FUTUREWORLD

Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner

FUTUREWORLD (1976). Director: Richard T. Heffron.

Some years after a disaster in the amusement world of Delos (detailed in Westworld), the park reopens with a new attraction: Futureworld, where you can take a simulated flight into space. Newspaper reporter Chuck Browning (Peter Fonda) and TV journalist Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner), who have a more or less friendly rivalry, are invited to be the first to visit the reopened Delos and file stories about it. Tracy thinks it's all marvelous, but Chuck got reports of something rotten going on from a former employee who was later murdered. As the two experience all the wonders of Delos, things happen that make them wonder if something much more sinister is going on. Then the reporters discover that they have been duplicated ... Futureworld is superior to Westworld, with a better plot that goes in interesting directions, and a certain degree of suspense. Fonda [Ghost Rider] and Danner are odd choices to play the main characters, but both do a good job, and Danner, an excellent actress, adds some heft to the proceedings -- she is particularly good in a scene where she is dangerously confronted by the Tracy-clone. Arthur Hill [The Andromeda Strain] is solid as the executive in charge of Delos, and John Ryan [It's Alive] is suitably grim as the head technician in the conspiracy. Stuart Margolin scores in the smaller role of Harry Kroft, a tech worker who helps Chuck and Tracy get into a certain room where there are secrets to be revealed. Yul Brynner appears as the gunslinger from Westworld, but only in a very bad dream sequence that is the worst thing in the movie, although Danner may have been happy that she got to make out with "the King." Futureworld is "soft" science fiction in that it doesn't explore its premise with any special depth. Fred Karlin's score is effective.

Verdict: For once, a superior sequel. ***.

THEN AND NOW: A MEMOIR Barbara Cook

THEN AND NOW: A Memoir. Barbara Cook with Tom Santopietro. HarperCollins; 2016.                                                                                                                                                             Barbara Cook made her Broadway debut in the now-forgotten Flahooley, but she went on to great success in Plain and Fancy, and even greater success as Marian Paroo in The Music Man. And there were other triumphs to come. To say Cook had a weird childhood is an understatement. Her father walked out at six because he could no longer live with her mother, who lived vicariously through her daughter and did not seem to see her as a separate entity. Cook and her mother shared the same bed (non-sexually) until she was twenty! Cook's one and only marriage ended in divorce -- she had a long-time affair with the married actor, Arthur Hill [The Andromeda Strain] -- but gave her a beloved son, and she also developed a taste for food and, much worse, a continuous desire for alcohol. Her weight ballooning and alcohol taking over her life, Cook was even more depressed when in desperation her son moved in with his father. Hitting rock bottom, Cook, with the aid of friends and co-workers, was able to get off the bottle and began much concert work, including a night at Carnegie Hall, and was finally back on Broadway in Sondheim by Sondheim. Cook did some "straight" dramatic work on Broadway in Little Murders and other shows, and also wound up in the British production of the ill-fated Stephen King musical Carrie. As the memoir's title suggests, this book gives a backstage, insider's look at the differences between the theater in its golden age and today, when shows are no longer written for stars, and someone can graduate into a leading role without having had much experience, as in the past. Along the way Cook offers interesting sketches of such people as the difficult and self-absorbed Elaine Stritch [Monster-in-Law] and Music Man co-star Robert Preston [The Lady Gambles], whom she inexplicably seemed to find super-sexy. Despite working with many gay men over the years, she temporarily freaked out when her son came out of the closet. Cook was honored with a Kennedy Center award in 2011. Cooks' other notable musicals include Bernstein's Candide, The Gay Life, and She Loves Me. Cook was as good an actress as she was a a singer, as she proved in the "A Little Sleep" episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In this she played a "bad," wealthy party girl who finds her destiny at an isolated cabin. Her co-star was Vic Morrow and Paul Henreid was the director.    

Verdict: Good, quick read of an interesting life and career. ***.

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN

"It's growing!" Kate Reid and Arthur Hill

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971). Director: Robert Wise.

Project Scoop, which collects organisms in space, crashes to earth  in a small town in New Mexico. Everyone is killed by a plague from an organism inside the scoop aside from an old man and a baby, both of whom are taken to a secret Nevada base known as "Wildfire," which was created to contain deadly biological alien entities. Inside the base several scientists try to figure out why these two particular humans survived, and to determine the exact nature of the organism that killed everyone else, and how it was transmitted. It is decided to wipe out the town with a bomb, but will that be such a good idea ...? The Andromeda Strain, based on a novel by Michael Crichton ["Micro"], was one of the first of the technological sci fi/medical thrillers, and it's a pip, well-directed by Wise and very suspenseful. [The movie Alien owes a lot to Andromeda's climax with its destruct mechanism that only allows a short time to cancel it]. Arthur Hill as the head of the team offers his usual competent if bland performance; James Olson, David Wayne and Paula Kelly are a bit more flavorful; and Kate Reid [A Delicate Balance] is simply outstanding as the grouchy, dyspeptic Dr. Ruth Leavitt -- she's a a real asset to the movie. Glenn Langan [The Amazing Colossal Man] has a small role as a politician and is fine. Remade as an A&E mini-series in 2008.

Verdict: Taut, creepy, and fascinating. ***1/2.