Not a great film but very much worth it for Altman fans. In many ways it's a conventional cold war drama, but it has some wicked resonances if you see the Robert Duvall astronaut character as what he was surely meant to be: an over the top version of John Glenn: a boy scout rah rah guy who can't stand the much hipper, laid back James Caan, who is a stand-in for the real astronaut Al Shepard. (Wolfe's The Right Stuff, if I recall, has useful material on the mutual distrust between Glenn and Shepard.) Altman tries a few tricks for which he is later famous. The primary one is overlapping dialogue. Altman hated the formal style of traditional films in which everyone speaks in complete sentences and never overlaps. You can see the overlapping here, though not to the degree that comes through in later films like M*A*S*H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Still, the innovation was enough to infuriate the studio execs when they began viewing the rough cut. Hey! We can't understand half of what the actors are saying! So they fired Altman about nine-tenths of the way through shooting. Watch closely and toward the end of the picture, you'll see a change in style as the replacement director takes over. It's much more stilted (especially in the press conference). And I recall (though can't be sure at this remove, I haven't seen or read about the picture in decades) that the original ending was a tragedy, which was changed to a happy one instead.The most effective aspect of Altman's interest in sound design was what he did when Caan loses contact with ground control as he approaches the moon. Altman heightens anxiety (Caan is already worried that Duvall is endangering his life) when the radio contact picks up static and it gets hard to hear. Caan begins to feel all alone out there, millions of miles from earth. And so do we, instinctively...we want to hear what Mission Control is saying, and their words keep breaking up. Very clever: using +bad+ sound to make viewers unconsciously uneasy. It's a great way to accomplish your goal on a lower budget project.

Released two months before '2001: A Space Odyssey', and on a soap opera scale compared to that, 'Countdown' comes from a time when movies didn't have to have huge budgets, big stars or auteur directors to get national distribution: I saw it as a second feature (remember them? - to 'Ice Station Zebra', I think, a far worse movie) in one of the now defunct three small cinemas in my home town. It's pretty formulaic, with a 'time clock' plot, a little bit of character play, a fair bit of topicality, and for its time and budget, a reasonable stab at gritty space realism, compared to the stagey, squeaky 'Star Trek' universe that had boldly gone on TV only two years before, and Kubrick's tour de force that was to follow shortly. Interesting as a snapshot of cinema history, with a director and lead actor (and Robert Duvall) who went on to join the A-list, which nobody knew about then. They don't make 'em like this any more; or if they do, they go straight to DVD.

This movie was released in 1968. By then, NASA had concrete plans on how they would put a man on the moon and bring them back safely to Earth. The screenplay of this movie completely ignored known facts at that time.1. Instead of using the Apollo space capsule to send the three men to the moon, the movie used a Gemini capsule. 2. The Gemini capsule was actually designed to carry 2 men. However, in this movie, only used one astronaut. I guess to save money, the director decided to only use 1 actor to sit in this Gemini capsule to go to the moon. 3. The Soviets beat the Americans to the moon; however, see how the first Soviet is found dead. Did he know he was going to die which is why he opened his visor to quicken the outcome?Two real great actors were used in this movie, James Caan and Robert Duval. However these two actors were so young during the filming of this movie they were actually unrecognizable. But, this would not explain why only 1 astronaut was used to go. These 2 actors were so new to Hollywood that they could not possibly command a high salary. I could write more but you probably will never see this movie.Chow...

**SPOILERS** Made on a shoe-string budget "Countdown" is by far the movie with the best depiction of a flight to the Lunar surface then any of the previous "Flight to the Moon" films going as far back as the early 1900's. The movie went from science fiction to science fact in just under two years after it's release in early 1968 with the historic three manned Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 1969.Trying to become the first nation to put a man on the Moon the US has NASA set a mission to the Lunar surface to beat the USSR. It's supposed to be done with the astronaut sated for that historic mission to be a civilian. Air Force fighter pilot Chiz Stewart, Robert Duvall,who was hoping to be chosen for the Moon Mission is terribly upset by being eliminated because of his military background. Stewart become very hostile towards his friend Lee Stegler, James Caan, a civilian worker for NASA for getting picked for the flight christened, or designated by NASA, Pilgrim One.Taking out his frustrations on Lee Chiz, who's in charge of training for the Moon Mission, does everything he can to have him wash out of the program. Not just because of sour grapes but because Chiz like Lee's wife Mckey, Joanna Cook Moore,feel that he's doesn't have the experience as an astronaut to handle this very dangerous assignment. On top of that Lee, being the egomaniac that he is, will end up getting himself killed on the mission because of his obsession the be the first man on the moon even if it kills him.Just days before Lee is to blast off there's news from the Soviet Union that the Russians sent a three man crew into obit and that it would land on the Moon before the USA planned Moon shot. That still doesn't have Pilgrim One suspended with those at NASA feeling that the news may very well be a rumor. To keep them form launching the Moon Mission, by the sneaky and conniving Soviets.Sent into space the next morning from Cape Kennedy in Florida Pilgrim One has major problems as it goes into the Moons trajectory because of a power loss during the take-off. With Chiz, at the controls at the NASA Space Center in Huston, walking Lee through the dangerous complexities of the space mission he makes it to within 200 miles from the surface of the Moon.On the Moon NASA had two weeks earlier landed and unmanned space shelter with a rotating red beacon that Lee is to first identify and then to land, as close as possible, next to it. At the shelter there's enough air water and food to last two months. It's then when NASA would send an Apollo manned space capsule to pick up Lee and bring him back safely home to earth.It turned out that Chiz and Mickey's worse fears were realized with Lee not wanting to have the mission aborted and sent back to earth, without being the first man on the Moon, taking his chances in landing Pilgrim One despite not really knowing if it was withing site of the NASA shelter. Which, with only two hours of air in his space suit, was almost curtain death for him. Walking through the unknown wilderness that's the Lunar surface Lee discovers that the USSR indeed landed a manned space mission on the Moon before the USA. Lee also finds out that the three man crew were killed as it crashed, instead of landed, on impact.With the air in his space suit almost exhausted Lee looking at his watch, which told him that he had only seven minutes of oxygen left, notices a bilking red flash reflecting off the glass back at him! Looking straight ahead Lee sees the NASA space shelter, which was Lee's only chance of surviving, with it's red rotating identification lamp guiding him straight to it.