Review for Capricorn One

Introduction

I’ve recently been working my way through the X Files, probably the first name that springs to mind when it comes to government conspiracies in entertainment. It’s hard to remember now that the X Files was late to the party, that in many ways it really just re-invigorated and re-invented what was then just a moribund genre. The real passion for government conspiracies began twenty years earlier, with the real life conspiracy that was Watergate. The hopeful and optimistic and forward looking United States of the 1950s and 60s had to undergo a protracted period of re-evaluation and consideration when it turned out that the actual President of those very same United States, was a liar, and in all likelihood, so was the administration. The confidence and positivity that culminated with the Apollo moon-landings, when it was believed that the US could do no wrong, was shattered by Watergate, by Vietnam, and by those little cracks that started to appear in the facade of a perfect America. It wasn’t long before mistrust was the natural state of affairs between the citizenry and their elected leaders, and everything was brought into question, not least those very same moon landings that were so celebrated a few years previously.


Of all the hoaxes that the US government has been accused of, the moon landings have to be the most pervasive. Some people still believe without a doubt that man has never walked on the moon, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It’s a belief that grew out of the Watergate years, but in my mind, I don’t think the conspiracy theorists would have remained half as vocal, the theories half as long lived, were it not for this film, Capricorn One, which with great effectiveness showed just how and why such a hoax might be perpetrated. And it’s not even about a mission to the moon.

Capricorn One is man’s first mission to Mars. Charles Brubaker, Peter Willis and John Walker will be humanity’s first representatives to the red planet, and the intrepid astronauts have trained diligently for the moment that they will be launched on their four month voyage. Only at the last minute, they’re pulled out of the capsule, and whisked away quietly and discreetly in a private jet, the Capricorn One now on its way to Mars as an unmanned mission. Dr James Kelloway, head of the mission eventually explains. NASA has a financial imperative to live up to when it comes to funding, and that means cutting corners and going to the cheapest bidder. Only they cut one corner too many with the ship’s life support system, and got something that didn’t work. But they can’t let this mission be seen to fail, they’re funding relies too much on a success that would potentially win the President another election. So Kelloway plans to fake out the world with the aid of a television studio and a couple of props, and he’ll do whatever it takes to enlist the astronauts’ co-operation. It will just be a simple matter of arranging a little course deviation in the unmanned capsule’s return, enough to get the astronauts inside before they can be picked up, and the world will be none the wiser. Except that at the last minute, after all the deception and the elaborate staging, the capsule burns up on re-entry. Now NASA has three astronauts that it doesn’t need anymore, and who would seriously compromise national security if they’re ever seen again.

Picture

I got a little excited when I read the blurb, promising a ‘brand-new High Definition transfer from original film elements’. Capricorn One previously had a barebones Blu-ray release from ITVDVD, which had something a mixed reception, although I haven’t seen it to compare. This time out Capricorn One gets extra features and that brand-new transfer. It’s presented in 2.35:1 widescreen format at 1080p resolution on a single layer Blu-ray. And it’s not that great. My heart sank a little at the waves of digital banding in the opening scene, as the sun rose behind a rocket on a launch gantry, but that was hardly as disappointing as the frame of excessive pixellation, a horrendous glitch at the 2:09 mark. Fortunately, that was the only glitch that I saw in the movie. I’ve since enquired with Network, and they couldn’t repeat the glitch. It seems to be a flaw confined only to my check disc, or rather "a small number of the initial shipment". See the comments for more information on this...

The positives are that Capricorn One looks pretty fair in high definition. There’s a decent amount of detail, especially in brighter scenes, and colours come across well. But the print hasn’t seen much in the way of restoration. There are still flecks of dirt, the odd moment of damage, and grain really does overpower the darker scenes, washing out detail and making the print look faded. Overall the film has a softness to it and a degree of flicker, but the worst thing is a constant lack of stability. It isn’t just cinewobble, but a refusal to keep the frame centred, it’s always infinitesimally shifting from side to side, up and down. It probably does look better than the DVD, but you still want a Blu-ray to look better than this.

Sound

The film is presented in PCM stereo, encoded at 1.5Mb per second. You also get optional English subtitles. It’s not the most impressive of audio experiences. The dialogue and film audio is pretty low in volume for the most part (it shoots way up for the final dogfight sequence, and you’ll have to pounce on your remote before the neighbours complain), and it has borne the test of time in similar condition to the print. The audio is just a little muddy, dialogue can be distorted at times, although given the nature of the sets and the costumes, spacesuits and fake Mars soundstages, how much of that is by design I do not know. On top of that, the ADR in some scenes is lacklustre. But generally it was a sound design experience that failed to thrill me with its lack of dynamism, and I felt when it came to the sound, as if I was still watching the film the way that I first saw it, on a mono wooden cased CRT set.

