User Reviews

Mostly good, solid, well acted (especially by Robert Duvall and James Caan) story of behind the scenes politics among astronauts as we raced Russia towards the moon in the late 1960s.

Gets a little soapy at times, some of the politics and science seem a little cheated, and key incidents are convenient and co-incidental. Production values, especially the special effects, are pretty weak. And Caan's astronaut is a little too open with his fears to be believed as a man of his position at that moment in history.

On the other hand it's impressive that in 1969 someone made a space movie focusing on complex emotions and human behavior, not technology. The climax is a bit 'Hollywood', although at least a little more bittersweet than usual, if predictable (and a cheat). The small roles are well cast and played. Not really recognizably an Altman film, but certainly shows talent and is worth seeing.

"Countdown," Robert Altman's first theatrical release, is the only film I've seen by the prolific director that feels nothing like an Altman project. A bit of history surrounding it reveals that Altman battled the studios over creative control, and that the final version of the film exists more as a product of the studio than of the auteur. Never again, for better or worse, would Altman relinquish control of his films, a tenacity that won him an instantly recognizable style not afforded to many other directors.

So "Countdown" isn't terribly interesting formally and feels like it could have been directed by anybody, but that's not to say it isn't an interesting movie. Released a year before man actually landed on the moon, it provides a remarkably accurate guess at what such a feat would look like, and the film is played with conviction by a strong cast of actors led by James Caan, Robert Duvall and Michael Murphy. Duvall and Murphy would appear again in "MASH," and Murphy would go on to become an Altman regular. Barbara Baxley, known to Altman devotees as Haven Hamilton's wife in "Nashville," fulfills wifely duties in this film as well, though women may as well not even exist for all the attention the screenplay affords them.

As a studio film, "Countdown" isn't half bad. As an Altman film, it's one of his weakest. But nevertheless, it's well worth seeking out, especially for fans of the iconoclastic director.

Grade: B-

Released two months before '2001: A Space Odyssey', and on a soap opera scale compared to that, 'Countdown' comes from a time when movies didn't have to have huge budgets, big stars or auteur directors to get national distribution: I saw it as a second feature (remember them? - to 'Ice Station Zebra', I think, a far worse movie) in one of the now defunct three small cinemas in my home town. It's pretty formulaic, with a 'time clock' plot, a little bit of character play, a fair bit of topicality, and for its time and budget, a reasonable stab at gritty space realism, compared to the stagey, squeaky 'Star Trek' universe that had boldly gone on TV only two years before, and Kubrick's tour de force that was to follow shortly. Interesting as a snapshot of cinema history, with a director and lead actor (and Robert Duvall) who went on to join the A-list, which nobody knew about then. They don't make 'em like this any more; or if they do, they go straight to DVD.

A comment on "Marooned", the movie that was made about a moon mission disaster which was released after the Apollo 11 landing but prior to the Apollo 13 real-life disaster, mentioned that the movie is not available on DVD and rarely, if ever, appears on television. I believe that the same is true of this movie (at least regards TV screenings) and it's for the same reason. "Marooned" and "Countdown" are movies that are so much of their period that they scarcely make any sense at all to 21st Century minds. Of course, we all know about the Cold War, and most cold war movies involve international espionage which is timeless.

Countdown is a movie about the Space Race which dominated the daily agenda at least as much as conventional Cold War conflicts like the Korean and Vietnam wars. The plot concerns a situation in which the Soviets succeeded in their aim to send a manned rocket to the Moon before the Americans were ready to fly Apollo. However, contact with the cosmonauts has been lost, and there is still a chance for NASA to fulfill Kennedy's challenge of "sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" - as well as the kudos gained from discovering and being the ones to tell the Soviets what happened to their men.

An interesting sideline on this is that the actually successful method of moon exploration used, ie send three men to lunar orbit and then two can travel to the surface in a smaller ship, is certainly not the only solution, and this movie explores a different one forced by necessity. Since Apollo is not ready and there is no lunar lander capable of taking off from the moon, why not send a less complex ship with only one man, and let him stay on the moon, kept alive by an environment habitat sent on ahead by unmanned rocket and by provision of supplies by further unmanned ships? Such a scenario had already been envisioned by science fiction authors like Arthur C. Clarke as being the most efficient way to explore our satellite. Certainly nobody had previously imagined that we would send men to the Moon for a matter of a few days in a ship which could not carry more than a few hundred pounds of samples back to Earth. By exploring this other methodology this movie succeeds in highlighting the true nature of our Lunar adventure. The point was not to expand the human frontier or to increase the sum of scientific knowledge - the point was to get a man on the moon and safely back before the Russians did.

