin of error is five rockets so they can't afford to lose many more. The meteor is not slowing down so and consider it by now the US rockets have joined the Russian rockets as they approach the meteor down in the subway tunnel.
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Dr. Paul climbs over a pile of rubble. Something's slimy is oozing down the walls there. Paul returns to the survivors to tell them that the route is clear. But a subway car is blocking the tunnel as the group moves forward when those cracks in the wall starts leaking a lot.
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Paul who is still up ahead looks up a stairwell the walls grown and they can become more severe at that moment the cracks in the wall give and the Hudson River starts punching holes through the tunnel filling it with jets of muddy water.
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Harry tries to move everyone through the tunnel but the onslaught of mud and water is a bit of a deterrent water mudden who knows what else rains down upon them as they make their way to the stairwell and ground level.
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Harry takes them off full of river water and falls to the ground but Paul saves him from drowning and helps along and orpheus is still approaching and the rockets are still on their way to meet it back in the tunnel.
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People are still climbing to safety some have made it to the escalator the money survivors climb upward to a platform that can use to general eastern reports that one of hercules rockets has malfunctioned time to impact 13 minutes 21 seconds.
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Up on that platform doctor Paul checks on doctor Dubov and Tatiana they're not alone there because a lot of people from the surface level of come down to take refuge through Tatiana doctor Dubov invites doctor Paul to Moscow to see a clean subway and doctor Paul accepts and now it's less than two minutes to impact and there have been no more failures.
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The survivors on the subway platform are listening to a new station from New Jersey because all the New York stations are out of commission and that station tells us that there has been extensive damages to the city.
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And then the first of the rockets strike the meteor then a few more do and even more and this is enough to do what they were meant to do and the meteor is obliterated.
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Now we're back on earth where New York City particularly Manhattan looks pretty bad back down in the subway station a news report comes over the radio that they are interrupting the story on the tragedy in New York to relay that the mission was successful and the meteor was destroyed.
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The news reports that the
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joint efforts of the United States and Russia the danger is passed the crowd still trapped in the subway station starts the cheer but they're interrupted by the sound of a jackhammer the rescue team has come for them if they jackhammer their way through to rescue the stranded victims.
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And now oh my gosh this movie is almost over right the airport where doctor Dubov and Tatiana are getting a hero send off Dubov has a bag of souvenirs and pop presents him with a baseball bat with a couple of the Dodgers Dodgers laps Dubov baseball.
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Dr. Paul plants a big kiss on Tatiana tell their goodbye as they board the plane turning around to wave at everyone else.
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Dr. Dubov tells Tatiana that she'll be back someday perhaps she says in Russian grinning at Dr. Paul then our narrator returns up for a long absence to tell us that in 1968 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a plan was designed to deal with the possibility of a giant meteor on a collision course with the Earth.
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The plan is named project Igris and then the credits roll and that's the end.
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You're listening to the American International podcast and we're discussing meteor from 1979 in 1978 the Los Angeles Times did an extensive research piece on the making of meteor over four days and dozens of pages Jericho and and Ronald Elsoble meticulously reported on everything that went into the making of the movie the story the financing the casting and the marketing.
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The majority of our notes on the production of meteor will come from this piece according to the article producer theater Parvin conceived the initial story in July of 1975 after reading a Saturday review magazine article by science writer Isaac Asimov that dealt with the threat of meteorites destroying an entire city he took the idea to fellow producer Arnold or Galini who wasn't enthusiastic until Parvin described a meteor on a collision course with Manhattan.
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Parvin completed a 20 page outline for the story and he and orgolini commissioned an artist to render six sketches illustrating a meteor crash in New York City and hired a research team to fill in all the gaps in their knowledge about space meteors and what the impact of one would do today.
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Next the producers needed to secure the funding for the film or Galini lost a team led by executive producer Gabriel Katzka to sell the concept at the 1976 can film festival market Katzka had been intrigued by the sketches and after a short conversation with orgolini.
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He put $75,000 in the kitty for pre production costs and supplied the money to hire a screenwriter.
