Cinema: Star Muck

METEOR

Directed by Ronald Neame Screenplay by Stanley Mann and Edmund H. North

In this year's disaster-movie sweepstakes, the film to beat is The Concorde —Airport '79. That hilarious—some might say seminal—extravaganza boasted such passengers as Susan Blakely as an investigative reporter, Cicely Tyson as a heart-transplant courier and Andrea Marcovicci as a Soviet Olympic gymnast.

Charo, Martha Raye, Alain Delon, Mercedes McCambridge and Jimmy ("J.J.") Walker were also along for the ride. At one point the audience gets to witness a sex scene between George Kennedy and Bibi Andersson!

Next to Concorde, Meteor is a paltry piece of goods. The astrophysicists who must save the world from a comet attack include such garden-variety stars as Natalie Wood and Brian Keith (both with Russian accents) and Sean Connery (inexplicably cast as a NASA scientist). Karl Maiden stomps through the film in such a rage that you would think a hotel had refused to honor his traveler's checks. When the comet's "splinters" finally hit earth, wiping out a Swiss ski resort and a drive-in theater in Pisa, all Meteor can sum mon up is a few flashes of red light and some whoosh noises. Only at the end is there a convincing special effect: a tidal wave of sewage muck that engulfs the New York City subway system. When it comes to excrement, the makers of Meteor really know their stuff.

—F.R.