saturn 3

With science-fiction once again in vogue thanks to Star Wars and Alien, plenty of aging movie stars took their careers to space in hopes of staying relevant with increasingly “effects-centric” audiences: Sean Connery twice (Meteor and Outland), Roger Moore (Moonraker), Anthony Perkins (The Black Hole) and Kirk Douglas, who hedged his bets by co-starring with poster girl Farrah Fawcett in Saturn 3 (1980), a sort of “Frankenstein in space” story set at an isolated research facility orbiting the ringed planet.

Charged with growing food for an increasingly desperate Earth population, Alex and Adam (Fawcett and Douglass respectively) have created a private universe in their underground greenhouse. This Garden of Eden is interrupted by arrival of Benson (Harvey Keitel), a mysterious liaison who delivers a new type of advanced robot to assist with their harvest. But Benson is actually a mentally imbalanced imposter whose hormones take over when he sets eyes on Alex. Desperate to split up the happy couple, he programs his sentient robot, Hector, to do his bidding.

Director Stanley Donen (Singing in the Rain) isn’t the first name one would suggest to film down and dirty sci-fi movie. Point in fact; he took over from production designer John Barry who was replaced after a conflict with Douglas. Watching the crew gather for an early lift-off sequence backlit against a huge canvas, one almost expects a big musical number to break out at any moment. But, disappointingly, it doesn’t. And that’s about the extent of Donen’s visual contribution.

In every other respect, Saturn 3 is pretty half-assed. It’s obvious that Fawcett was cast solely to parade around in skimpy space outfits. Her acting here isn’t much better than her 5-minute cameo in Logan’s Run. And Douglas seems to be the mirror image of his character, desperately clinging to a macho image to the point of onscreen embarrassment. Only Harvey Keitel brings the appropriate menacing tone and modern-age acting chops…and then has every line of his dialogue dubbed by another actor to remove his Brooklyn accent.

If it sounds like Saturn 3 is a complete waste of time, it likely is for the average audience. But fans of Scream Factory titles are anything but average. Connoisseurs of flawed science fiction should find enough here, even amongst the woeful special effects, to joyfully compare and contrast the movie with other titles from the second golden age of sci-fi. Certainly the commentary track by Saturn 3 Fan Page host Greg Moss and film critic David Bradley points out enough trivia to keep one’s interest. Extra interviews, trailers and a host of deleted scenes reinserted for the original TV broadcast (plus an extra spicy costume change for Farrah) make this blu-ray/ DVD combo pack a truly collectible piece of space trash.