University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

Micro-Monster Vs. Super Scientists In Germ Warfare

By KEN BARRY

For those students who have
toiled many a wearisome hour in
Gilmer Hall, the knowledge that a
biology laboratory can be a thrilling
place would have to come as a
revelation. That it can be perilous
and terrifying may have been
intimated through the experience
of a few slide quizzes, but that is not
the pervasive impression.

So can you imagine a situation
in which a pulsating, microscopic,
funny- colored organism threatens
the fate of the world? Of course
you can, but it requires a giant leap
in context—from the humdrum of
Gilmer Hall to the eerie, fantastic
realm of science fiction.

"The Andromeda Strain" brings
you all this—the thrilling laboratory
(if those two words can stand
togetherness) and, somewhere out
beyond, a trembling world. But the
really intriguing thing about this
sci-fi is that the fantastic only
flickers at the edge-ominous, but
subordinated to the crackling
matter-of-factuality that is the
essence of the scientific manner and
the key to "Andromeda's"
believability.

"The Andromeda Strain" is the
offspring of a widely read novel, so
perhaps a lengthy plot summary is
unnecessary. The essentials are
these: a U.S. space probe falls to
earth—specifically, a remote Nevada
town—contaminated by an infection
that is savagely destructive. When
we visit, via U.S. helicopter, the
unfortunate town, we are treated to
a grisly panorama of men, women,
and children strewn about in
unsightly postures of death.
Close-ups and stills of the corpses
follow. The sight of dead cats and
dead kids side by side is not easy to
take, but the shock effect seems to
me to be warranted. The later
scenes full of clinical machines and
white-frocked, machine-like men
are effectively prefaced in this way
by a shivery stare at the victims, the
pawns in the mad game the
dispassionate scientists play.

The mission of science now is to
contain the infection, isolate its
source, and nullify its power. It
isn't easy. But obviously it makes
for some tense drama.
Everything—germs, scientists, and
survivors (both of them) are hustled
down into a cavernous
super-laboratory that is simply, as a
tangible phenomenon, one of the
most remarkable things I have seen
on a movie screen.

The four "star" scientists
(Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James
Olson, and Kate Reid) team up to
penetrate the mystery and (you
guessed it) save the world. In the
ensuing interplay between futuristic
machines and stubbornly human
humans, some of the inevitable
cliches are encountered. But the
script is certainly better than
average for a "sci-fi thriller,"
tending to humanize (but not
melodramaticize) the visual effects
that are customarily the strong side
of such flicks.

"The Andromeda Strain" is a
good film, well-produced and
well-acted; and it has the
sophistication to raise (without
tripping clumsily over) the
agonizing human issues modern
science has foisted upon us.

(Now at the Paramount)