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Arvin and orgolini hired M&H North to write the screenplay offering him $100,000 to write the script with another $50,000 that the script is used for the production North to the orgolini he would write his own story and discarded orgolini's outline which by now it changed the local disaster into a global one where splinters of the meter would destroy major world cities or Galini gave North a research material which included a 1968 MIT public report on something called project Icarus which is a
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suggested to use nuclear rockets to deflect and asteroid collision with earth before North wrote the script though he typed up a four paragraph summary of his film treatment or parvin and orgolini to include an illustrated brochure that Katzka and Wolf Cohen another producer would take to con to try to raise money for the film while at con harvin and Arnold obtained commitments of $6 million from distributors mostly in the form of memos of agreement.
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The primary investors consisted of producers or run run Shaw a dominant player in the Asian market Warner Brothers Inc. to pass napon herald films and American international pictures who acquired domestic distribution rights for $2.7 million.
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Before he got the job director Ronald Neem read the script and hated it though he loved the theme.
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Argoleini and parvin also didn't like North draft which they had paid him a lot of money to write or goleening wanted to hire Neem who had directed the Poseidon adventure and even though he wasn't interested in helping another disaster movie Neem told the producers that he was willing to do this movie if they gave him a script that removed the contrivances and told the true story.
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Argoleini and parvin commissioned another writer Stephen Bach to work over North script at the same time they made a list of actors they wanted to cast in meteor the person they wanted most was Sean Connery in part because Warner Brothers who committed $4 million for international distribution rights strongly suggested the former bond actor that led Argoleini and parvin to writer Stanley man a friend of Conneries who doctor the script to appeal to both Neem and Connery who was on the fence about committing to the film.
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Man ended up rewriting the script with Neem at his side the whole time.
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One sticking point for the producers was the introduction of a female love interest into the story Neem had the idea of creating the role of a female interpreter.
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But now the only thing that remained of the first versions of the script was the destruction of major cities which was a must for the investors.
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After Connery saw a 60 page treatment of man script he agreed to be in the movie.
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Samuel Arkoff was interviewed for the LA Times story and said that he considered himself a gambler quote with a strong gut and who likes crises and quote who is now betting $2.7 million up front for production and would spend the same amount or more in promotion and marketing.
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Meteor appealed to Arkoff for two reasons.
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First he said quote I immediately saw the very fundamental emotional values and second the title was good because it was short.
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One generally likes a succinct title this one said everything in one word and quote.
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The article said casting for Meteor went smoothly but also that Neem did most of the battling with the distributing elements over cast selection.
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Arkoff who was one of those elements said with all due respect to our boolean and Harvin they've never really been connected before with a picture of this size or nature.
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When you hire a star you want one with commercial value but you also want the actor to fit the role.
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Neem felt that he prevailed where it really mattered in conflicts with distributors and Arkoff thought he got what he asked for some of the time.
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Neem and asked his friend composer Leslie Bracuse where you could find an American actress who spoke Russian.
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Bracuse phoned his friend Natalie Wood who spoke some Russian.
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Once cast Wood the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants signed up for Russian language lessons to increase her fluency especially given all the technical jargon in the script and also to adopt a Leningrad accent which she considered more appropriate for the role.
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The producers and Neem originally wanted a quote Jimmy Carter look alike and quote to play the role of the president and even auditioned a Carter celebrity impersonator named Ed Bell.
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But ultimately decided on Henry Fonda Beller told the times that quote being replaced by someone like Fonda is the pain of mine at getting the part Donald Plezans was signed for the part of Dr. Dubov but with two just after shooting began to do a scheduling conflict with his work on Sergeant Peppers lonely hearts club band actor Brian Keith originally cast his general Adlin Swiss rolls and replace pleasant so we can do filming according to the times dialects for Keith's forte and that he said he had planned to play Adlin with the quote redneck accent that he was proficient in the role of the president.
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That he was proficient in dialects became important when Keith got his new role assignment but unlike Natalie Wood he did not speak Russian at all and so I had to pick up a fluency to speak nothing but Russian over the 12 week shooting schedule and he had to learn it in six days.
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He studied with George Rubenstein who also worked with Natalie Wood and told columnist Vernon Scott in a different article that he broke down every line phonetically read it into a tape recorder and spent all day on the set speaking only Russian running his lines over and over when he wasn't shooting.