Extras

This disc boots straight to the main menu screen.

The extras on this disc comprise the 3 minute theatrical trailer, presented in 1080p.

What If...? The Making of “Capricorn One” lasts 7 minutes and is presented in 576i. It’s a featurette created at the time of filming, with interviews with the cast and director, and a little bit of behind the scenes footage.

There’s more of this in the On Set With Capricorn One featurettes. You get 38 minutes of b-roll footage in the Desert Filming option, and 4 minutes of b-roll footage in the Studio Filming option. Again these are in 576i.

Finally there is a short slideshow gallery of promotional art, set photos and stills.

Conclusion

If you’re wondering how Capricorn One got released as part of Network’s British Film Collection; that would be down to Lew Grade’s money, and the fact that it’s an ITC production. Other than that, it feels, with its predominantly US cast and crew to be a wholly Hollywood affair. I hadn’t seen Capricorn One in quite a few years, but in my memories it was an effective thriller, and a chilling example of how our governments choose to deceive us for their own purposes. That was no doubt compounded by my X Files mania which back then would have been in full fervour. Watching it now, all these years later, I find that Capricorn One still manages to thrill and entertain. But it doesn’t bear up under scrutiny all that well.

The thing about conspiracies is that they need to be small to work. The fewer people involved, the less the chance of the truth getting out, the less the chance of one person slipping, or changing his mind. The conspiracy in Capricorn One starts off as a fanciful, if far-fetched creation, but rapidly exceeds the bounds of credibility when a NASA engineer discovers something is up with the transmissions from the spaceship, and is disappeared. His friend, the reporter Robert Caulfield naturally goes looking for him, but he apparently never lived at his apartment, and he never worked at NASA, so all his NASA colleagues are in on the conspiracy, all his neighbours where he lived are in on the conspiracy. There are far too many moments in Capricorn One which elicit a derisive ‘Yeah, right!’ and shatter the suspension of disbelief. Ironically it’s probably because I’m more cynical and less trusting now, than when I first watched the film and was more immune to its conceptual flaws.


But there is an intelligence and political awareness that masks these flaws, especially early on in the film. The Capricorn One launch is set against a US that’s rapidly falling out of love with the space race, something that was already apparent by the time Apollo 13 launched on its abortive moon mission. Followers of the space programmes have no doubt heard the arguments before, that the millions of people on Earth are more important than launching a handful into space, with little material gain to show for it. The President chooses not to attend the launch, sends the Vice President instead. Congress continues to squeeze budgets, NASA begins to cut corners and source components from the lowest bidders in the aerospace industry to tragic effect; fiction when this film was made, tragic reality just nine years later. The speeches that Dr Kelloway makes, played to chilling perfection by Hal Holbrook, the plaintive complaints of a dreamer who has his dreams cut off at the knees by those who choose not to look at the stars, are speeches that have been made before by NASA representatives, and proponents of the manned exploration of space. There is a genuine reality at the heart of the situation and it is really just a small step that Kelloway takes, with all the right intentions, to keep his, and the dreams of thousands alive.

And in true Watergate fashion, it’s all uncovered by an intrepid reporter, Robert Caulfield, played with charm and wit by Elliot Gould. It may be something of a cliché that he’s the chancer, the renegade, the guy who’d rather not do the hard work, and instead is always looking for the big scoop. It’s another, small disappointment that he pretty much gets this story handed to him on a plate. In my faded memories of the film, he did a whole lot more work trying to uncover the secret, but here it’s a simple matter of A to B to C, with inept government stooges failing to kill him that keep him motivated and on the scent of the story. His sarcastic editor is another weak point of reality in the film, but by this point, you’ll probably be holding on for the ride instead of picking nits at the plot. And then Telly Savalas shows up for the film’s denouement and steals the movie!


Capricorn One has an intelligent premise that has its intelligence slowly drained as the sheer implausibility of the execution overwhelms. But the thriller still keeps you on the edge of your seat, and the film has some great action set pieces, not least of which is the awesome dogfight at the end between a crop-duster and two helicopter gunships. They don’t do aerial stunts like that anymore! I find that Capricorn One doesn’t appeal to me as it once did, but it’s still watchable enough. This Blu-ray too is just about watchable enough, but most cinephiles will still be disappointed by how it looks and sounds.