Vitals

Sean Connery as Dr. Paul Bradley, orbital satellite designer-turned-MIT professor

Houston, Texas, Washington, D.C., and New York City, December 1978

Film: Meteor
Release Date: October 19, 1979
Director: Ronald Neame
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

June 30th is National Meteor Watch Day and, while those of limited imagination may think this exclusively means looking up at the stars, some of us with a more cinematic mindset expand the meaning to include watching stars like Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, and Martin Landau in Ronald Neame’s poorly regarded 1979 sci-fi flick Meteor.

Released the same year that Moonraker sent the incumbent James Bond to space, the erstwhile 007 stars in Meteor as ex-NASA scientist Dr. Paul Bradley, hastily summoned back to Houston by his old colleague Harry Sherwood (Karl Malden) after a comet collided with the asteroid Orpheus, sending dozens of deadly asteroid fragments hurtling toward Earth—including a five-mile-wide meteor that itself threatens an extinction-level event within a week. Continue reading →