''Countdown'' is a 1967

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstell ...

directed by

Robert Altman Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and is considered an enduring figure from the New H ...

, based on the 1964 novel ''The Pilgrim Project'' by Hank Searls. Made before ''

M*A*S*H ''M*A*S*H'' (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richard Hooker (auth ...

'', the film was subject to re-editing by the

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design, ...

. ''Countdown'' stars

James Caan James Edmund Caan ( ; March 26, 1940 – July 6, 2022) was an American actor. He came to prominence playing Sonny Corleone in ''The Godfather'' (1972) – a performance which earned him Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Suppo ...

and

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Gold ...

as astronauts vying to be the first American to walk on the Moon as part of a crash program to beat the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Plot

In the late 1960s,

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

s training in an

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

simulator have their session ended early. They grumble about it, but their commander, Chiz (

), knows the reason for the abort: the Pilgrim Program. The Russians will be sending a Moon landing mission up in four weeks. The Americans had a secret alternate plan to the Apollo program, the fictional program Pilgrim, in case this happened. One astronaut would be sent to the Moon in a one-way rocket (depicted in the film as a

Titan II The Titan II was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company from the earlier Titan I missile. Titan II was originally designed and used as an ICBM, but was later adapted as a medium-lift space la ...

), using a modified

Project Gemini Project Gemini () was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual ...

craft. He would stay on the Moon for a few months in a shelter pod launched and landed before him. Later, astronauts from an Apollo mission would come to retrieve him. The equipment is ready, but the Russians complicate matters by sending up a civilian. Chiz, although trained and qualified, is an

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ar ...

colonel.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

and the White House insist that an American civilian be their first man on the Moon. Lee (

), one of Chiz's crew, is tapped. Chiz is outraged, but agrees to train Lee in the few days they have. Chiz pushes Lee's training hard, half to get him ready, half hoping he will drop out and Chiz can step in. Lee persists, driven by the same astronaut dream. After a press leak about Pilgrim, the Russians launch a week early. Deflated at not being first, everyone carries on. The shelter pod (a LEM lander) is launched and landed successfully. Lee is launched on schedule. He encounters a power drain malfunction en route which tests his character and hinders radio contact. The Russians have also lost contact with their team. As Lee orbits the Moon, he does not see the beacon of the shelter. With only seconds left before he must abort and return to Earth, he lies about seeing it. Mission Control okays his retro burn and he lands. Now all radio contact is lost. Lee gets out of the Gemini lander and walks around with one hour of oxygen in his suit. He finds the crashed Russian lander on its side, the three dead cosmonauts sprawled around it. Everyone on Earth is nervously awaiting news, but none comes. Lee takes the Soviet flag from a dead cosmonaut and lays it on a nearby rock with his own American flag. With little air left and nowhere to go, Lee spins the toy mouse his son gave him. It points right, so he walks in that direction. People on Earth are losing hope as his time has run out. Lee looks at his watch to see that he has just minutes of air left. A red glow on his arm catches his attention. It is the locator beacon atop the shelter. Lee is last seen walking towards the shelter... towards survival.

Cast

as Lee Stegler * Joanna Moore as Mickey Stegler *

as Charles "Chiz" Stewart * Barbara Baxley as Jean * Charles Aidman as Gus * Steve Ihnat as Ross Duellan * Michael Murphy as Rick *

Ted Knight Ted Knight (born Tadeusz Wladyslaw Konopka; December 7, 1923August 26, 1986) was an American actor well known for playing the comedic roles of Ted Baxter in ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'', Henry Rush in ''Too Close for Comfort'', and Judge Elihu ...

as Walter Larson * Stephen Coit as Ehrman * John Rayner as Dunc * Charles Irving as Seidel * Bobby Riha as Stevie Stegler

Production

Under the working title of ''Moonshot'', production on ''Countdown'' benefited from the cooperation of NASA, lending facilities at Cocoa Beach, Florida, to enhance the production.

Altman's dismissal

Altman was fired as director of the film for delivering footage that featured actors talking over each other, it was so unusual for that time that studio executives considered it incompetence rather than an attempt to make scenes more realistic. He had finished filming and was preparing to begin the editing process when he received a call from

Bill Conrad William John McKeown Conrad (10 May 1925 — 14 August 1972) was a New Zealand rugby union international. Born in Taumarunui, Conrad was a strongly built halfback and played his early provincial rugby for King Country, before switching to Wa ...

, then executive producer at

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...

"He told me, 'Don't come to the studio, they won't let you through the gates' I said, 'What do you mean?' 'Well, Jack Warner saw your dailies and he said, 'That fool has actors talking at the same time.' And I had to drive up to the gate, and there was a cardboard box with all this stuff from my desk, which the guard handed to me. I was not allowed in the studio. And they cut the picture for kids."

As a result of Altman's dismissal, the film's ending was changed. "I left it ambiguous--the guy was probably going to die on the moon...He goes off in one direction, and the camera pans back and reveals the beacon is in the opposite direction. That was how I ended it." Overlapping dialogue went on to be a signature of Altman's style. In the documentary ''Altman'', the director explains that he was "just trying to get the illusion of reality"Stafford, Jeff
"Articles: Countdown."
''Turner Classic Movies.'' Retrieved: May 18, 2013.

Reception

Critics were harsh with the unrealistic presentation of a rushed moon landing by an inexperienced astronaut. In a May 1968 review of ''Countdown'' for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', critic Howard Thompson calls the film a "limp space-flight drama" which "makes the moon seem just as dull as Mother Earth".Thompson, Howard
"Review: 'Countdown' begins."
''

'', May 2, 1968, p. 57. A February 1985 review in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

's ''

New Straits Times The ''New Straits Times'' is an English-language newspaper published in Malaysia. It is Malaysia's oldest newspaper still in print (though not the first), having been founded as ''The Straits Times'' on 15 July 1845. It was relaunched as the ' ...

'' calls ''Countdown'' "dated" and complains that the characters have "no depth or direction"."Fast forward."
''

'', (

), February 7, 1985. Retrieved: August 19, 2012. In ''Visions of the future, relics of the past'', a June 1995 story in ''

'', dealing with the history of spaceflight movies,

Thomas Mallon Thomas Mallon (born November 2, 1951) is an American novelist, essayist, and critic. His novels are renowned for their attention to historical detail and context and for the author's crisp wit and interest in the "bystanders" to larger historical ...

appreciates that the film "highlights the space program's early can-do ethos". He also calls ''Countdown'', a "little movie" with "few touches of Mr. Altman's later cynical wit" and "somehow not terribly suspenseful".Mallon, Thoma
"Visions of the future, relics of the past."
''

'', June 25, 1995. Retrieved: August 19, 2012.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Maltin, Leonard. ''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2013''. New York: New American Library, 2012 (originally published as ''TV Movies'', then ''Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide''), First edition 1969, published annually since 1988. . * Pym, John, ed. ''Time Out Film Guide''. London: Time Out Guides Limited, 2004. .

External links

* * * * * {{Robert Altman 1968 films 1960s science fiction thriller films American science fiction thriller films American space adventure films Cold War films 1960s English-language films Films about astronauts Films adapted into comics Films based on American novels Films based on science fiction novels Films directed by Robert Altman Films scored by Leonard Rosenman Films set in the 1960s Films shot in Florida Hard science fiction films Moon in film Warner Bros. films 1960s American films