The Andromeda Strain (film)

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The Andromeda Strain
The Andromeda Strain DVD cover (Universal version)
Directed by	Robert Wise
Produced by	Robert Wise
Written by	Novel: Michael Crichton Screenplay: Nelson Gidding
Starring	Arthur Hill James Olson Kate Reid David Wayne Paula Kelly George Mitchell
Music by	Gil Melle
Cinematography	Richard H. Kline
Editing by	Stuart Gilmore John W. Holmes
Distributed by	Universal Studios
Release date(s)	March 12, 1971 (USA)
Running time	130 min.
Language	English
Gross revenue	Unknown
IMDb profile

This article is about the 1971 film. For the book, see The Andromeda Strain.

The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 science-fiction film, based on the novel published in 1969 by Michael Crichton about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly disease of extraterrestrial origin which causes rapid, fatal clotting of the blood. The film was directed by Robert Wise and starred Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne. The film follows the book very closely. The special effects were designed by Douglas Trumbull. A young Michael Crichton makes a cameo appearance in a non-speaking role during the scene where Dr. Hall is told to break scrub because he has to report to Wildfire. The character of Dr. Peter Leavitt in the novel was replaced by a woman, Dr. Ruth Leavitt, in the film.

There is a strong feel for technology and government procedures and formalism. The main set, in bright primary colors, becomes increasingly claustrophobic as the four scientists work in isolation, interrupted only by disembodied voices of the computer or PA system. A single set was repainted to create all the color-coded corridors of Wildfire. Robert Wise filmed all the scenes that take place on a "level" and then the set was repainted. Wise would use this trick again in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. When filming the scene in the movie where Dr. Ruth Levitt has an epileptic seizure due to watching a blinking red light, care had to be taken when choosing the frequency of the blinking, so it was the least likely frequency to induce seizures among the theater audience.

1 Soundtrack
2 DVD release
3 Trivia
4 Cast
5 Notes
6 References and external links

[edit] Soundtrack

The film had a soundtrack release, but it was a limited edition of 10,000 records released by Kapp Records in 1971 under the supervision of director Robert Wise (at a cost of $20,000). The records were hexagonal and came in hexagonal record sleeves. The album was re-released shortly afterward as a conventional 12" LP in a regular square sleeve.

[edit] DVD release

The original DVD release by Image Entertainment presented the film in the wrong aspect ratio (1.90:1, as opposed to its original 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio). The Universal release corrects this and presents the film in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

[edit] Trivia

The film was recast as an art-house movie in Anne McGuire's 1992 "Strain Andromeda The". With permission, McGuire reversed the original film shot by shot so that everything unfolded in reverse order, although with each scene running in normal time with comprehensible dialogue. "Every action is followed by its stimulus, every comment by its query, you find yourself in a dizzying spin, grasping desperately for causal certainty, yet firmly held by the reversibility of suspense." (Steve Seid)
In creating their song "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Dub", musical band Apollo Four Forty sampled the line "... Let's go back to the rock and see it at four-forty" (referring to 440x microscope magnification).
Liverpool based electronic band Ladytron have citied the movie as a favourite during early interviews. The movie also influenced their debut album 604 (album) - all four members of the band wore identical outfits - these are inspired or based on the ones worn in the movie by the scientists at Wildfire.^[1] Also, the album's title 604 is a reference to the computer error code seen towards the end of the film: a variation on 601, meaning "unable to analyze".
For some time after the release of the movie, copies of the rectangular key used to disarm the nuclear self-destruct device were popular as an anti-nuclear symbol and were often worn by protesters as a necklace.