Cult-TV Movie Review: Goliath Awaits (1981)

From "Operation Prime Time" ("for better programming...") came this 1981 made-for-television, prime time extravaganza starring the late Christopher Lee, Robert Forster, Mark Harmon, Emma Samms and Frank Gorshin (in the performance of his career).

If you were around in the 1980s and paying attention to pop culture currents, you likely will recall this Kevin (Motel Hell) Connor-directed genre TV venture; one which was advertised with the haunting image of a winsome woman (Samms) gazing out of a porthole on a ruined old ship; staring out at the murky depths beyond.

That evocative, Gothic image alone probably generated some great ratings for this impressive four hour mini-series (shown over two nights, as I recall.)

Goliath Awaits opens in 1939 as Edward R. Murrow reports that England has just declared war on Hitler and Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, the British sea liner Goliath is already at sea and imperiled by a pack of German U-Boats.

Soon, the magnificent vessel is sunk with all 1800 hands aboard, and lost to the tides of time. Her exact fate (and location) becomes a nautical mystery.

In 1981, however, an exploratory ship captained by Peter Cabot (Harmon) discovers that Goliath is -- miraculously -- intact (and positioned upright) some 1000 feet beneath the surface of the sea. As a deadly hurricane approaches, Cabot dives to investigate. He hears an S.O.S. emanating from the rusting hull of the "most famous ship of all time" and more incredibly, peers into a porthole and sees that beautiful porcelain face staring back at him.

Cabot quickly goes to the U.S. Navy for help solving this mystery. Admiral Sloane (Eddie Albert) is intrigued by the discovery and orders Commander Jeff Selkirk (Forster) to lead a rescue team to Goliath. 

Sloan boasts a secret too. Aboard Goliath (and in the care of a U.S. Senator named Bartholomew...) is a diplomatic pouch with an eyes-only message for President Roosevelt. The contents of that communique could conceivably tear down the NATO alliance. Now there are two jobs for Selkirk: rescue Goliath's survivors and also acquire (and destroy) the communique, which is believed to be a Nazi forgery.

The British vessel Enterprise 4, from British Oceanics leads the rescue attempt. After receiving a message from Goliath in Morse Code (which warns the air is "toxic" and to "beware of McKenzie"), Enterprise's submarine docks with Goliath far below the surface, and a Navy team enters the ship through a torpedo breach. There, Peter, Jeff and Dr. Sam Marlowe (Alex Cord) learn that 337 souls now live aboard Goliath thanks to an air-bubble that has existed aboard the sunken ship once "equalization" occurred with the sea outside the hull.
In charge of this isolated society on Goliath is Mr. McKenzie (Lee), a former third-engineer and a man of extraordinary resources and intelligence. When the ship was struck by the torpedo all those years ago, McKenzie thought fast and managed to convert the ship's engines into air processors. Even more than that "miracle," he created an entire Utopian society, one featuring hydroponic gardens, fish hatcheries, and other wonders. Accordingly, the people of Goliath virtually worship the man.

Alas, there are also rebels aboard Goliath, deformed "Bow People" (suffering from the bends) who -- according to McKenzie -- just don't "fit in." They are lead by a man named Ryker (Duncan Regeher), a man who rejects McKenzie's brand of authoritarian leadership.

McKenzie's major domo is a petty Irish criminal, Wesker (Gorshin), who performs the difficult (and morally questionable...) tasks required to make a society like Goliath's thrive. This means that Wesker commands a virtual gestapo security force, and administers lethal injections to the physically or mentally infirm...those who can't work, but would use up precious resources.

Even as Peter finds himself growing attracted to McKenzie's fetching daughter, Lea (Samms), he starts to see the downside of Goliath's society and a the world where an "old man made himself king." 

Soon, he becomes convinced (thanks to Ryker) that McKenzie and Wesker will never permit the rescue, because they will  lose their hold on power. Commendably, McKenzie puts the decision up to a democratic vote, but lies to his people about the feasibility of continued survival aboard ship. In truth, the vessel is running out of fuel, and the environment will soon turn bitter cold and inhospitable.

What you get, then, in Goliath Awaits is a thoughtful meditation on the idea you find in some Space:1999 episodes of the 1970s: that (to quote the episode "Dorzak"), it is the battle for survival that makes monsters of us all. 

