Saturn-City (1980)

Saturn-City: Directed by Stanley Donen, John Barry. With Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, Ed Bishop. Two lovers stationed at a remote base in the asteroid fields of Saturn are intruded upon by a retentive technocrat from Earth and his charge: a malevolent eight foot robot.

“All right — first off, Iu0026#39;m going to recommend that you see this, even if just to satisfy your own curiosity (which Iu0026#39;m presuming on your behalf, I suppose). My own curiosity stems from the fact that Martin Amis was the screenwriter here. For those who donu0026#39;t know, Amis is the gold standard for modern literary fiction (although more recently, he has been off-form, c.f. the horrendous u0026quot;Yellow Dogu0026quot;). His narrative prose is too often described as u0026quot;Mandarinu0026quot;; that is, erudite, rife with classical allusion, and thoroughgoing familiarity with the major English writers and poets (particularly and most importantly Milton, whose u0026quot;Paradise Lostu0026quot; he basically cannibalizes for the plot and much of the language of his u0026quot;The Informationu0026quot;, and also P.G. Wodehouse, whose prose style his is most akin to). Amis, the son of novelist Kingsley Amis, claims to have read nothing but comic books as a boy. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s nothing overtly Amis-ian about the dialogue itself — one or two stillborn jokes about Saturn being the u0026quot;place where they would insert the tube if the solar system needed an enemau0026quot; (which sounds like the astro-physics stuff from The Info or London Fields, where sodomy is talked about in terms of u0026quot;black holes,u0026quot; and Nicola herself is a u0026quot;black hole of sexu0026quot;, right?). There are u0026quot;eruditeu0026quot; elements like classical references to the Roman god Saturn (at least in the title itself, and not really developed in the screenplay) and naming of the robot u0026quot;Hectoru0026quot;, of u0026quot;the Demigod III seriesu0026quot; (one of the characters constantly reminds us of Hectoru0026#39;s bad treatment at the hands of Achilles, to wit, u0026quot;Hectoru0026#39;s body was dragged around the walls of Troy by Achillesu0026quot;). u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe acting by Douglas and Fawcett is just unbelievably bad. No way to get around it. As I think back on it, the screenplay may have been pretty good actually, but their delivery was ruining it, every time. Douglasu0026#39;s big, hammy face and shoulders filling up the screen and stepping all over what may have been witty little bits here and there. He was badly, badly mis-cast in this one — it shouldu0026#39;ve been someone like Jack Lemmon or Kevin Spacey. Farrah Fawcett (earning her paycheck as a set decoration, basically) was perfectly cast, in light of the fact that this is basically an u0026quot;Adam and Eve In Spaceu0026quot; story. Amisu0026#39;s females (c.f. u0026quot;Other People,u0026quot; or u0026quot;Successu0026quot;) tend to take Miltonu0026#39;s Eve as their model. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNow, if the execution, in terms of acting or staging what-have-you, didnu0026#39;t come off, the overall structure of the thing was anagogically sound. Thereu0026#39;s no question that Amisu0026#39;s novelistu0026#39;s sense of architecture was at its high ebb at this part of his career (the contemporaneous book would be u0026quot;Successu0026quot;, Amisu0026#39;s most cleanly and cleverly plotted). As I said, itu0026#39;s basically Adam and Eve u0026quot;in space,u0026quot; and the ending, as with our first parents, is not a happy one. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHarvey Keitel is the intruder on Douglasu0026#39;s and Fawcettu0026#39;s Eden. And whatu0026#39;s interesting is that his character is a forebear of the u0026quot;Devilu0026quot; character in Amisu0026#39;s later novel, u0026quot;The Informationu0026quot;, Scozzy. Keitelu0026#39;s character is, like Scozzy, a sort of cyborg, a series of pixellated surfaces, motivated only by desire for Fawcett. By the end of the movie, his person merges with the robot Hector. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe movieu0026#39;s coda was surprisingly strong, actually, almost unwarrantedly powerful, given the crappiness of what had led up to it. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOverall, youu0026#39;d have to give Amis credit for trying to bring depth to a pretty shallow genre (references to Homer, Virgil, and Genesis, in a 90 minute sci-fi horror flick), and for knowing when to u0026quot;get out of the wayu0026quot; for the visual aspect of the action.”