Sean Connery Saves Earth--METEOR

Before Armageddon and Final Impact, back in the 70's before the comet hit Jupiter and made us aware of all the rocks floating around in space, writer Stanley Mann III scripted a movie that for most people was really science fiction. I mean, what were the odds that a comet would smack into the asteroid Orpheus and send a five-mile-wide chunk of it spinning toward earth?

Okay, you're right--the odds were pretty low, but that didn't stop Mann (Damien--Omen II, Firestarter, Conan the Destroyer) and director Ronald Neame (The Poseidon Adventure, Hopscotch, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) from lining up an all-star cast and some decent F/X and making a not-particularly-inspired movie called Meteor.

The 70's were prime time for disaster flicks. For one thing, there was Irwin Allen, who never met a catastrophe he didn't like. For most of the decade he gave us all kinds of chaos, from shipwreck (The Poseidon Adventure in 1972, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure in 1979) to fire (The Towering Inferno in 1974, Fire! in 1977 on TV) to Flood! (1976). And there was, of course, Earthquake, from producer/director Mark Robson (Valley of the Dolls, Von Ryan's Express, The Bridges at Toko-Ri) and the writing team of George Fox and Mario Puzo (do you really need to ask?) which not only turned L.A. into rubble but turned up in an episode of Quantum Leap.

These movies shared the common theme of pitting man and woman against the forces of Nature running amok, these movies as well as all-star casts with some of the biggest names in the business. Charlton Heston did Earthquake, Paul Newman headed up Towering Inferno and who can forget Shelley Winters getting sunk in Poseidon?

Meteor, released in '79, is no exception. It has Sean Connery, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Natalie Wood, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard and even a stony-faced Hank Fonda as the President. And, for the time, the plot was reasonably original. Connery is Paul Bradley, a former NASA scientist who quit after the satellite he designed specifically to protect Earth from an asteroid attack was turned around so its dozen nuclear missiles were aimed at the USSR and China. Surprise, surprise! The meteor shows up before WW III.

Karl Malden, as NASA head Harry Sherwood, is a far cry from James Cromwell's smarmy Bob Gerson in Space Cowboys. If the man were any more noble and dedicated he'd be cast in bronze. Unfortunately, what really happens is he gets stuck with all the pompous pronouncements instead. Fortunately, Malden's formidable talent is sufficient to keep them from being too overwhelming.

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