Written by director Peter Hyams as a reaction to the Watergate scandal and regarded by many as one of the best sci-fi thrillers of the 1970s, CAPRICORN ONE takes a conspiracy theory and attempts to make it matter-of-fact.
It’s the first manned mission to Mars and Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Peter Willis (Sam Waterston) and John Walker (OJ Simpson) are seemingly destined to be the first men on Mars. However, just before launch, they are taken from the capsule and told by Space Program Director Dr. James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) that the life support system wasn’t working and that they would all be dead in three weeks.
Kelloway is keen to keep the programme going despite mounting pressure from the US President to cancel it because of costs. So, he devises a plan to simulate the landing by shooting it on a soundstage three hundred miles from Mission Control in Houston and threatens the astronauts’ families if they don’t comply by blowing up the plane their wives are on.
Two months later, all seems to be well until Elliot Whitter (Robert Walden), a technician working at NASA, confides during a pool game in a bar to friend and reporter Robert Caulfield (Elliott Gould) that the transmissions are coming in ahead of the spacecraft and things don’t seem to add up.
Caulfield is called to the phone, but when he returns, Whitter has disappeared….
OK, there is a little bit of implausibility here, but that is not the point. Sometimes there is always that, but CAPRICORN ONE is great fun and a neat idea executed near-perfectly. Telly Savalas (KOJAK, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE amongst others) also provides a great cameo.
Cinematographer Bill Butler also provided the camerawork on the likes of JAWS and several ROCKY films. Jerry Goldsmith’s sprawling and thrill-packed score is another winner.