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Martin Landau who had just returned to America after four years shooting a TV show in London was tapped to take the role of general Adlin by this time shooting it already begun so Lando had a lot of catching up to do the weekend after he was hired yet to get fitted for uniforms memorize all his lines.
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Landau claimed he could do 15 lines an hour and meet with name to smooth out quote the bumps in the Adlin role but by that Monday he was ready to perform just not with a redneck accent Carl Maldon's casting upset one distributor the times article hints that it was our cough because of Maldon's age and that he had been working in the
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television not movies or Galini told this unnamed investor that Maldon's hiring was a done deal but that he quote would be closely consulted on the next three major high rings and quote Maldon was excited to take part due to the science fact nature of the film and the three good scenes that he had was Sean Connery.
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Erwin went to Tokyo to scout locations but found the city to new looking saying it quote that is much oriental atmosphere as the holiday in in which I was staying.
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Unquote Hong Kong was chosen as the new location for the title wave scene some footage for the movie Avalanche was repurposed for the scene in Meteor where a fragment of the main meteor hit a mountain in the Swiss Alps.
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Meteor began filming on October 31st 1977 in a rented studio on the MGM lot films budget at this point was $7 million though the final total would balloon to $17 million.
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Set designer Edward Carfano began building more than two dozen sets in July of 1977 the costliest of which was a New York subway set shooting that scene was set for seven days at a cost of $1.5 million.
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Neem used copious amounts of dust filming that scene much to the irritation of the cast and stunt crew who complained of scientists and respiratory distress however named did not relent a crew of 90 was required to control quote about $3,000 worth of a gel like substance called bentonite that resembled mud and was squirted through ducks on the MGM stage once used for an ester William swimming pool scene.
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The article says that the mud was finicky and had a tendency not to flow properly when the cameras were rolling Connery got a mouthful of my own technician released it while he was still saying a line and not after as a technician was instructed a journalist witness Connery talking of set after that happened.
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Meteor's target release date set while post production effects were still being added to the film was for Easter 1979.
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The film's actual release date was October 19th 1979.
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It was conducted a press chuggin for the premiere in Flagstaff, Arizona that cost the company $200,000. In attendance at a party held on October 18th 1979 the night before the premiere where Sam Arcoff and other executives from AIP as well as stars like Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Carl Mulden and Martin Landau.
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Entertainment Journalists and NBC's Today's show also planned to attend the premiere party. The day after the party everyone was scheduled to meet your crater located between Winslow and Flagstaff which was intended to highlight the fact that a meteor strike on Earth was not only plausible but that it had happened already.
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The events included lunch at the Gables, the Meteor beer imported from France, information and gift bags featuring the Meteor logo and helicopter rides down to the bottom of the crater.
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A pair of astronauts and the governor of Arizona were also scheduled to be there for the dedication of the new space travel hall of fame at the Meteor crater. After the Meteor crater visit everyone was scheduled back to Flagstaff for the world premiere showing of the film at University Plaza Theatre with a reception to follow.
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A Flagstaff restaurant called Ramona's Cantina welcomed the stars of the movie to town by offering them and everyone else, the quote "Margarita of the Future" a meteorita.
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The restaurant was also giving away tickets to the premiere. Samuel Arcoff told Coliness Maryland back that Meteor was the biggest budgeted movie that AIP had ever been involved with.
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But said quote "The disaster movie era is pretty much dead. Audiences want to escape is in fair now."
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And quote, "Back noted that Love It First Bite was an example of successful escape is fair as the AIP released was now one of the years biggest successes."
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Arcoff also said that the company was suing lois of London for backing out of their commitment to Meteor after AIP had taken out a completion bond with the company for the project which due to special effects reshoots have gone way over its budget.
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Producer Sandy Howard told Maryland back that one of the backers of Meteor this one from Iran fail to deliver the money for the film so he had to go to AIP to ask for more money for production.
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Taglines for Meteor include the odds are 33 million to one.
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It's 5 miles wide. It's coming in at 30,000 miles per hour and there's no place on earth to hide.
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Assault by a Meteor is not a possibility but a clear probability. This is the one."
