thinker1691 The future as far as the movies are concerned is stocked full of possibilities. Some scenarios are happy and conducive to modern life, Others are froth with woe and famine and appear to be bleak prospects at best. Still others are terrifying in their message and that's what this film is all about. "The Satan Bug" is the story of what could go wrong if secret testing labs are allowed to produce nightmare microbes which can destroy all life on the planet. In this dramatic offering, our hero Lee Barrett (George Maharis), a former Intelligence Officer, is recalled to duty at a secret designation called ' Station #3 '. The reason? It has been learned that one of the scientist Dr. Gregor Hoffman (Richard Baseheart) has invented a dangerous viral germ which has the potential to destroy everything living. This potential biological weapon has been stolen and the man who controls it is set on blackmailing the government. The movie is packed with surprises in the script as well as in the star-studded cast. Dana Andrews plays Gen. Williams, while Frank Sutton (Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.) and Edward Asner (Lou Grant) play the heavies working for the lunatic madman. As I said, surprising, as both are wonderful as is the hero's romantic intention, Anne Francis as Ann Williams. Although there are some parts to the film which are a bit stiff, overall it's a good story and one which is entertainingly acceptable as dramatic featurette. ****

Robert J. Maxwell This is a kind of doomsday thriller about a "bug" that will kill all life on earth, developed by a group of scientists at a secret government station in the midst of the Mojave Desert. One of the scientists turns out to be a maniac who escapes with a supply of the stuff and threatens to destroy the world. Can he be stopped? It seems to have a lot going for it. Written by Alistair MacLean and James Clavell; directed by John Sturgis; a plot of considerable topical interest; performances by a lot of respectable folks like Richard Basehart, Dana Andrews, Ann Francis, Simon Oakland; score by the perceptive Jerry Goldsmith; beautiful locations.So why doesn't it work? Probably a combination of bad luck and budget. The bad luck was that practically everyone involved seemed to be taking the day off. This is known as sampling error in statistics. The low budget casts this effort indelibly in the configuration of a made-for-TV movie. There's a lot of talk and little action or suspense. I don't mind talk per se. "The Andromeda Strain" was filled with it, but it was necessary. Here, it's unfocused and sometimes confusing. Actually, I lost track of some of the vials at times. There are stray vials of the Satan bug, of botulis, and of botulis anti-toxin. (Or are there?) I didn't mind the absence of lots of action either. Nothing was more dreary than the frenetic pace and elaborate effects of "Doomsday." But, Jeez, it would be nice to be able to follow the plot. And to have more to the story than just a lot of guys standing around pointing guns at one another.It's also the writers' responsibility to see to it that characters are differentiated, and they stumbled here. James Hong is distinctive because he's Chinese. But how about the rest? Look at their names: Hoffman, Barrett, Williams, Michaelson, Cavanaugh, Donald, Tasserly, Reagan, Raskin, Johnson, Baxter, Mason. What is this, a fraternity reunion at some diploma factory for the WASP elite? Not a Greek or Ginzo among them. Two suspenseful and thrilling incidents. A flask of one of the toxins is discovered in the soft drink ice box at a baseball stadium and the detective who discovers it must hold still while another disarms the explosive device attached to it. Well, this is already a cliché. The reason we run into this situation so often in films is that it's a sure fire tension generator. It works every time. And yet here, Sturgis gives it no more than perfunctory treatment. The formula calls for a close up of the fulminate of mercury, the dreadful question of which wire to cut -- the red or the white -- and a close up of the sweating face of the poor slob who must stand motionless and hold the thing. But no. It's all done in medium shot with only a few cuts. The endangered actor looks concerned but not terrified, as if worried about a loose tooth. And no one releases the tension at the end with a wisecrack. The writers either didn't have time to deal with this situation properly or weren't being paid enough, and the director's mind must have been elsewhere.Second suspenseful incident. George Maharis, a wooden actor from television, is holding a gun on Richard Basehart, who is holding one of the demonic flasks in his hand. "Put the flask on the ground and step away from it," Maharis orders him, and Basehart simply smiles and flips the flask in the air, catching it again. It's all over in a second and it's the best scene in the movie.The movie holds the interest, but just barely.

lotus07 SYNOPSIS: Insane genius seeks to destroy all life on the planet by developing the ultimate biological weapon....what could possibly go wrong?CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER: Fear. Fear that the overworked and stressed-out brainiacs in Station #3 will loose it, go postal and create the ultimate lethal chemical agent. If exposed to the air, the population of the planet has 2 weeks to live. This is all about men playing God, and what happens when technology overtakes our collective wisdom. This is still going on in society, with stem-cell research, genetic engineers, the human genome project and steroids, but the possible results are much more frightening and terrifying here.PROS AND CONS: This film started out on the slow side and at first appeared somewhat low budget. The sets and dialog seemed sparse and almost empty. As the film went on, it became apparent that this was intentional in order to give an overall feeling of alienation and loneliness. The entire cast of the film is minimal. Anne Francis is the ONLY woman you even see on screen for the whole picture. The stark and empty desert landscapes of Arizona and Southern California almost gave a sense of a world abandoned. There aren't a lot of plot twists in this film, but there is a lot of 'motivational' dialog. Questions regarding man's right to exist and the folly of runaway science. The scenes of death by bacterial toxins in the film are riveting and emotional. There is no blood or gore, just a momentary realization that they are about to die, and then they collapse and are gone.There aren't a lot of cons in this film, because you have to take it for what it is. Stark, minimalist film making on a terrifying subject. It does appear odd that with the fate of the world at stake, all the forces that the US government requires are about 12 men in trench coats that pick up a pastel colored rotary phone to bark orders and have things done. This makes you wonder how ever accomplished anything before cell phones and the internet. We like to see more detail and drama these days, but like I said, this is minimalist film making on a large scale.

travis_iii Despite all its obvious flaws I've always really liked this film and having seen it again recently (and having still enjoyed it) I wondered why it still held its appeal.Yes, the plot groans a bit (for instance, the Anne Francis character, though well-played, seems to serve no purpose - except as a poorly explained romantic interest), the characters are one dimensional (well it is a suspense film and you can always use your imagination), and some of the motivation is a bit suspect; but this film still generates a real tension and sense of terror. It's a well-imagined, claustrophobic world of neurotic scientists, a secret state, disillusioned spooks, and isolated top-secret labs. There are good performances (especially Jon Anderson, Ed Asner, Frank Sutton, Richard Basehart - despite dodgy Austrian accent - and George Maharis) and a superb, tense score by Jerry Goldsmith that keeps the fear and suspense palpable. The action too remains tight but down-played; it does move forward at a reasonable pace but the emphasis generally remains on the realistic and the prosaic. This lack of the spectacular may be more due to the small scale of the production but for me it fits perfectly to the claustrophobic style of the film and doesn't detract from the plausability of doomsday-virus-goes-missing plot line; this is key to why the films' appeal has remained strong - the story seems all too possible (and hence frightening), and it certainly is as possible today as it was 40 years ago.There are two other stars of this film that deserve special mention. One is the desert - I think much of the the filming was done around Palm Springs in the Colorado Desert. It looks truly beautiful and other-worldly (well if you're from London it does) but also desolate and lonely. Its emptiness intensifies the sense of paranoia and isolation and serves as a subconscious reminder to the watcher of the apocalypse that the Satan Bug could unleash upon mankind... the other star is a small flask with a red seal that requires just 4 lbs of pressure to break it... if I had to compile a list of the scariest things in cinema I think I'd place that little flask pretty near the top.