Marooned first went into production in 1965 with Frank Capra directing from a screenplay by Walter Newman. They couldn’t get the budget they needed to make the movie, which by the time John Sturges directed this in 1969 ended up being $8 million.

You know how everyone talks about the moon launch being faked? This is the opposite of that, as the people making this wanted it to look as realistic as what they saw on TV every night. NASA, North American Aviation and Philco-Ford created the film’s hardware, which included what would become Skylab, the headsets that would later be worn by the launch crews, the Mission Operations Control Room at Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Air Force Launch Control Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Commander Jim Pruett (Richard Crenna), “Buzz” Lloyd (Gene Hackman) and Clayton “Stoney” Stone (James Franciscus) are the first crew of an experimental space station. Five months into their mission, Lloyd starts to act strangely and they decide to go back to Earth. The problem? They don’t have enough fuel, leaving them, well, marooned.

NASA Director of Manned Spaceflight Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) and Chief Astronaut Ted Dougherty (David Janssen) argue over whether or not the men can be saved. The President — only heard and not seen, it’s John Forsythe — says that the American people need to see these men saved, so a rescue mission is on while the astronaut’s wives — Lee Grant, Mariette Hartley and Nancy Kovack — watch as their men slowly die in space.

As a kid, this always upset me with the scene of Richard Crenna drifting into space to his doom. The nice thing is that Russia ends up working with the U.S. to save the men.

Based on a novel by Martin Caidin — who also wrote Cyborg, the book that was adapted by The Six Million Dollar Man — this won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. But what’s really interesting about this movie to me is that it somehow — despite its Columbia Pictures A-list status in 1969 — it would one day be owned by Film Ventures International and renamed Space Travelers. That’s why this movie — one with three Academy Award winners in Gregory Peck, Gene Hackman and Lee Grant — would end up on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

I love that FVI put all the care of a basic font over a space image to replace the Marooned title in the credits.

This movie was also a major flop when it played in theaters but at least there was a Super 8 home version so you could watch astronauts run out of air in the comfort of home!

You can watch this on Tubi.