Outland **** (1981, Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen, James B Sikking, Kika Markham) – Classic Movie Review 5,279

Sean Connery stars as a space station marshal, with Frances Sternhagen as the acerbic and tough-as-nails Dr Marian Lazarus, in Peter Hyams’s neatly written, imaginatively realised 1981 British sci-fi movie Outland.

Writer-director Peter Hyams’s 1981 British sci-fi movie Outland stars Sean Connery as Marshall William T O’Niel, a space station marshal who uncovers a drug-smuggling conspiracy and awaits at a remote mining colony on Jupiter’s moon for the arrival of the hired killers from Earth out to murder him.

Connery makes a charismatic action hero in this neatly written, imaginatively realised sci-fi pseudo-Western.

Exceptionally fine star character actors Peter Boyle and Frances Sternhagen are also very good value as, respectively, Connery’s foe Mark Sheppard and his only friend, the acerbic and tough-as-nails Dr Marian Lazarus, with James B Sikking notable too as Sgt Montone.

This taut and tense picture, effectively written and directed by the talented Hyams, has deliberate echoes of other movies, but it adds up to a fine piece of work in its own right, constantly anchored by Connery.

Philip Harrison’s excellent production designs give the movie a smooth, satisfying glossy exterior, with a slew of imaginative metallic sets and space gadgets, while Hyams’s and Stephen Goldblatt’s photography is seductively moody. It was made at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, England.

Sternhagen’s performance as Dr Lazarus won her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress,

It co-stars Kika Markham, Clarke Peters, Steven Berkoff, Nicholas Barnes, Manning Redwood and John Ratzenberger.

Sternhagen died at her New Rochelle, New York, home on November 27, 2023, at the age of 93.

Frances Sternhagen (January 13, 1930 – November 27, 2023) won two Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award and a Saturn Award in her extraordinary career that ran for more than six decades.

Sternhagen made her film debut in Up the Down Staircase (1967). She had character roles in Paddy Chayefsky’s The Hospital (1971), Two People (1973) and Billy Wilder’s Fedora (1978). She appeared in Starting Over (1979), opposite Sean Connery in Outland (1981), and in Michael J Fox’s films Bright Lights, Big City (1988) and Doc Hollywood (1991). She was also notable as Deputy Virginia in Rob Reiner’s 1990 Misery and as Dr Lynn Waldheim in Brian De Palma’s 1992 Raising Cain. Her final screen credit was Rob Reiner’s 2014 romantic comedy And So It Goes starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,279

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com