It's interesting that I initially had the same reaction as "anonymous" did to the lunar lander depicted in the movie. Sure, it looks like a Gemini capsule stuck on top of a descent stage, but guess what? When Altman made this movie, NASA actually had already planned the "Countdown" mission AND the Gemini lunar lander, although it was never used.

BTW, I read Hank Searl's book "The Pilgrim Project" while I was in eighth grade and loved it.

Although this movie was made back in the 1960's, tonight was the first time that I ever saw it. My wife and I found it to be an enjoyable Friday night offering. This movie was not about special effects, meteors hurling through space, etc. Rather, it was about the people who comprise the team that organizes and develops the US Space program. As always, Robert Duvall was excellent, this time as an Astronaut who, because of political considerations, was removed as the person who was scheduled to become the first to land on the moon. Duvall played his character with just the right amount of anger and disappointment before becoming the instructor and motivator to the man who replaced him, also well played by James Caan. I wish the ending had been a bit longer but that is a mere quibble with what I feel is a fine movie

A moving and exciting space opera with great cast , adequate production design and nail-biting final scenes . Concerning the preparatives, training , emotional crises affecting the men and their families and mutual competence between two astronautas : James Caan, Robert Duvall. At the end there is a bone-crushing last reel that will have on the edge of your seat .The motion picture that puts a man on the moon ... and you will follow every terrifying second of the way...From the director of The Player and Nashville comes a screen space adventure that's the Real Suff .

This is the personal drama of the man fate picked to live the great adventure of the century , resulting to be a nice thriller/drama/Scifi with overlapping dialogue , dealing with American astronauts being rushed out to the moon in an attempt to beat the Russians. This is a drama more than a thriller , concentrating less on Sci-Fi hardware than on emotional crises affecting the men and their families . Here there are three major talents connected with this science-fiction thriller , as Robert Altman , and Robert Duvall , James Caan went on to appear together in The " Godfather" by Francis Ford Coppola and " Killer Elite" by Sam Peckinpah , while director went on his own fame and fortune , all of them : Duvall, Caan, Altman were all on the theshold of their hugely successful careers . Moreover , including a rousing and twisted finale that will leave you breathless. Starring duo are well accompanied by a very good support cast , such as : Steve Inhat , Joanna Moore, Barbara Baxley, Michael Murphy , Charles Aidman and uncredited actor/producer William Conrad as a TV newscaster , among others.

It contains an atmospheric and functional cinematography by William Spencer. As well as a rousing and suspenseful musical score by Leonard Rosenman in Jerry Goldsmith style .This is most uncharacteristic of its filmmaker and the ethereal qualities of his later work, though being slightly soapy in parts . This one was made before MASH and subsequently Altman to develop a prolific and successful career . After his television works , first film's Altman was in 1957 The James Dean Story , following this Countdown 1967 , the big hit MASH and a series of successes and some flops , such as : That Cold Day in the Park, McCabe and Mrs Miller , Images , The Long Goodbye , Thieves like us , California Split , Nashville , Buffalo Bill and the Indians , 3 Women , A Wedding , A perfect Couple , Health , Quintet, Popeye , Secret Honor , Streamers , Fool for Love , Beyond Therapy , Aria , Short Cuts , Kansas City, The Gingerbread Man , Dr T and the women , Gosford Park, The Company , among others .

The Americans and Russians are in a race to the moon. For political reasons, Air Force pilot Robert Duvall is replaced by civilian James Caan as the astronaut for the mission. This leads to personal conflicts between the two and general doubts about whether Caan can pull the mission off. Director Robert Altman's space drama is a mostly unimpressive, static effort. If I didn't know better I would assume it was made-for-TV. Lacking in special effects and choosing instead to focus on the personal drama between the various parties involved in the space program, it can be a tough slog at times. It's very dry and has long stretches where it's boring. It's also lacking in the kind of suspense necessary for a story about a race to the moon. Anti-climactic ending doesn't help, either. If you're a fan of movies about the space program perhaps you should check it out. Otherwise I can't recommend it.

