I greatly enjoyed reading Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain and then I decided to correct an oversight in my viewing history and check out the 1971 film directed masterfully by Robert Wise.

I love that like the book, the film is played very straight, and consequently it makes the idea all the more frightening.

When a satellite comes down in Piedmont, Nevada (Pop. 63) a recovery team is sent in to collect. They discover that it looks like the entire town is dead. But they don’t survive long either.

It sounds like there has been an outbreak of some kind, so at a secret military base known as Wildfire, a group of scientists are brought together to figure out what happened in the town. They recover the satellite and two survivors.

And what may very well be an alien virus.

Doctors Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hall), Charles Dutton (David Wayne), Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid), and Mark Hall (James Olsen) have been gathered from across the country to find out what goes on, and if it poses a threat. And if it does… destroy it, and themselves if they have to. Wildfire is wired to blow, and it will come down to one man’s choice.

There’s tech, science, made-up tech, and made-up science, but it all comes across as solidly crafted, and brilliantly told. And since it’s Robert Wise, you know you can be guaranteed some wonderful diopter shots.

The story moves briskly, intelligently, and features Crichton’s wonderful combination of the cold realism of science, and the warmth of humanity.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t recognize the main cast, which for me, just made the film all the more realistic. I wasn’t thinking about so-and-so in some movie I’d seen them in, I was just watching them in this. And everyone does solid work, and I love how Wise tells his story.

And sure, it’s all a work of fiction, no matter how both the novel and film tried to position themselves, but it’s also not that far outside the realm of possibility. I really enjoyed this one, and it stands up wonderfully. Over 50 years old, and it still feels smart and relevant.

It just feels smart, and its enjoyable, and shows that Crichton films, when done right, can be amazing, and become classics. It also makes me wish they’d adapt some of his other works (maybe even his early stuff under his pseudonym), and perhaps redo some of the ones that didnt’ come out so well (Congo, Timeline).

This is a great film, and should definitely be on every cinephile’s checklist. Just for the way Wise frames things alone, and of course, those amazing split diopter shots.