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Roger Ebert reviewing Meteor on the TV show sneak previews with Roger Ebert and Jean Siskel called Meteor "without any question the most hilarious and competent disaster movie that I have ever seen."
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And that does include Hurricane.
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Ebert mocked special effects in the scene where the comet hits the Meteor and the resulting rubble destroys a spacecraft.
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Jean Siskel said quote "the name of the game in a picture like this is we want to see things blown apart. We want to see things destroyed. We want great special effects. This picture is being billed as some sort of expensive movie. I saw it. I didn't see where the money went.
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It was cheap playing with blocks kind of special effects. After Star Wars, after Close Encounters, we want real stuff.
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We don't get it in this picture." Ebert noted that their special effects sequences were in effect ripoffs of other movies and that he was expecting an influx of killer bees to come at any time.
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Siskel said that the producers would have been better off paying for one really good special effects sequence rather than several disappointing ones.
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Joe Pollock of the St. Louis Dispatch wrote, "As a film in the disaster genre, Meteor is entertaining. It's the sort of movie where there's no time for character development because that would get in the way of the special effects.
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So everyone gets one or two key sequences for delineation and it's easy after that. Pollock praised by a key charming performance in particular and said the best thing about Meteor is that it does not pretend to be anything except what it is.
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Light, Escapist Entertainment along with some excellent special effects to evoke plenty of awe along with ooze and aze."
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Charles Champlain of Los Angeles Times noted that the paper had done a massive write-up on the making of Meteor and said that "against its own odds, it is, for what it intends to be, uninspired but competent, efficient, commercial, and entertaining, with some random moments that are very nice indeed."
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Champlain said that Keith "just about steals the movie from the effects in the rest of the cast" and said, "What distinguishes Meteor from other disaster films?"
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"Is that the human confrontations are done with a good deal of style and all things considered naturalism."
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Jackie Tully in the Arizona Daily Star called Meteor "fun" in the way big, trashy movies can be entertaining.
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This one isn't trashy enough, Sean Connery and Natalie Wood are too serious for their own good, but Samuel Arcoff's space-upic is funky enough while it lasts.
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Linda Mars writing for the Mansfield Ohio News Journal wrote, "One of the things that's nice about the Samuel Arcoff production is that even in its shortest disaster sequences, the camera always trains in on just a few victims."
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Keeping a close eye in their survival or death. That's somehow more touching to a jaded movie watcher than the usual solid quarter hour in which the Manhattan skyline spectacularly falls and thousands fall screaming to their deaths.
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Norman Dresser in the Toledo Blade, writing in March of 1980, gave a special Acrimony Award to American International Pictures, an independent Hollywood studio which used to make trashy cheap movies and in Meteor, graduated to a trashy expensive product.
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In a year which saw a lot of junky science fiction films, Meteor was a disaster in more ways than one. This movie claimed among its victims a lot of top performers.
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Columnist Shirley Eater said, "Arcoff told her at the premiere, quote, "If I knew going in what the problems and expensive special effects would be, we might never have made Meteor. I don't think we'll ever involve ourselves in this kind of a project.
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However, if the picture is a moneymaker, I might eat my words." "Arcoff did not have to eat his words though." According to a December 5, 1979 variety chart of the 50 top grossing films for the week ending November 28, 1979, the film's cumulative domestic gross after six weeks in theaters was just over $2.4 million.
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And this is in quotes, "A flop that led in part, at least, to AIP being sold to film ways in 1979 after Arcoff's retirement."
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In early 1980, Arcoff told LGN Hammets of the New York Times News Service, quote, "If we could have come out as originally planned in the summer of 1978, we would have been fine."
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By the time it was released, we were concerned because we had a disaster film. We tried to change the emphasis to science, to the Meteor, but no matter what we tried to do, we couldn't turn it into a space picture.
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Arcoff said he expected foreign sales to be much better than the lackluster American box office returns.
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At the 52nd Academy Awards, broadcasts in 1980, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound, with nominations going to the team composed of William McCauley, Aaron Rochen, Michael J. Coat, and Jack Solomon.
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But it ultimately lost two apocalypse now.
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Marvel Comics published an adaptation written by Ralph Machio and drawn by Jean Colen.
