The Andromeda Strain, 1971.
Directed by Robert Wise.
Starring Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, David Wayne, Paula Kelly, and George Mitchell.
SYNOPSIS:
The Andromeda Strain arrives on 4K Ultra HD courtesy of Arrow Video. This is the same disc as the Blu-ray Arrow issued in 2019, but the image quality is even better here, of course.
Arrow Video has continued its 4K Ultra HD upgrades of minor classics with The Andromeda Strain, which was previously issued by the boutique label on Blu-ray in 2019. My understanding is that this is the same restoration found on that previous disc, which isn’t included here. (And, of course, Arrow never offers codes for digital copies.)
Released in 1971, this film is a pretty faithful adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel of the same name. The story begins with the mysterious deaths of nearly everyone in the small rural town of Piedmont, New Mexico after a government satellite returns to Earth.
In response, the US government assembles an elite team of four professionals: Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill), team leader; Dr. Mark Hall (James Olson), a surgeon; and Dr. Charles Dutton (David Wayne) and Dr. Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid), a pair of researchers.
After Dr. Stone and Dr. Hall visit the crash site and determine that a pathogen of likely otherworldly origin infected and killed everyone, except an elderly man and an infant, they join their colleagues in a top-secret underground facility known as Wildfire. That’s the location for just about the rest of the film as the four of them try to understand what the virus is and how it might be stopped.
Despite the secure nature of the facility and the extensive protocols the four have to endure to be admitted into the lab at the heart of it, the virus is still a threat due to its ability to mutate and quickly infect anyone who makes even the slightest mistake.
Also ramping up the tension is a fail-safe mechanism that will cause a nuclear bomb at the bottom of the facility to go off, thus eliminating the virus for good, but that plan turns out to have deadly consequences.
Under veteran director Robert Wise, The Andromeda Strain is a film with a slow burn, both in the way it raises the stakes and the friction that inevitably developments among the team members. Some moments haven’t aged well, but overall, this is a movie that was on the cutting edge at the time, especially the effects work overseen by Douglas Trumbull. It’s certainly worth revisiting.
Aside from this edition including a 4K Ultra HD disc, rather than a Blu-ray, it’s the same as the previous release, in terms of the bonus features and the included booklet that has an essay by critic Peter Tonguette and a reproduction of one of Universal’s marketing pieces from 1971. Yes, a new bonus feature or two would have been nice, considering the COVID-19 pandemic that happened since the Blu-ray was released, but I realize a company like Arrow operates with pretty tight budgets.
The film looks great, although the usual caveat about special effects in older movies looking “too good” in 4K applies here. Given the optical process used to create effects back then, those images tend to already be a bit soft and degraded, and those imperfections can be enhanced at a higher resolution. That’s not a big deal to me, but some viewers may have an issue with it.
The bonus features kick off with a commentary track by author Bryan Reesman, who puts Crichton’s career in context as well as The Andromeda Strain’s place in film history. A New Strain of Science Fiction runs 28 minutes and features critic Kim Newman offering an enthusiastic tour through what he calls “contamination suit movies.”
Next up is the 30-minute Making the Film, which was put together by prolific documentarian Laurent Beauzereau back in 2000. It’s a nice extra to have, given the fact that nearly everyone associated with this movie is now dead, including Crichton. And Crichton himself gets the focus of the 12.5-minute A Portrait of Michael Crichton.
You also get a “Cinescript Gallery,” which features director Robert Wise’s copy of Nelson Gidding’s screenplay, with illustrations and production designs included. It’s the kind of extra that was more common in the DVD days, so it’s nice to see it show up here. If you have a computer with a drive that can read 4K Ultra HD discs, you can pull the PDF of the script off it.
Finally, the theatrical trailer, TV and radio ads, and an image gallery round out the platter.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
