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| Harvey Keitel, Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett |
SATURN 3 (1980). Director: Stanley Donen.
Adam (Kirk Douglas) and his assistant and lover, Alex (Farrah Fawcett), work on Titan, a moon of Saturn, in an experimental food research station. One day along comes "Captain Benson "(Harvey Keitel), who has apparently murdered and taken the place of the real Captain Benson for unknown reasons. Benson also brings along with him a robot, Hector, that is linked to his own brain, follows his orders, and seems to lust for Alex just as he does. Obviously things are going to go wrong. Benson seems to think he has a right to sleep with Alex, suggests that Adam is over the hill, and sets about making trouble and being obnoxious. Then the robot begins to go berserk ...
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| Hector goes after Alex |
Saturn 3 may or may not have been influenced by
Alien, which came out the year before, but
S3 suffers in comparison because the mechanical villain of the piece is nowhere nears as interesting as the monster in
Alien. The film shows signs of much post-production tampering as well. The original director left and was replaced by Stanley Donen, of all people, hardly a Sci Fi specialist. Kirk Douglas is as charismatic as ever -- even showing off his naked butt (yet again!) -- while Fawcett Of All The Hair is acceptable but no more. It's impossible to judge Keitel's performance. He seems to be the best thing in the movie until you learn that producer Lew Grade didn't care for Keitel's Brooklyn accent and wanted the actor to redub his lines -- instead the lines were dubbed by Roy Dotrice, whose readings are excellent.
Verdict: Some exciting scenes and interesting sets but relatively minor sci fi. **3/4.
So true about what you say regarding Farrah - very ho hum in this film (and many others). I saw her do Butterflies Are Free onstage in 1979 (Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre in Florida) and she was quite good, and then later I did enjoy her performances in the movie of Extremities and in a TV movie called Small Sacrifices. Recently watched the old miniseries about Barbara Hutton and thought she was excellent in that. Very uneven as an actress...but I always loved her.
ReplyDelete-Chris
She had a great many fans, enough that she got top billing -- over Kirk Douglas! -- in this movie.
ReplyDeleteShe also did a telefilm called "The Burning Bed" about an abused wife and was quite good in that. She failed to become a major movie star, however.
I was never a fan of hers, but she's clearly one of these actors who needs a strong director to pull a real performance out of them.