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"Moscerel, Meteor was a doozy, wasn't it?" "It was. This is kind of a different episode where we have, instead of a bunch of different sources that we turned to to find out how this movie got made and how people got involved with it, we have one source for the most part.
432
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And it's this extensive article in the LA Times where they give us all the backstory of how a movie is made and that was kind of eye-opening for me."
433
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"I read those articles and it probably would have been a book had the movie been more successful."
434
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"I mean, there's definitely enough to fill a book and I think there was probably a lot more they could have added after the fact. They didn't really get too much into detail on the special effects and the problems they're in, but I know that there were a lot. And that kind of translates to the screen."
435
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:25,000
"When I watched it the first time I wasn't paying enough attention, I didn't realize that the director had done the Poseidon adventure because it kind of felt the same way, I guess, in just that it was a disaster movie with a All-Star cast."
436
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"Oh, now that they were underground and they had to fight their way to the surface."
437
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:30,000
"Yeah."
438
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"I just went to the hero's journey in each one. Something I really stood out to be in this particular film was that story that Harry gives in the bar about his son because it turns out to be pretty pointless."
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"I tell you, they're basically saying that it's better to ask forgiveness than for permission that they would go ahead and make an end run around the government and make this happen and then once they save the world, they're not going to go to jail.
440
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What he's describing is a much more interesting movie that doesn't happen."
441
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"No, because that's Plan B because everything works out and they don't have to resort to it."
442
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:17,000
"No, but how much more fun would this movie have been if it was a Capra movie where they have to sneak into the control center and arm the rockets and get the Russians on their side without anyone knowing about it and then they have to fight their way out and I mean, it just could have been so cool. The germ of a great idea was sitting there and they just kicked it to the side."
443
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"Yeah, but I think that's a lot more ambitious than anything that this film was trying to do."
444
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"No, they're playing it very straightforward."
445
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"And again, looking at those articles, it's interesting the history of this film because they're getting all this financing based on their idea. They had a treatment. They didn't have a script that anybody could agree on. It was rewritten several times by several different writers, which is why we have, I think, two writers credited as well as two people with the original story who came up with the original concept."
446
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"Well, Steven Bach doesn't get a credit, but he's in the mix somewhere. Sounds like a little bit of everyone's iteration of the script made it to the final."
447
00:48:51,000 --> 00:49:00,000
"And according to the articles, this is kind of the way movies are made, but to my knowledge, this is pretty atypical trajectory for a film to take from beginning to completion."
448
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:04,000
"Maybe it's because special effects were a lot bigger than they had been in the past."
449
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"It was going to be a big budget movie that was obvious, but they also started this in 1975, which is, above the time, Star Wars was just getting off the ground. It wouldn't be out for two more years. And Star Wars was the movie obviously that changed special effects forever. You had to do, at least as good as Star Wars, to be taken seriously."
450
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"And that's probably where all the add-ons to the budget came from. Once they knew that they had this competition, they would have to equal or better."
451
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"And you can't compare this to Star Wars. And movie that I admit that I'm not a huge fan of. But the special effects in this, I'd say they're adequate. The shots of the satellites, though, they look like toys."
452
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"They do. And one part of an article that I read, I didn't quote it, but someone compared them to Ballpoint pens. It's not impressive at all."
453
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"And I don't know if that's a disappointing aspect, but it does take me out of the movie to see something that looks so obviously fake. I don't know what a real satellite would look like if it would look that clean. These were very, very clean."
454
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"And the ship Star was rough, filthy dirty, which is part of why they looked real because it looks like my car."
455
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"Space drunk."
456
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"Yeah, because apparently they've been orbiting for several years, and there's a lot of debris in space. But another thing that was kind of disappointing was the actual meteor. They weren't able to really give it enough scale to show us how little space was going to be.
457
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"No, when you see the rockets going against it, it doesn't look like it's five miles in diameter."
458
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"Mmm, because the rockets look so tiny. This is a big budget special effects movie, and it really falls down at that point. But there's also other aspects that you have to consider. And one is the story, and then the other is the acting."