McKenzie is a fascinating character: a man who achieved technological miracles to save his people. He created a workable society from the ground up, one that -- amazingly -- flourished for forty years. Yet, at some point, he got used to the power, to "playing God," and his miraculous victory on Goliath became an oppressive terror to those whom he ruled.

You may recognize some elements of Goliath Awaits' plot from the fourth season Twilight Zone episode "On Thursday We Leave For Home," a story in which another charismatic, brilliant leader (James Whitmore) of an isolated community (on an inhospitable planet) came to resist a rescue mission because he simply couldn't give up his authority; can't give up the idea that he is "needed."

Goliath Awaits is sort of "On Thursday We Leave For Home" meets The Poseidon Adventure. 

Despite the fantastic nature of the scenario (300 people survive in an air bubble over the generations...), Goliath Awaits is contemplative, deliberate and smart. It doesn't skimp over the difficult aspects of a rescue mission at the bottom of the sea. 

In fact, it even paints a relatively full (and realistic) presentation of the world's reaction to the rescue, from White House Press conferences to TV news bulletins, to the diverse reaction of Goliath's citizenry. Since I've always been fascinated by stories about strange disappearances and mysteries at sea, I very much enjoyed the film and the fictional world it created.  Imagine if James Cameron took his submersible to the sunken Titanic and found three hundred people aboard, still alive.  That's Goliath Awaits in a nut-shell.

Kevin Connor (who also directed Land that Time Forgot and some episodes of Space:1999), executes several brilliant compositions on what was obviously a relatively limited budget too. For instance, there's a P.O.V. shot whereinthe camera adopts the position of a speeding torpedo, and we essentially "ride" it (underwater) as it strikes the Goliath's hull. 

Amazingly, the already-impressive shot doesn't end with the expected collision. Instead, there's a sort of optical cut and we actually enter the ship's interior with the torpedo, and see crew standing by unwittingly as it explodes. It's a fancy shot for the pre-CGI age, delightfully conceived and executed.

Another good composition also involves subjective P.O.V. A Navy rescue diver enters the Goliath, and emerges from the water, only to see Wesker standing before him, aiming a pistol at him. Before we can entirely register what's happening, the gun is fired, and we see the diving helmet's glass visor (over our eyes, essentially) shattered. Then blood hits it the visor in a spray.

Goliath Awaits also reminds me of Space:1999's "Mission of the Darians" or even The Starlost, genre entertainments in which a giant vessel is compromised, and mankind is forced to "evolve" or "adapt" based on limited resources. 

Here, the people of Goliath dwell not merely in an air bubble, but in the equivalent of a time bubble. They exist in a world where Hitler was not defeated, and where the ship's band is always playing "Happy Days are Here Again." John Carradine plays a movie star of the silent age, the only celebrity in residence on the ship, and another beacon of a long-gone age.

Cult-TV Movie Review: Starflight One: The Plane that Couldn't Land (1983)

Gazing back upon 1983’s TV-movie, Starflight One: The Plane that Couldn’t Land, the most significant question it raises involves timing.

How -- years after the theatrical releases of spoofs such as Airplane (1980) and Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) -- did filmmakers believe they could produce a serious version of the same tired premise that had informed films such as Airport (1970), Airport’ 75 (1975), Airport ’77 (1977) and Concorde: Airport ’79 (1979)?

You remember that premise of the Airport (and Airplane) franchise right? A group of diverse passengers and a stalwart plane crew, including a heroic pilot, are jeopardized mid-flight, by some kind of disaster, whether a terrorist bomb, a design flaw, or a ground attack.

Worse, by 1983, the year of Starflight One's premiere, the disaster film in general had pretty much run its course thanks to theatrical misfires such as Irwin Allen’s The Swarm (1978). Airport ’79 had also proven a giant flop at the box office, failing to earn back, even, its production budget.

Unfortunately, Starflight One: The Plane that Couldn’t Land slavishly resurrects all the tired old character clichés of the Airport films (which were based on the 1968 best seller by Arthur Hailey). 

There’s a love-affair going on between a pilot and a passenger (here Lee Majors and Lauren Hutton); there’s an elderly woman on her first plane flight (though not Helen Hayes), and an untrustworthy passenger whose actions jeopardize the survival of the plane (Terry Kiser).  

