The film

 "The Andromeda Strain", 1971

ANDROMEDA STRAIN  begins with a brief scrolling prologue, informing us that what we are about to see is a "true story," of a recent event in U.S. history, one which was never made public. The narrative unfolds over four days, "documenting" the course of a viral threat apparently from outer space. The story is divided into three neat acts: arrival, research, and race for the cure. Date and time are periodically flashed on-screen, adding to the film's documentary feel.

Act I
A U.S. space satellite crashes in a desert town, and the officials sent to retrieve it discover that the town's inhabitants have been killed, simultaneously with the satellite's fall. These unfortunate officials die as they radio this alarming find, and the U.S. military personnel involved soon issue a red alert. The satellite was part of Wildfire, a classified government space-exploration project. Four scientists, previously assembled to analyze the satellite's data, are immediately summoned to Wildfire's top-secret desert headquarters.

Act II

Upon the arrival of Drs. Jeremy Stone, Charles Dutton, Mark Hall, and Ruth Leavitt, ANDROMEDA STRAIN embarks on the film's lengthy middle section. It is part exposition, part showcase for the set by Boris Leven and William H. Tuntke, as the team of four are introduced to the Wildfire facilities: five ring-shaped levels that descend into the ground. As one progresses further down, security measures tighten.
We follow the scientists through their isolated debriefings and skin/clothing cleanings, in the course of which their characters are (somewhat) developed, as individuals and as a group. There is Dr. Stone (Arthur Hill), the family man; Dr. Dutton (David Wayne), a venerable, if conservative, veteran; Dr. Leavitt (Kate Reid) is sharp as a tack with a pack a day cigarette habit; and Dr. Hall (James Olson), a good looking young guy and something of a live wire.
The intimate physical examinations to which all four are subjected include repeated MRI-like body scans; automatic showers and powderings; question and answer sessions with a frustratingly cool computer-generated female voice over the PA system. The disembodied presence of a higher power, the Wizard of Oz, is more than slightly menacing, especially as Leavitt and Hall test the limits of their controlled environment. As they soon find out, you cannot "sneak" a cigarette past level one, nor can you avoid answering any prying questions.
The film (and Michael Crichton, in his later works) goes on to explore this theme more fully: science's claim to objectivity, belied by its actual manipulations, often with grave, or fatal, human consequences.
At last (the descent into purity lasts approximately 45 minutes), Wise steers the film back to the task at hand: to isolate and identify whatever viruses the satellite brought back. There were two survivors at the crash down site: an old alcoholic man, whose preferred drink is Sterno, and a months-old baby, crying his eyes out. So the doctors have two living subjects, as well as the satellite fragments to study.
Because no one knows how the virus is transmitted, much less an antidote, Wildfire is not only quarantined, but equipped with a nuclear bomb to detonate on premises and thus destroy the virus, if something should go horribly wrong. At each level of the lab, are locking devices to initiate the self-destruction. Only one person may have the key to abort the explosion, and Dr. Hall is chosen; in part, Dr. Dutton explains, because he is a single man. The microscopic research that ensues is another good opportunity for gizmo display (courtesy of Special Effects team, James Shourt and Douglas Trumbull, and set decorator Ruby R. Levitt). The total coverage, telescoping white lab suits and bubble head gear (by Costume Designer Helen Colvig), perhaps inspired by actual scientific garb, was no doubt an inspiration for the laboratory scenes in OUTBREAK and E.T.
For ANDROMEDA STRAIN, an unusually subtle suspense/disaster film, costuming like this is crucial to the story-telling, emphasizing the constant and imminent danger the Wildfire team is in. Petri dish samples are divided and magnified up to 100,000 times, until a microorganism is finally found. Looking like bread mold, clinging to a crevice of the satellite, is the virus: pulsing like a heartbeat and self-reproducing. Wildfire names it: The Andromeda Strain.