459
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"There was one aspect of the story that I just didn't understand, and that's the beginning when Carl Maldon is describing how his character sent the shuttle to go watch the comet hit the meteor belt.
460
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"To me, that's obviously stupid. Of course, when the comet hits one of those asteroids, it's going to blow a bunch of debris in all directions, and anything in its vicinity is going to be totaled. What was he thinking?"
461
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"It was probably working out of the assumption that it wasn't going to hit the obvious biggest target available. It might hit a smaller one and not cause any real damage."
462
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:06,000
"Why wouldn't you assume the worst-case scenario at that point when you're putting human lives in jeopardy?"
463
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:08,000
"He doesn't have to listen to this."
464
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And that leads me to the performances where I felt like there's a lot of anger in this movie, but there wasn't a whole lot of humanity. There were little touches of it, and I could probably pick them off from, you know, 1-2-3-4-5 on my one hand. The greatest of which is Brian Keith's performance.
465
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:27,000
Brian Keith is a hoot in this movie, and I think if he wasn't in this movie, I would hate it. He saved it for me."
466
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:37,000
"He's pretty amusing as the Russian doctor Dubov. I assume that his Russian is good. I don't speak Russian, and I don't understand it at all, but I didn't understand what he said, so it sounded like I could be Russian and me."
467
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:48,000
"But the fact that he never got to speak English, and he still conveyed so much to us the audience, with his mannerisms, his facial expressions, I think that is worthy of kudos.
468
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There's a lot of people glouring and glaring and throwing tantrums in this movie, but there's not a lot of humanness, and you need to see that in a movie where Cuban kind is about to be obliterated. What are we even saving?"
469
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:12,000
"So we had the nice moment where Jan and Tatiana were bonding and becoming pals and the little love story between Jan and Ellen, but these are all tiny little side things that happen, and they're just not really representative of the movie as a whole."
470
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"So you feel something when Jan is killing the building collapses?"
471
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"But then I stopped feeling things after that."
472
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"I mean, the only people that we see that matter were Ralph Mannheim, because we were interested in movies on playing chess, and I guess he was okay. I think they carried him out after he got crushed by the desk, but he was..."
473
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,000
"Yeah, they pulled it off of him."
474
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:32,000
"They were carrying him out. I don't think they dropped him in the flooding river."
475
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,000
"I don't remember him being on the subway platform though."
476
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:36,000
"They made a drop-tem now, I think about it."
477
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:38,000
"We didn't really get a list of survivors and casualties."
478
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:42,000
"You know, Ellen survived because he was at the airport crying when everyone was leaving."
479
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:47,000
"John Connery was pretty much the grudgy old man throughout this entire movie."
480
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:48,000
"It's really funny."
481
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:58,000
"In the very beginning, he gives these looks and they're just so out of proportion to everything that's happening when he looks back at the Coast Guardsmen who said he would have rammed his boat."
482
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:01,000
"It's just such a mean, nasty look."
483
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:06,000
"I got to think of it from his perspective. He's retired. He's being called back to the work. He's probably not going to get paid for this."
484
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:12,000
"No, and it's at the worst possible moment. He's about to win a boat race. He really wants that trophy and they can't wait till it's over,"
485
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:13,000
"which actually they could have."
486
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:18,000
"Yeah, they still have five days or whatever. Be days, seven days, six days. How many days they had?"
487
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:21,000
"I suppose it depends on how much longer that boat race was going to last."
488
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:28,000
"So I don't understand the science. Not necessarily the movie, but just in general. What would happen if you exploded a missile against an asteroid in space?"
489
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:42,000
"I think it depends on where you're doing it and the fact that they waited until it was between the Earth and the Moon. I believe you can never guarantee that all those fragments of the meteor would just go off harmlessly in space by now you're within the Earth's orbit."
490
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,000
"Well, most of them would probably be small enough that they would burn up."
491
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,000
"And then the rest would just orbit the Earth forever. Is that what they were thinking?"
492
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:50,000
"That's what they were hoping for. They said as much."
493
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:55,000
"Because I just think a few would probably shoot down to Earth. There would be more collateral damage."
494
00:53:55,000 --> 00:54:01,000
"I didn't notice much of the score standing out in this movie except whenever they showed the shot of the meteor heard of the link to space, there was kind of this..."
