A science-fiction double-bill, starting with The Andromeda Strain. A thriller based on a novel by Michael Crichton. The first such thriller, I think. It was made in 1970 in CinemaScope. This was the era of great experimentation in American film styles and The Andromeda Strain reflects this overtly in its use of split-screen sequences, as per The Boston Strangler and The Thomas Crown Affair. Tonight you’ll see Andromeda Strain in its original CinemaScope form. The three Michael Crichton films that I’m familiar with are Westworld, Jurassic Park and this one. And they all seem to have the same basic theme. In each film man creates a hi-tech, electronic and mechanical paradise which invariably goes haywire and turns on its customers and creators. The Frankenstein story applied to theme parks and government installations. In The Andromeda Strain, an American satellite returns to Earth with a deadly organism from outer space. A life-form which kills almost all humans on contact. While the scientists urge nuclear destruction of the affected area and politicians weigh up the likely consequences of incinerating select portions of the USA, a team of ace biologists and surgeons struggle to isolate the alien bacteria and find a cure. What’s really interesting about this movie is its matter of factness. There are no movie stars, no love interest, no action until almost the very end; there’s no music for the first hour of the film; the dialogue is often mundane and trivial, like the dialogue in that science-fiction masterpiece, 2001. Which is just as it should be, since the events in question: encounters with alien life, the possible annihilation of the human species, are so momentous. Ratchet it up just a notch, these could be Kubrick scientists with their animal experiments, their top secret government assignments and their obsessive cleanliness. Perhaps not surprisingly, Special Photographic Effects are by Douglas Trumbull who did the special effects on 2001 and later d