Saturn 3

Dir: Stanley Donen, John Barry

1980

*****

Saturn 3 is commonly known as something of a disaster, indeed, it is the infamous film that Martin Amis (who wrote the screenplay) based his cult hit novel Money on. However, being one to always defend the underdog, I’m here to put the record straight. Saturn 3 is a great sci-fi movie, a classic I would go as far as suggesting. The idea came from John Barry, who was a bright young talent in the world of production design who worked on such classics as A Clockwork Orange, Superman and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. He had worked with legendary director/producer Stanley Donen on a couple of films; The Little Prince in 1974 and Lucky Lady in 1975 and was given the chance to direct Saturn 3, his first story, in 1979 under Lew Grade’s ITC Entertainment production company, with Donen acting as his producer. However, it soon became apparent that Barry wasn’t suited to the job, having had no directional experience. It was widely thought he was sacked by Donen and Grade but the truth is he walked as a result of being replaced and also because his vision was being butchered by financial constraints. As Donen later put it, "It was my fault, not John's. The truth is John had hardly ever been on a set, which I didn't realize. He was such a terrific talent, but he'd spent most of his time in an office. He knew next to nothing about staging a scene, or handling actors. And since nature hates a vacuum, the actors jumped on him. The film started floundering. Finally I had to tell him : 'it's not working. I'll have to be on the set with you'. I had a moral commitment, after all ; I'd make sure the film went all right. But when I did turn up on the set, John said he just couldn't work like that, so he left. There was no question of his being fired." Grade’s ITC Entertainment was also producing 1980’s Raise the Titanic at the time Saturn 3 went into production but when it went over-schedule and over-budget and ultimately bombed at the box office, Barry’s vision was cut back dramatically. Saturn 3 was meant as a challenger to the sci-fi horror throne that Ridley Scott’s Alien had recently claimed and the original script was a far more lavish and epic look at the future than the finished project. Amis had added flourishes on instruction by Grade and the other executive producers that weren’t in the original script that added a bit of titillation, namely, Farrah Fawcett in a revealing costume, which would help with the film’s marketing. Grade also ordered the removal of key horror sequences, so not to upset the film’s classification. It is safe to say that money, the title of Martin Amis’s book that tells you everything you need to know about the murky world of film production, is what lead to Saturn 3 becoming something different from Barry’s original story. However, it’s still pretty good. The set looks like it’s from a late 60s/early 70s idea of futurism, unfashionable in the early 80s for sure, but retro-chic today. It certainly didn’t look cheap and I can think of hundreds of films made before and after that failed to look as glamourous and space-age. The original plot might have changed and simplified but the crux of the story remained the same; In the future, the earth is overcrowded and hungry, it relies on research conducted on remote stations across the solar system to produce safe and sufficient food for them, using modern methods of agriculture and experimental hydroponics. Adam and Alex (Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett) live on Saturn 3, a base built on Saturn’s third moon. They live in peace together, romantically, and have done for a few years. However, food is needed urgently and their research is seen to be slow, and so earth’s government sends a robotics captain to build the pair a robot to assist them to speed up their productivity. Seeing the assignment as an opportunity, a captain Benson (played by a dubbed Harvey Keitel) murders the original captain assigned to the mission and makes his way to Saturn 3 to build the station their very own ‘Demigod series’ robot. However, the robot, named ‘Hector’ (a nod to The Trojan Wars in Greek Mythology where Hector was the Trojan Prince and the greatest fighter of Troy) is programmed using direct input from the programmer’s brain. Since captain Benson is murderous, ‘psychologically unstable’ and has sexual desires toward Alex, so does Hector. So while Adam and Alex are suspicious of Benson’s behaviour and advances on Alex, they were unprepared for a horny killer robot chasing after them in their home. In a further twist of personality, Hector also turns on Benson, as he is automatically tuned to know murder is wrong – until he goes about killing people himself, in the interest of replacing Adam, growing vegetables and having his wicked way with Alex, one has to assume. Once again the human brain ruins the purity of an innocent robot, just when will the human race learn this? The original script sees Hector ripping Benson’s body apart but Grade decided it too gratuitous, making him something of a party pooper. I forgive him because he saved the Muppet show, and the best bits are still left in, such as the little dog being ripped in half and when Hector decides to wear Harvey Keitel’s decapitated head as a hat. The horror element isn’t quite on the same level as Alien but there is a certain something about it that I love. It’s quite serious and quite camp at the same time, two qualities any space sci-fi films should have. It’s like lost in space, but a horror version, an element always missing from the original TV series I thought. The effects are old school and old school is best in my book. Hector the killer robot looks pretty rubbish to be fair, hard to believe special effects guru Colin Chilvers modelled him on a Leonardo Da Vinci drawing, even harder to believe he cost over a million dollars to make. The exterior shots in space are dated but still wonderful, with a bit of psychedelia thrown in for good measure. The soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein was amazing but only a few minutes was used, once in the title sequence and again during the final credits. Why his work was cut is a mystery because it is up there with some of the best. I think it looks great, what more could you want from a sci-fi horror; Spaceships, murder, killer robots, severed hands, Farrah Fawcett naked, Kirk Douglas naked… there really is something for everyone. I love it, although I do wonder what the Sean Connery/Michael Caine version would have looked like, as was originally planned. It’s about time people woke up and realised that Saturn 3 is a sci-fi classic that deserves a bit of respect. So it didn’t do that well at the box office, that means nothing, it has great performances, a brilliant story, an even more brilliant script and, it’s worth repeating, a killer robot wears Harvey Keitel’s decapitated head as a hat. Watch it now.