495
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:02,000
"Zoo, zoom."
496
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:04,000
"Sound going throughout the music."
497
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:11,000
"They also had that "Waw" sound too. Did you know that John Williams was supposed to do the score on this, but then he backed out?"
498
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,000
"I don't blame him. I'm sure he had better things to do."
499
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:14,000
"I'm sure."
500
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:19,000
"I think there's a bit of Superman in this movie too. The shots from space made me think of Superman."
501
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:24,000
"The opening credits are kind of similar, but they look like a cheap version of the Superman the movie credits."
502
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:29,000
"Do you think this movie really been successful? Would American international pictures have maybe carried on for a little longer?"
503
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:38,000
"Okay, well I think that if this movie had been successful, they still might have gone into film ways because they probably would have felt they needed to keep this level of budget going."
504
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:44,000
"An A.I.P. couldn't make that money on their own. They needed a bigger company behind them to fund them to keep this kind of budget."
505
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:51,000
"You look at their most successful film which would come out the same year was the "Amount of the Horror" which required a much smaller budget.
506
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:56,000
"The effects shots and that consist of what flies and a couple of glowing eyes in a window."
507
00:54:56,000 --> 00:55:03,000
"And I don't know if I got this date right or not, but I did read this in an article that Samuel Arkoff retired officially from A.I.P. in July of '79."
508
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:06,000
"So that was before this movie even came out.
509
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:17,000
"If we factor in the fact that this movie was supposed to come out a year earlier than it did, maybe if it had come out earlier and if it had made a bundle, maybe they could have made at least one more movie with this kind of money."
510
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:19,000
"Yeah, that might have changed things a little bit."
511
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:23,000
"But he was going to retire anyways. There was no one like him to take over the company."
512
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:25,000
"No, it probably would have been Lou Arkoff."
513
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:26,000
"The guy who turned down alien."
514
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:28,000
"Yeah, the guy who turned down alien."
515
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:30,000
"They were doomed."
516
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:34,000
"I thought that casting Henry Fonda worked really well. I think he had a very presidential look to him."
517
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:43,000
"He reminded me not of Jimmy Carter, but of President Joe Biden. He's very old. He's got a frail-looking. But he has a gravitas of a president.
518
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:47,000
"But can you imagine a Jimmy Carter or a personator doing that?"
519
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:50,000
"I think that would have dated the movie more than it already is."
520
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:55,000
"True, and then it would just appear ridiculous. You need somebody that could be a stern but emotional grandfather in this role."
521
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:59,000
"It still seemed like it could be the president during any time period."
522
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:07,000
"I think one of the quotes I read was that the $50,000 they spent on Henry Fonda was money well spent and I agree. So too bad Ed Beller."
523
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:13,000
"So Cheryl, how are you going to rate media using our AIP scale where A is awesome, high-heaze intermediate, and P is pathetic?"
524
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:28,000
"Well, first of all, I don't think this is a pathetic movie. Because you're looking at a competent movie that has a story that has a beginning in an end and everything seems to make sense. There are moments that make you wonder, like this could have been dead better. And perhaps the science isn't entirely accurate.
525
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:38,000
Not that I would know, but as movies go it's fine. The acting, like I said, is competent. I just don't have anything that's going to lift it up to an A for awesome for me.
526
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:47,000
I've seen much better disaster movies like the Beside Adventure for one. And I've seen worse. So it just hits in the middle for me. It's intermediate in every way that matters.
527
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:51,000
And I don't think we have to watch it again. You can watch it though. What do you think Jeff?
528
00:56:51,000 --> 00:57:01,000
This is tough because you're right. There are definitely better disaster movies. When comparing its other disaster movies, this one's going to be low tier for sure. But I still really enjoyed this movie.
529
00:57:01,000 --> 00:57:08,000
I thought it was fun for what it is. I mean, the threat doesn't seem too stressful. Maybe it's because nobody seems to be taking it too seriously.
530
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:17,000
These guys are pretty optimistic that this is going to work. I mean, there was a case scenario. It doesn't, but they don't really deal with what's going to happen if it doesn't. They just say it might not work.
