Saturn 3

To watch a promisingly idea go so wrong is quite a sad thing for a film buff.  This seems to be common in the science fiction genre, where even some of the worst results were born of great notions.  That a fine author like Martin Amis (adapting a story from original director John Barry) was involved only adds to the disappointment and embarrassment that is 1980's SATURN 3.   Oh, and Stanley Donen, who had directed no less than SINGIN' IN THE RAIN once upon a time sat in the director's chair after Barry was dismissed.  By this point, he was in the twilight of his career, and proved that he really had little feel for this landscape.

The film's title refers to a remote station on one of Saturn's moons.  Here, Adam (Kirk Douglas) and his assistant Alex (Farrah Fawcett) oversee the production of hydroponics for consumption back on Earth, which in this unnamed future year is suffering overcrowding and a food shortage.  Life is good at this outpost - quiet, low stress, a dog named Sally.   Adam is quite a bit older than Alex but they seem to have a rather healthy sex life.  Invading their paradise is Benson (Harvey Keitel), a space captain who flunked his psych eval. and killed his colleague, the one intended to deliver cargo to Saturn 3.

There's cargo, all right: human brain tissue that Benson implants into "Hector", a robot that has a direct link with his master, a psychotic with designs on Alex (well, her body).   To Benson, Adam and his methodology are out of date, and plans to have his creation replace him.  The film follows this struggle - Adam, acutely cognizant of his soon to elapse "abort time" attempts to relieve the little utopia of this nutjob and his hardware.  Alex looks on helplessly and plays victim a few times.  Benson moves about ominously and makes no effort to hide his m.o.  But Hector, with a portal to Benson's diseased brain, will not blindly follow his master's evil bidding.

The set-up is good, and a solid vise of tension could've developed.  The screenplay makes no effort to explore certain subtexts that would naturally derive from this scenario.  The science is questionable.  The science fiction is not exploited in any real entertaining fashion.  The direction is lifeless and dull, as are the actors.  Keitel's voice was dubbed by Englishman Roy Dotrice (doing an American accent).  Evidently, Harvey skipped the looping session.  This adds another level of unintentional humor to SATURN 3, though hearing Keitel's Bronx brogue may have made his terrible lines that much funnier.  At least we don't see him in the buff; you'll have to watch BAD LIEUTENANT or THE PIANO, or...for that.  But...we do gets flashes of former Charlie's Angel Fawcett and, in an utterly ridiculous scene, Douglas wrestling sans bath towel with Keitel.

I imagine Donen and Douglas wondered how they ended up in this project, whose saving grace is Billy Williams' cinematography and some very colorful sets.  The movie is always a pleasure to look at, but offers little else.