1984 SF comedy, dir. Stewart Raffill, Robert Urich, Mary Crosby:
IMDb. When water is the most
precious substance in the universe, of course there will be those who
steal it.
This is a film I found more or less by accident, I think perhaps
shown on TV in the days when I was recording films on videotape. And
it's basically just what I want out of a space adventure film.
This originated as a more serious script by Stanford Sherman (writer
of Krull) called The Water Planet; MGM had bought it, but were
having financial problems, so asked Raffill it he could make it on the
cheap. He agreed, if he could rewrite it to be more comic. And, in an
era when most SF filmmakers were ripping off either Star Wars or
Alien depending on tone, he had the sense to rip off classic pirate
films instead.
Robert Urich mostly had a TV career, but appeared in three significant
films; his biggest role was probably as one of the dodgy cops in Magnum
Force (1973). Mary Crosby also mostly worked on TV; this is probably
her most prominent film role, and frankly I think both of them should
have gone on to bigger things. Michael D. Roberts, who made a career
out of bit parts in film and TV, similarly deserves much better.
I get the feeling that Anjelica Huston doesn't include this film on
her CV these days. This was the year before her breakout role in
Prizzi's Honor. And Ron Perlman as Zeno, in his second film after
Quest for Fire, is basically big. And John Carradine as the Supreme
Commander plays his one scene from a bed, and pretty much was that
ill.
It's silly, but keeps moving. It's sometimes sophomoric, but the
characters take it seriously, and that makes it work. If the
futuristic city long-shots remind you of Logan's Run (1976), that's
because that's where they came from.
This film has low ambitions, but it achieves them with gusto.
I talk about this film further on
Ribbon of Memes.