531
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:23,000
So I don't know what their plan is to do in that event, but they're pretty confident this is going to work as long as everybody does what they tell them to.
532
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:31,000
And that's where the drama is is getting the government to work in your favor and to cut all the political red tapes rounding this operation.
533
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:37,000
So I don't think this is a bad movie at all. I think it's actually pretty good. But if you do compare it to other movies, then it does fall short.
534
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:44,000
So I'm not sure where to place this because I want to give it like four stars. But I don't know that it's worth the upgrade to an A.
535
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:50,000
We need to change our rating system. Well, you know, we've given A minuses before we've given I plus.
536
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:56,000
So it sounds to me like it's hitting somewhere between an A and an I. It's a high level I or low level A for you.
537
00:57:56,000 --> 00:58:04,000
It is. So because you want what I'm going to go with the high level A, because then our letter box score will be a four star, which is where I want to put it.
538
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:08,000
So you're really giving it a five star to my three. Just so we can average it out. Yeah.
539
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:13,000
I didn't think we were supposed to do our ratings so that they averaged out to a particular. Well, I'm making exception because
540
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:19,000
Meteor is better than a three star movie. I would say three and a half, but that's still I isn't it. I would raise the four.
541
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:27,000
So this one has to be five because we don't have four. So yeah, Meteor is a five star movie. Well, I will agree that it is a scapeous fair.
542
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:34,000
I don't know what Samuel Arkov was saying that these kind of movies aren't a scapeous because I mean, we don't think this is going to happen right away.
543
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:40,000
It might happen someday, but we're not planning for an imminent meteor attack. So to me, it is a scapeous.
544
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:47,000
It's a way to worry about something in space that's not happening as opposed to all the junk on earth that is happening. We need to escape from it.
545
00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:53,000
It is interesting to see the story told in the late seventies because now we have a plan in place for this kind of thing.
546
00:58:53,000 --> 00:59:00,000
You send up Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck and everything's taken care of it back then Bruce Willis hadn't even made his film debut in the first
547
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:10,000
of the scene yet. So that wasn't even an option. So they had to come up with this other story. Jeff, we have to come up with another option now because Bruce Willis is no longer capable of defending this great planet.
548
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:15,000
I don't want to hear it. I don't either. And I don't think Ben Affleck is really up to the task either if you want to get down to it.
549
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:19,000
Then let's just hope this isn't something we ever have to worry about. Let's keep it theoretical.
550
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:24,000
While meteor may have been a disaster in more ways than one, our website is out of this world.
551
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:33,000
At aippod.com you'll find our entire library of episodes dating back to when we started just over three years ago. You'll also find a contact form where you can message us directly.
552
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:40,000
Tell us which movie you are most looking forward to us reviewing. Make a comment on something we've said or help us track down some a IP movies missing from our library.
553
00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:51,000
There's a list of what we're looking for on the site while you're there. You can indulge in your love of all things a IP as we are building a database of the entire American International Pictures catalog as we go through it.
554
00:59:51,000 --> 01:00:04,000
Lobby cards, posters, trailers and other advertising materials on display. And you can see where to find these films so that you can enjoy them on your own while you're on our site. Consider going to our store as a purchase of one of our offerings helps keep the podcast rolling every week.
555
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:07,000
Once again, you'll find us at aippod.com.
556
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:15,000
So now we can breathe a sigh of relief as the crisis of meteor has passed, but we will be returning next week to explore another forgotten to light from the AIP vaults.
557
01:00:15,000 --> 01:00:20,000
Until then, I'm Jeff Markin. I'm Cheryl Lightfoot. And we'll meet you at the drive-in. And in space.
558
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:34,000
Follow the American International Podcast on Instagram and Letterbox @aip_pod and on Facebook at facebook.com/AmericanInternationalPodcast
559
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:38,000
The American International Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Markin.
560
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:41,000
A man whose mind is distorted by hatred.
561
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:42,000
And Cheryl Lightfoot.
562
01:00:42,000 --> 01:00:45,000
A girl hungry for too many things.
563
01:00:45,000 --> 01:00:59,000
The American International Podcast is part of the Pop Culture Entertainment Network.
564
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:02,000
[Music]