James Caan and Robert Duvall starred in a bunch of films together. This one shows them landing on the moon, two years before we actually did. President Kennedy had challenged the U.S. scientists to get us to the moon before the russians, not because it was easy, but because it was hard, and would challenge us to meet the best of our skills and abilities. Ted Knight is in here as "Walter", a couple years before Mary Tyler Moore. also small, uncredited appearances by Mike Farrell and William Conrad. suspense and adventure. just before it happened in real life. some added competition between the astronauts, which probably wasn't really there. i get that so much was unknown at this point, but they have added in arguing and competition where there probably wasn't. who knows. it's okay. Directed by Robert Altman, who had been repeatedly nominated for an oscar, and received it for a lifetime achievement of inspiring work .... think M*A*S*H.

This film is not particularly noteworthy in itself, but as a benchmark in the development of science-fiction on the big screen. It marks one of the last gasps of the low-budget, hardware-driven (Rockets and Rayguns, if you like) school of sci-fi and falls well short of its contemporary "Marooned", much less merit any comparison with "2001" and other later high concept films. Altman's direction is sufficient to keep the picture moving along and the overlapping dialogue is a refreshingly sophisticated stuff. The ego clashes of the two pilot candidates for the moon flight seems a bit stilted (Duvall seems at home in the role, but Caan's not up to it), the anti-Soviet rhetoric is a bit grating at times and the female roles are essentially throw-aways. When it's time to put together a retrospective on the sci-fi genre (as has been done for war films) this one might get 15 seconds during the moonshot segment; it hardly deserves more. This film's biggest problem was (apparently) budget -- it's rare to see a film depict the props and procedures of its own era so poorly.

I'm a moon kid, my 18th birthday was July, 22, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped on the surface of the moon July 18th I was two months removed from my high school graduation. I was destined to love "Countdown" in the same way I loved "Apollo 13" and so many other moonshot films. Unfortunately, this film built around the tension between James Caan's character, a NASA scientist and Robert Duvall's character a NASA astronaut to the bone, results in more than an hour or verbal combat that gets very old. The US is going to place a man on the moon, likely a day or two after the Russians, who will that man be? The astronaut Chiz was the first pick before the Russians sent up a citizen scientist, Chiz was scrubbed and NASA picks a citizen scientist of their own, James Caan's character. The net results: the astronaut is doing all he can ridicule the scientist's abilities and chances for a safe and successful mission.

I've just got to throw my 2 cents in. I thought the Countdown was an excellent movie. The acting is what carries it for sure, but the special effects aren't bad either for the time period.

I've seen Apollo 13 with Hanks and I thought this picture did a better job of portraying tension, ( although fictitious ) within the capsule. Robert Duvall is a superior actor as is James Caan. The overall dismay he portrays when not picked for the mission, and the subsiquent attempt to discredit Caan is great acting!

**SPOILERS** Made on a shoe-string budget "Countdown" is by far the movie with the best depiction of a flight to the Lunar surface then any of the previous "Flight to the Moon" films going as far back as the early 1900's. The movie went from science fiction to science fact in just under two years after it's release in early 1968 with the historic three manned Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 1969.

Trying to become the first nation to put a man on the Moon the US has NASA set a mission to the Lunar surface to beat the USSR. It's supposed to be done with the astronaut sated for that historic mission to be a civilian. Air Force fighter pilot Chiz Stewart, Robert Duvall,who was hoping to be chosen for the Moon Mission is terribly upset by being eliminated because of his military background. Stewart become very hostile towards his friend Lee Stegler, James Caan, a civilian worker for NASA for getting picked for the flight christened, or designated by NASA, Pilgrim One.

Taking out his frustrations on Lee Chiz, who's in charge of training for the Moon Mission, does everything he can to have him wash out of the program. Not just because of sour grapes but because Chiz like Lee's wife Mckey, Joanna Cook Moore,feel that he's doesn't have the experience as an astronaut to handle this very dangerous assignment. On top of that Lee, being the egomaniac that he is, will end up getting himself killed on the mission because of his obsession the be the first man on the moon even if it kills him.

Just days before Lee is to blast off there's news from the Soviet Union that the Russians sent a three man crew into obit and that it would land on the Moon before the USA planned Moon shot. That still doesn't have Pilgrim One suspended with those at NASA feeling that the news may very well be a rumor. To keep them form launching the Moon Mission, by the sneaky and conniving Soviets.

