Capricorn One
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| Capricorn One | |
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| Directed by | Peter Hyams |
| Produced by | Paul N. Lazarus III |
| Written by | Peter Hyams |
| Starring | Elliott Gould James Brolin Brenda Vaccaro Sam Waterston O.J. Simpson Hal Holbrook Karen Black Telly Savalas David Huddleston David Doyle James Karen |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Bill Butler |
| Editing by | James Mitchell |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | June 2, 1978 (USA) |
| Running time | 123 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5,000,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
Capricorn One is a 1978 thriller movie about a Mars landing hoax. It was written and directed by Peter Hyams and produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment production company for Warner Bros.
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[edit] Plot
The setting is the present (late 1970s), and the first manned mission to Mars is on the pad, ready to go. When NASA authorities realize that a major subcontractor's faulty life support system design has doomed any chance of a successful flight, they decide to fake the landing rather than scrub the mission.
Minutes before launch, the bewildered crew are removed from the ship and flown to an old U.S. Army base deep in a desert. They are then informed that whether they like it or not, they will fake the TV footage from Mars. Initially they refuse, but the authorities imply that their families will be murdered if they do not cooperate.
As the ship continues to Mars with no one aboard, the astronauts remain in captivity for a period of several months and are filmed "landing on Mars." Despite the fact that almost no one in NASA knows the truth, an alert technician notes something absurdly impossible - the television transmissions are arriving ahead of the spacecraft telemetry - "It's almost as if they were closer... but those signals couldn't be coming from three hundred miles" he tells a journalist, Robert Caulfield (Gould). The technician then mysteriously disappears, and the journalist grows suspicious. Every clue he uncovers results in an attempt on his life.
When the astronauts are about to splashdown on Earth, the empty space capsule burns up on re-entry, either accidentally or intentionally. If the live astronauts were to appear, the conspiracy would be exposed. The captive astronauts escape, and attempt to evade shadowy military forces including a duo of sinister black helicopters.
In the end, Commander Brubaker is the only member of the crew to avoid capture. With the help of a crop duster pilot (played by Telly Savalas), Caulfield manages to save Brubaker. The film ends with Caulfield and Brubaker arriving at the astronauts' memorial service.
[edit] Cast
- Elliott Gould – Robert Caulfield
- James Brolin – Commander Charles Brubaker
- Sam Waterston – Lieutenant Colonel Peter Willis
- O.J. Simpson – Commander John Walker
- Hal Holbrook – Dr. James Kelloway
- Brenda Vaccaro – Mrs. Brubaker
- Karen Black – Julie Drinkwater
- David Doyle – Walter Loughlin, Caulfield's editor