Act III

The Andromeda Strain kills its animal victims (humans and lab testees alike) by turning their blood to powder within seconds of contact. Farfetched, perhaps, but sufficiently horrifying that if Wildfire cannot produce a fail-safe cure or quarantine -- for an air-borne virus, not likely -- those nuclear bombs may detonate.
The film now focuses on the alcoholic and the baby; what shared conditions have rendered them both immune to the Strain? The scientists' eventual discovery plays out like a Holmes mystery, the conclusion is so simple it was not even considered. I won't reveal it here. And after Drs. Stone, Dutton, Hall, and Leavitt solve their mystery, they have an even more serious obstacle to overcome.
Although Wildfire is presented as rivaling NASA's space program in size and cost and pains-taking care, it (like all real-life government operations) is not totally fool-proof. The nuclear detonator is automatically activated, due to a false contamination signal, and will go off in five minutes.
These five minutes, filmed in real time (taking an actual five minutes to watch), bring THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN to a pulsing conclusion. Dr. Hall's race to override the detonation system is a truly suspenseful, nightmarish sequence. Chemical gases are emitted into the Wildfire atmosphere, to tranquilize the unfortunate prisoners, each level is sequentially sealed off, as crucial seconds tick away. The chaos and emotion mount exponentially, in the face of so much preceding order and methodical behavior.

THE CAST

As an ensemble, ANDROMEDA STRAIN's central foursome works very well. Arthur Hill, leads the team as Dr. Jeremy Stone. His last film (the forgettable A FINE MESS) was in 1986, but today's audiences will probably recognize his face. Hill acted steadily on film and television for the better part of four decades, most memorably in SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983), MAKING LOVE (1982), THE CHAMP (1979), A LITTLE ROMANCE (1979), and 1971's THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN.
David Wayne plays Dr. Charles Dutton, the oldest member of the group. Dutton is a grandfather type, benevolent yet conservative. He is the link between Wildfire's scientists and the military, a connection that gets him into hot water when it is discovered that Wildfire's satellite may have had other purposes than pure inquiry. The military end of the mission was to seek out new methods of biological warfare, although Dutton was ignorant of that fact.
His own sense of betrayal by the government he has served is amplified by the anger and indignation of his Wildfire peers. Wayne, who passed away in 1995, co-starred in several major films, from ADAM'S RIB (1949), HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953), THE THREE FACES OF EVE (1957), and Billy Wilder's 1974 re-make of THE FRONT PAGE.
James Olson, as Dr. Mark Hall, gives a fine performance. Unlike the Tom Cruise-type "young guns" that so inundate today's science fiction/action-adventure films, Dr. Hall is characterized more by his intelligence than bravado. He is very much a team player, and not without a certain, endearing awkwardness around his more experienced comrades.
Subtlety notwithstanding, Dr. Hall does get to flirt with the pretty medical assistant, Karen Anson (played by Paula Kelly), and wisecrack with the disembodied voices that order everyone around. Olson worked primarily on television during the 1970's and 80's, but starred in the film RAGTIME (1981).
Kate Reid completes the team. A high-ranking female scientist, in 1971, was uncommon enough among NASA's ranks, to say nothing of the movies. Dr. Ruth Leavitt is neither a bombshell nor incompetent. It is the type of role Kathy Bates might get today (and very much like Bates's detective in the 1996 remake of DIABOLIQUE).
Reid's very strong performance, and Leavitt's well-drawn character, is marred only by a curious lack of development regarding Leavitt's slight disability, which works its way into ANDROMEDA's plot, to no apparent end. It is as if a scene or two had been cut, or perhaps never written, and we are left with an incomplete portrait of an otherwise sympathetic and enjoyable personage. Reid died relatively young, at age 63 in 1993. Her career highlights really began with ANDROMEDA STRAIN, after which she starred in EQUUS, with Richard Burton (1977), Louis Malle's ATLANTIC CITY (1980), and the televised film of DEATH OF A SALESMAN, as Linda Loman to Dustin Hoffman's Willy Loman and John Malkovich's Biff (1985).

(from  http://sqn.com/andromst.html)

By Varga Benedek és Gere István