Sent into space the next morning from Cape Kennedy in Florida Pilgrim One has major problems as it goes into the Moons trajectory because of a power loss during the take-off. With Chiz, at the controls at the NASA Space Center in Huston, walking Lee through the dangerous complexities of the space mission he makes it to within 200 miles from the surface of the Moon.

On the Moon NASA had two weeks earlier landed and unmanned space shelter with a rotating red beacon that Lee is to first identify and then to land, as close as possible, next to it. At the shelter there's enough air water and food to last two months. It's then when NASA would send an Apollo manned space capsule to pick up Lee and bring him back safely home to earth.

It turned out that Chiz and Mickey's worse fears were realized with Lee not wanting to have the mission aborted and sent back to earth, without being the first man on the Moon, taking his chances in landing Pilgrim One despite not really knowing if it was withing site of the NASA shelter. Which, with only two hours of air in his space suit, was almost curtain death for him.

Walking through the unknown wilderness that's the Lunar surface Lee discovers that the USSR indeed landed a manned space mission on the Moon before the USA. Lee also finds out that the three man crew were killed as it crashed, instead of landed, on impact.

With the air in his space suit almost exhausted Lee looking at his watch, which told him that he had only seven minutes of oxygen left, notices a bilking red flash reflecting off the glass back at him! Looking straight ahead Lee sees the NASA space shelter, which was Lee's only chance of surviving, with it's red rotating identification lamp guiding him straight to it.

Desperate to reach the moon first, NASA sends a man (James Caan) and shelter separately, one-way. He must find it to survive; he cannot return until Apollo is ready.

This film has been heavily scrutinized for being boring, dated and any number of other things. Critic Howard Thompson calls the film a "limp space-flight drama" which "makes the moon seem just as dull as Mother Earth". Some of this might be fair, some might not. Director Robert Altman, who later went on to big things, got the job through Warner Brothers' B-movie producer William Conrad (1920-1994). So maybe we are wrong to expect too much. (Although it is great to see such early performances from Caan and Robert Duvall.)

Where the movie is and is not Altman's is unclear. The bulk is obviously his, but the story goes that Jack Warner (1892-1978) did not like Altman's use of overlapping dialogue, had him removed from the set, and Conrad shot some new footage. So how much did Altman get to edit into the final film?

The Soviets are about to launch a manned mission to the moon.

A desperate bid by the US to land a man on the moon before the Soviets do.

An Apollo moon program that isn't ready to launch yet.

A rushed preparation to send a single astronaut in a modified Gemini capsule to land on the moon.

He is to remain alone on the moon in a lunar shelter for a year until an Apollo mission can rescue him.

Who will be selected for this hastily prepared and perilous mission and can it succeed?

"Countdown" is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Robert Altman, based on the 1964 novel "The Pilgrim Project" by Hank Searls. It was released eighteen months before the first manned mission to the moon in 1969.

The film's working title was "Moonshot" and production was assisted by cooperation from NASA who lent its facilities at Cocoa Beach, Florida. Filming took place in part at NASA facilities in early 1967, immediately after the January pad fire in Apollo 1 in which the crew perished during a ground test.

Altman was fired as director of the film due to the inclusion of overlapping dialogue. What studio executives mistook for incompetence was really the director's attempt at achieving the illusion of reality. If I recall, this was a technique used in "TheThing From Another World" to very good effect.

Director Altman had previously directed "The Delinquents" (1955) and "The James Dean Story" (1957), as well as directing TV series such as "Combat" over a ten year period.

It now seems a bit quaint and unusual to feature a modified Gemini spacecraft in a lunar landing. In the film, The Pilgrim spacecraft is a hybrid of a complete Gemini spacecraft grafted onto the descent stage of an Apollo lunar module. However, it seems that there had been proposals in the mid 1960s to use modified Gemini craft for lunar orbital and even lunar landings to complement the Apollo flights. One such lunar Gemini program, "Big Gemini" would have accommodated as many as 12 astronauts, but this and other proposals were rejected or never went beyond the concept stage for a variety of reasons.

Lee's landing site is the "Sea of Storms" or "Oceanus Procellarum / Ocean of Storms and it is where Apollo 12's lunar module "Intrepid" landed on 19 November 1969. The film's moon landing sequence was simulated in the Mojave Desert.

