This past weekend marked the Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon. Now in its 25th year, the Marathon has become an annual tradition in Columbus, with plenty of attention paid to films new and old, respectable and schlocky. The Marathon was headlined by a screening of Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still, introduced by the film's female lead, the great Patricia Neal. But as far as the films were concerned, the best surprise was the other Wise film that played, his 1971 adaptation of Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain. Having read the book, I was expecting something hacky and half-assed, but what I got instead was the kind of slow-burn genre thriller Hollywood did right in the seventies but can't seem to pull off anymore. In recent years, the Crichton name has become synonymous with indifferent, jargony SF potboilers, but The Andromeda Strain is a highly effective piece of work that deserves a much better rep than it has. Check out the film's original trailer, which I think captures pretty well what makes the movie work.