Meanwhile, resourceful personnel on the ground and in the air (here including Hal Linden -- in both places!) struggle to pull a rabbit out of a hat and save the imperiled plane from fiery disaster.  

Such roles, through their sheer repetition in the disaster genre, are largely thankless here, and the cast can't do much to make them memorable.

So, who thought Starflight One could have been a good idea, coming along in 1983, at the end of the 

Airport and disaster film cycle? 

Well, historically speaking, the TV-movie’s premiere in February of 1983 on ABC followed-up on another ABC event of great importance. 

Nine months earlier -- in May of 1982 -- ABC had broadcast an extended, three-hour version of Concorde: Airport 79 for sweeps, and it earned big ratings, regardless of its earlier failure at the box office. It ranked in tenth place the week of its airing.

So, to accountants at ABC no doubt, Starflight One seemed like it could plausibly repeat the same magic in the Nielsen ratings. 

Add to the mix the special effects creations of Star Wars (1977) guru, John Dykstra, and Starflight One must have seemed like a slam dunk right?

Well, not exactly. The movie finished second in its time-slot, but it was victorious, at least over one of its prime-time competitors: Cocaine: One Man's Seduction (1983).

And artistically? How does Starflight One rank?

Well, to my surprise, there are indeed aspects of this film -- about an hour or so in -- that succeed far better than I expected they would have. 

There are, for example two extremely creative and tense “rescue” scenes set in space during the TV-movie's second act. These moments in Starflight One are far more effective than they should be, especially given that so much of the film seems to run on auto-pilot and on tired, stock situations and characters.

These scenes succeed, and more than that, actually qualify as nail-biting. It’s just a shame that the rest of the movie can’t sustain the pace and interest of these inventive sequences.  

Instead, one leaves a viewing of Starflight One considering how much, truly, the filmmakers get wrong, particularly about the workings and capabilities of the space shuttle Columbia.

 “The eyes of the world will be on Starflight One.”

The world's first hypersonic plane -- Thornwell’s Starflight One -- is scheduled for its historic maiden flight from the U.S. to Australia, with pilot Cody Briggs (Lee Majors) at the controls. 

Also aboard for the flight are the plane’s designer, Josh Gilliam (Hal Linden), who would prefer the flight be delayed while he irons out some final details, and Brody’s mistress, Erica Hansen (Lauren Hutton). 

Other passengers include a man, Freddie Barrett (Terry Kiser), who is attempting to get a new satellite into orbit, and rushing the rocket launch in Australia.

Once Starflight One is in the air, Barrett’s rocket explodes, and debris from it strikes the hypersonic plane. A rocket engine on Starflight One continues to burn, out-of-control -- its instrumentation short-circuited -- and it ascends to orbit…to space itself.

Now, Josh Gilliam must find a way to get the craft back down to Earth. 

The problem is that the hypersonic plane possesses no heat shields, and will burn up in re-entry. The shuttle Columbia joins Starflight One in space and makes a handful of dedicated attempts to transfer passengers from the damaged craft to the shuttle.

Meanwhile, Starflight One’s orbit is decaying, and the clock is ticking down towards death and destruction...

“They’re talking. But they’re not saying much.”

Starflight One is mostly slow and rote, with sleepy performances from the likes of Lee Majors and Hal Linden. But in its superior second act, the TV-movie unexpectedly turns riveting for about a half-hour.

Here’s the situation: NASA needs Josh Gilliam (Linden) -- the hypersonic plane’s architect -- on the ground. But he is aboard the plane and must be transferred to the shuttle.  Fortunately, the plane is carrying the body of a recently-deceased Australian ambassador in its cargo hold. The bright idea is struck upon that the shuttle astronauts can transfer Gilliam from the plane to the shuttle in the ambassador’s coffin!

As Josh settles into the casket, it is checked for any signs of air leaks and then closed…with him inside.  

We see a view of the nervous Josh, inside the sealed coffin, as the transfer across several hundred meters -- in orbit -- is broached. Josh’s fear and discomfort are palpable, and the special effects, which have often been criticized by critics as sub-par, do a good job of revealing the risky and vulnerable nature of this transfer. 

Suspense ratchets up to a high-point when Josh detects an air-leak in the coffin, his mode of transport, and realizes that unless he does something soon, he will run out of air before the transfer is complete.

