Saturn 3

The best thing that I can say about this film was that it was educational for our children - how bad some films can be, so that they really appreciate well-made films and the efforts that can go into script and cinematography.

Saturn 3 is probably the worst film I have ever watched, and the horrific sight of Kirk Douglas naked capped it all. The kids were physically sick.

The plentiful costume changes and hairstyles of Farrah were certainly valuable from a historical perspective, but otherwise the embarrassment shown by Kirk D et al when talking, surely places this film in the dustbin. What a howler!

I love my sci-fi and usually love 80's films too, but deary me is this a poor showing.

You'd think with Harvey Keitel and Kirk Douglas you might have at least a few good scenes. But no, not a single one was worth a look.

Mind you I did chuckle at some of the minatures they used for the space scenes!

SATURN 3 (1980) is a space oddity. The film was supposed to have been Directed by British STAR WARS Production Designer, JOHN BARRY. But BARRY fell out with the cast and unfortunately died midway through production on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - leaving MGM Musical Director STANLEY DONEN to produce and direct the film. The resulting production fared little better, KEITEL was not happy with DONEN's direction and ELMER BERNSTEIN's score was cut to pieces, leaving most of his orchestral work on the cutting room floor. The film is one of those kitsch late 70's space movies, and falls under the 'it's so bad - it's good' category. For reasons nobody but DONEN can explain HARVEY KEITEL's voice was redubbed in the film by actor ROY DOTRICE. So KEITEL sounds funny. The film also goes into ALIEN territory with our 2 heroes being chased by the mad robot down dark labyrinthine corridors. The resulting film runs out of steam long before the end credits, but there is something entertaining about it in a BLAKE'S 7 kind of way. It is also the only film I know of where KEITEL has a fight with a naked, scrawny and bare-arsed Kirk Douglas - now that doesn't happen every day.

How could any film starring the legendary and fantastic Kirk Douglas, and the almost equally legendary and magnificent Harvey Keitel, with Farrah Fawcett as eye-candy, be anything but brilliant !

Well, the problem is that Douglas was nearing the end of his career, Keitel was only just beginning his, and the Bionic Woman (who actually got top billing !) has never been very convincing as an actress, so none of them were particularly choosy in opting to take part in this low budget sci-fi production

It has dated rather badly, but then it was made in 1980. Most sci-fi films made around this time have suffered the same fate, due to the very rapid development of technology over the last 30 years or so.

Keitel is severely limited and restricted by having to play such an unemotional character, and the age difference between the Douglas and Fawcett characters, who are supposed to be lovers, would raise eyebrows even today.

It is, essentially, a retelling of the Adam and Eve allegory, and it makes many interesting philosophical observations, although none of them are particularly original. e.g. you can't program in a sense of humour, and neither can you program a chess-playing computer to understand the nature of a sacrifice.

In fact, the whole film is rather too 'mechanical', like the most interesting character in it, which is a 'mad' demi-god computer, with a magnum sized organic brain, called Hector.

There are numerous allusions to many other myths and stories (Forbidden Planet, The Tempest, Homer's Iliad, Frankenstein, 2001 etc), and itself becomes a modern day version of Frankenstein's monster; a living thing made up of a hotchpotch of dead but once living things, but with no soul of its own.

Is this an insightful masterpiece, or just a piece of space junk ? You watch it and decide, because I can't.

Definitely worth a look.