The Black Hole

For 79 it was an ok movie. The idea was alright but the acting to me could have been better. The problem with some of the tv and movies from the 70’s was they thought the future would be filled with giant control buttons flashing every imaginable color all while making loud noises and beeps. That was ok for Star Trek but that’s it. They should have made the ship and controls more realistic like Battlestar Galactica and others did.

The premise was good. Mad scientist planning to take his ship into the black hole but what happens when he did? The ship started breaking up, holes everywhere, meteors crashing into it all the while the people were still breathing!!

The Plot : An Earth exploratory ship, the USS Palomino, discovers a black hole with a lost ship, the USS Cygnus, just outside its event horizon. Deciding to solve the mystery of the Cygnus are: the Palomino’s Captain, Dan Holland; his First Officer, Lieutenant Charlie Pizer; journalist Harry Booth; scientist and ESP-sensitive Dr. Kate McCrae, whose father was the Cygnus’s First Officer; Dr. Alex Durant, the expedition’s civilian leader; and the robot known as V.I.N.CENT. The Palomino attempts a dangerous fly-by of the darkened ship. As they come within close range of it, the buffeting they experience (due to the black hole’s gravity) suddenly ceases. They bring more instruments to bear on the derelict, but do not even realize the gravity-free zone is artificial; slipping outside it, they are almost drawn into the black hole, an abyss from which no one can escape. Matters worsen when Reinhardt holds the crew captive, after realizing that they can help him reach his goal.

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Cast;

Maximilian Schell as Dr. Hans Reinhardt
Anthony Perkins as Dr. Alex Durant
Robert Forster as Captain Dan Holland
Joseph Bottoms as Lieutenant Charlie Pizer
Yvette Mimieux as Dr. Kate McCrae
Ernest Borgnine as Harry Boot
Tom McLoughlin as Captain S.T.A.R. (Special Troops Arms Regiment).
Roddy McDowall as the voice of V.I.N.CENT (uncredited)
Slim Pickens as the voice of Old B.O.B. (uncredited)

Fan Sites:

The Black Hole 1979, a facebook page dedicated to the film. It doesn’t post too often but it does have around 410 like which for this film I guess is pretty good. Good page for looking back on the film.