There's a commendable if ghoulish kind of gallows humor about this sequence, especially since it follows another involving the death of a co-pilot in the airlock.  One realizes that Josh's transport, his coffin, is an appropriate final resting place, should the mission fail.

The second suspenseful scene in the film is even more disturbing. 

With Josh safely on the ground, the decision is made to transfer twenty of the stranded passengers from the hypersonic plane to the space shuttle.  

A thin, wobbly “air tube” is connected between the vessels’ airlocks, and five passengers  traverse the long, unsteady tunnel at a time. The film shows the audience every step of that long, arduous trip, as the first five passengers make their way successfully across the passageway. Their progress is recorded with a torturous, methodical camera. Again, the desired effect of suspense is achieved.

Then, the second five passengers -- including Kiser’s character and the kindly old lady -- begin making their transfer.  

The sparking, damaged hull of Starflight One, however, impacts with the travel tube, and fiery, horrible disaster ensues.  

Again, I can give the film no higher compliment than to suggest that it has reached a Poseidon Adventure (1972) threshold of suspense and horror at this juncture.  Had I caught this film on TV in '83, when I was thirteen, I would have no doubt been riveted, and the space scenes (and death scenes set in that venue) are not only imaginative, but the stuff of nightmares.

Alas, the last act of Starflight One, including the climactic re-entry scene, fails entirely to live up to the early moments of nail-biting drama and suspense. And, knowing what we do of the space shuttle’s capabilities, the film loses much of its sense of plausibility in the last hour too.

In Starflight One, for instance, the space shuttle launches, meets the hypersonic plane in flight, and brings Josh back to terra firma. Within a 17 hour window, it then re-launches, vets the aforementioned passenger tube debacle, and lands with its five rescued passengers.  Then, in the same window of time, it launches a third time, picks-up all remaining passengers inside an empty fuel container, and lands again. 

In real life, it would take a shuttle a minimum of two weeks between launches. Here, it makes three journeys in less than a day’s time.

Then, at the end of the film, and quite miraculously, a second shuttle (also bafflingly named Columbia) -- the XU-5 -- appears, already in orbit, and guides Starflight One through safe re-entry.  

Basically this second shuttle, of which the audience had no prior knowledge, acts as the heat shield that brings the hypersonic flight home.

Okay, I will buy all that.  

But, all the going back and forth with Columbia (on the ground and in space) -- not to mention the death of five passengers and one crew-member -- could have been prevented since the XU-5 was already in orbit.  

And since it was already in orbit, why not come up with this safe re-entry gambit right out the gate, five hours earlier? 

Many lives (and much rocket fuel...) would have been spared.

Poetic license, I suppose.  

Yet when Starflight One was over, I felt that it had all been for nothing. The moments that hooked me were powerful and well-vetted, but buried and suffocated by many routine elements. 

Which brings me back to my original point.

It’s really, really difficult to tell this particular story in a serious way, after the likes of Airplane or Airplane II: The Sequel. 

Those films are so perfect, so relentless in their chiseling away at the tropes of the disaster/Airport formula, that it’s nearly impossible to take the idea seriously again in their aftermath.

The saddest thing about Starflight One, however, is that, in the moments I described in my review above, the TV-movie actually comes close to climbing that seemingly insurmountable mountain.

In the final analysis, however Starflight One: The Plane that Couldn’t Land is the movie that just couldn’t stick its landing. 

Robots of the 1980s: A Gallery

The 1980s brought a new era  of robots to the cinema and our TV screens.  The age of robot sidekicks was largely over, as Star Wars (1977) receded from the forefront of popular culture (although there were still some, like Bubo in Clash of the Titans [1981]).

Robots in the 1980s were often villainous in nature, or the central protagonists.  The 1980s was, in many ways, the great age of robot protagonists such as Voltron, the Guardians of the Gobots, and the Transformers.

1

Identified by SGB: Hector. Saturdn 3.

Identified by Hugo: Bubo. Clash of the Titans.

Identified by SGB: Crichton. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1981).

5

Identified by SGB: Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Identified by 4thtroika: The Last Starfighter.

Identified by 4thtroika: Chopping Mall.

9

Identified by Hugh: Optimus Prime. Transformers.