"Countdown" is a film of its time featuring a Space Race within the context of the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union. NASA was charged with the seemingly impossible task of fulfilling President Kennedy's challenge of "sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the decade. The point of this enterprise was not necessarily to expand the humanity's frontiers and scientific knowledge but was instead aimed at getting a man on the moon and safely back before the Russians did.

Interestingly enough, even today, over fifty year later we still talk in terms of a space race when referring to upcoming lunar and Mars missions even though the old Cold War is over. A race with whom and to what end? It seems that the quest for human knowledge, expanded horizons and sheer wonder is instead being replaced by the need to corporatize, privatize, extract, consume, obtain profit and gain strategic advantage from our endeavors in space. Technology has certainly progressed but the same cannot be said for our mentality. Our space junk and refuse has certainly increased exponentially.

The idea of sending a craft with an astronaut to another world and allowing him to stay there, kept alive by an environment habitat provisioned with supplies and the sending of further supplies via unmanned rockets seems like a scaled-down version of similar earlier scenarios envisioned for future Mars missions. Of course, on Mars and even on the moon we will have to come up with ways of becoming self-sustaining using the available resources of the new worlds we'll inhabit.

Overall, the film deals with complex emotions and human behavior instead of technology but suffers from a lack of tension and suspense, with the result that it comes across as being rather flat and pedestrian, lacking any real tension and suspense like in its contemporary, "Marooned" (1969). The only real exception was the climactic scenes featuring Lee Stegler's lunar descent and his coming across the dead cosmonauts on the lunar surface.

"Countdown" certainly suffered from its evident lack of budget. It certainly showed in its depiction of the mission control room and the moon walk sequence which both looked particularly disappointing and lacked realism.

I like space films and consider the Moon Landing to be arguably the greatest achievement in human history, which makes "Countdown" especially disappointing, for it's awfully dull. Although rightly derided for its lackluster acting and story, even "Destination Moon" (1950), Hollywood's prior moonshot, managed more awe, suspense and thematic intrigue while remaining true to scientific realism. Perhaps, part of the problem is young Robert Altman's attempts at human realism, as well as the scientific sort, which weighs the picture down in numerous conversations and squabbles between characters of little to no interest, as well as the director's characteristic overlapping dialogue and lingering long shots. Plus, the studio reportedly interfered with this one a lot. The score is especially distracting early on due to its punctuating scenes where nothing dramatic is happening. Even as the space race against time heats up, as this NASA desperately tries to catch up and beat the Soviets to landing a man on the Moon, the dramatic flow remains stalled and the tension lackluster. "Countdown," however, does benefit in production values from access to actual NASA facilities and is a historical curiosity for being released shortly before Apollo 11.

This may have worked better had the filmmakers taken their cue from the "pilgrim" code name, in the sense that John Wayne used it, for their Moon mission within the film to make more of a space Western. I'm not saying it should've been fantastic like "Star Wars" (1977), but there are already a few elements in "Countdown" that are shared with the Western genre. James Caan and Robert Duvall's characters could just as well be competitive and reluctant partners as gunslingers as they are astronauts here--or gangsters as they would later be in "The Godfather" (1972). There's already the worrying wife to remind the brave hero of the domestic bliss he's jeopardizing for a high-noon showdown with the Russians. There's the cosmic sense of Manifest Destiny. And the odd Moon sequence in "Countdown" already looks like a guy wandering through a desert more than an actual moonwalk. As a political thriller, "Countdown" fails; as a Western, it had promise.

Despite a great cast this movie kind of drags along. It's an interesting enough movie since it's contemporaneous with the actual moon-shot effort. It kind of flows like a space-procedural quasi-documentary, as if it was modeled on 60s police procedural TV show. It's kind of what I expected so I wasn't too disappointed.

COUNTDOWN stars James Caan as Lee Stegler, a civilian, who is chosen at the last minute to replace a career astronaut (Robert Duvall) for a moon mission. It's during the heat of the great "space race" between the USA and the USSR, and politicians have decided that a non-military representative must be chosen.

After an eternity of training, squabbling, and other padding, Stegler finally blasts off, only to find himself in a dangerous situation.

Mr. Caan is believable in his role, as is Mr. Duvall, whose character -somewhat- prefigures his role in THE GREAT SANTINI. The animus that his character shows toward Stegler feels like a genuinely bruised ego.

Not a bad science fiction film that may seem sort of hokey to modern audiences who have no idea how exciting this superpower rivalry actually was...