The story is simple: after five months in orbit, the three-man crew of the Ironman I are called back to Earth after a groundbreaking mission to a Skylab-style space station. On the way back, however, the retrorockets of their tiny capsule fail, and the three men (Richard Crenna, James Franciscus and, in an early role, Gene Hackman) are stranded with only a few days worth of oxygen. After much debate, astronaut David Janssen convinces NASA head Gregory Peck to launch a desperate rescue mission.

The film fails on many levels. Marooned wants to be taken very seriously, but in trying to be realistic and believable, it quickly becomes dull and annoying. Variety's original review of the film absurdly described it as "part-documentary," but documentaries rarely are this lethargic. It seems like 80% of the dialogue consists of jargon-heavy scientific talk, delivered by a humorless, uniformly grim-faced cast. Except for David Janssen's passionate astronaut, Peck and the rest of NASA are seen as cold and methodical with absolutely no sense of humor, and throughout Marooned there are archly-written lines like "the sleep period is terminated." Whatever happened to waking the crew up with music by the Rolling Stones? Even before the capsule becomes stranded, nobody – not mission control, not the astronauts, nor their wives – seem even a little bit excited to have men out there in space. Where's the scientific curiosity, the sense of wonder? There's so little emotion and humanity in the picture, a brief scene between Crenna's seemingly doomed astronaut and distraught wife (Lee Grant) has real impact because it so contrasts with nearly everything else in the picture. (Their conversation takes place via television monitors, with Grant caressing his image.) Likewise, when Hackman's co-pilot freaks out after his wife (Mariette Hartley) practically reads him his eulogy, the effect is jarring. One is tempted to suggest the filmmakers were reluctant to appear too critical of NASA lest they lose their much needed support, but the hopelessness of the astronauts and Peck's initial resignation to their fate are among the few things that work in Marooned.

I'm no fan of the movie Apollo 13, but at least that film succeeds wonderfully well in recreating the space capsule environment, and that of mission control. Marooned, however, fails in sloppy ways. The astronauts helmets look flimsy, hatches looked like they'd bust open with a good kick, and mission control appears grievously understaffed. The film cost a reported $8 million – a lot of money in those days – yet has an air of cheapness, with production values more akin to The Reluctant Astronaut than 2001. Other than Peck, most of the cast were primarily TV actors like Janssen, Franciscus, and Hartley, so one wonders where all the money went.

Certainly not the special effects. Early scenes with more stationary shots are okay, but during that action-filled climax (yawn), where various astronauts move in and out of various spacecraft, there's some very bad matte work, with wobbly spacecraft and notably transparent astronauts.

One of the biggest mistakes was the decision not to use a conventional score. Instead of music, all scenes in space feature a loud hum, rather like a noisy refrigerator. Sometimes, this hum is accompanied by what sounds like the beeping of somebody's pager. The film opens with impressive second unit work of Cape Kennedy at daybreak whose photography is undermined by more beeping and science fictiony sounds that plays like nothing more than those sound effects records people used to play on Halloween. The lack of more conventional music makes the space scenes in particular seem more excruciating than they already are.

Video & Audio

Filmed in Panavision, Marooned is presented in 16:9 anamorphic format with a Dolby Surround remix that can do little to liven up the drab soundtrack. The image, remastered in high definition, is okay if unspectacular, with rather muted color. English, French, and Japanese subtitles are offered.

Extras There are trailers for a bunch of Ray Harryhausen movies (what, no Harryhausen Chronicles?), but no trailer for Marooned itself. That's it.

Parting Thoughts

Making a movie like Marooned had to have been an uphill battle at best. Interest in the space program was at its zenith, with Apollo coverage almost constant in 1969. Familiarity with the real NASA and its missions seems to have made filmmakers opt for a conservative approach to avoid possibly looking ridiculous. Unfortunately, the result was boredom.