Identified by Hugh: The Guardians (led by Leader 1). Challenge of the Gobots.

Identified by Hugh: Small Wonder.

Identified by Hugh: Voltron.

Identified by SGB: Batteries Not Included.

Identified by Hugh: Kamelion. Doctor Who.

Identified by Avi Green: MacGyver.

Identified by Hugh: ED-209. RoboCop.

18

Identified by Hugh: Crow and Tom Servo. MST3K

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Blackstar: "The Quest" (October 10, 1981)

This episode of Blackstar (1981), "The Quest" sees a trobbit, Poulo, in danger. While fishing, he falls into the water and is infected by by the "poison of the pond."

An effort is made to cure him using an ice potion, but it fails to bring down Poulo's terrible fever. The Trobbits and Blackstar realize that only a legendary healing stone -- in the possession of the "Desert Dwellers" -- can save him.

Blackstar and Klone travel to the desert and help the dwellers stave off an attack by deadly gargoyles. In return for their courage in battle, the dwellers loan Blackstar the healing stone for "six moons."

But a minion of the Overlord, the Emerald Knight, steals the stone, and takes it to Overlord, in his heavily-guarded ice palace.

Blackstar, Klone, and Mara travel to the ice palace, confront the Emerald Knight, and launch a battle to re-acquire the healing stone for their trobbit friend.

"The Quest" is an exciting episode of Blackstar, with a nice, didactic counter-point between heroic and villainous characters.  

The Emerald Knight, we learn, is a woman who has been given the gift of eternal youth by Overlord, so long as she wears her helmet and serves him.  So she has sacrificed her soul, basically, for herself; for her own vanity. She remains young, but serves evil.

And then we have John Blackstar, a hero who fights gargoyles, travels a great distance, and risks life and limb to save a friend, Poulo, who suffers from "the poison of the pond." He is a man of his word, both curing Poulo and returning the healing stone to those whom he borrowed it from.

There's still plenty here to second-guess.  Klone still shows no personality. He's just a walking story-device: shape-shifting.  

And for the second time in four or five episodes, Mara shows up at an appropriate time to save the day, and help her allies. She's like Blackstar's secret weapon, always showing up at the last second, apparently by surprise, to kick some bad guy ass.00

Overall, however, "The Quest," is a strong episode of this Filmation series, especially because it contrasts the selflessness of Blackstar with the selfishness of the Emerald Knight. It's nice too that she sees the error of her ways, and becomes a friend, proving she isn't evil...merely misguided.  We all make mistakes, and we can all be forgiven.

Next week: "Shipwrecked."

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Blackstar (1981) "Search for the Starsword" (September 12, 1981)

In “Search for the Starsword,” a volcanic eruption rocks Sagar, and monstrous Lavalocks -- fierce minions of the Overlord – emerge to steal the Star Sword, interrupting a picnic between Mara, Klone, Blackstar and the Trobbits in the process.

The Lavalocks attack the Trobbits and get the sword, but Blackstar isn’t out of the game yet.

We learn a bit more about the characters and world of Blackstar (1981) in this second episode of the series. 

For instance, John Blackstar is categorized as a “rebel who stands against the Overlord,” suggesting that the Overlord represents established authority.  The Overlord is not merely a factional leader of outcast from society (as Skeletor might be described on He-Man.) Rather, he is the Establishment; the real power on Sagar. 

Another scene also suggests this fact. We briefly see the Overlord in a room surrounded by a menagerie of creepy life-forms or aliens. These are his retainers, one might conclude, and he is holding court.

We also learn that the Overlord’s over-arching quest seems to be to unite the two pieces of the Star Sword – Power and Star.  If he does so, we must assume he would become incredibly powerful.

We see, as well, in “Search for the Star Sword” that one of Mara’s many powers involves “the power of prophecy,” to see what is bound to happen. She is very reminiscent of Ariel on Thundarr: The Bararian (1980 – 1982).

This episode also finds a lot of action for the Trobbits, and the little red-skinned, white haired denizens of the planet. It is intriguing to realize that The Smurfs (1981-1989) were introduced on Saturday morning the same year as were these little tree hobbits, but that the Smurfs took off in the pop culture.  Blue gnomes won out over red ones!

Next week: “The Lord of Time.”