Capricorn One: Peter Hyams' Conspiracy Thriller

Moments before the launch of a manned mission to Mars, Capricorn One's three astronauts are secretly pulled from the rocket. Hidden from view, they are whisked away to a remote desert facility. As the empty rocket blasts off, the project director explains to the bewildered astronauts that he learned of a critical fault in their life support systems three weeks earlier.

The Capricorn One studio set.

With Congress already concerned about the Mars program's $24 billion price tag, certain individuals feared that a rocket launch cancellation could mean the end of federal funding. They made the decision to fake the mission. A recording of an earlier simulation would give the illusion that the astronauts were still on-board the rocket. However, it would be necessary for the three men to "act out" certain scenes, such as the Mars landing. That would be accomplished in a TV studio complete  with a Mars set and a replica of the landing module.

James Brolin's astronaut learns the truth.

When the astronauts refuse to go along with the massive deception, the project director expresses concern about the safety of their families: "There are people out there--forces out there--with a lot to lose." In other words, the three astronauts do not have a choice.

Made in 1977, Capricorn One is an entertaining thriller inspired by moon landing conspiracy theories. Writer-director Peter Hyams' central premise is that most people believe real-life events viewed through the lens of the news media. Therefore, if you could manipulate that media, then you could deceive the world. Hyams provides just enough detail to make his story work, such as the ingenious plan to send the space capsule off-course as it lands back on earth--thereby providing enough time to insert the astronauts into the capsule before the recovery team's arrival.

Elliott Gould trying to control his car.

Hyams propels the plot by cutting back-and-forth between the astronauts and a news reporter (Elliott Gould) who learns that something isn't right about the Mars mission. The latter storyline implies that the shadowy people behind the deception have limitless power and will stop at nothing--even murder. That leads to the film's two best scenes:  a nerve-racking sequence in which Gould can't stop his car as it speeds through crowded metropolitan streets and an aerial chase between a crop-dusting biplane and two military helicopters. (Parts of the car scene were later recycled in the TV series The Fall Guy.)

Capricorn One is what Hollywood moguls now call a high-concept film. As such, it doesn't require big stars and so the cast features actors like Gould (who worked with Hyams earlier in the comedy Busting), Hal Holbrook (the project leader), James Brolin (who heads the astronauts' team), Brenda Vaccaro (Brolin's wife), and O.J. Simpson (another astronaut). With the exception of Simpson, they all do solid work, which is all the script requires. It's worth noting that the cast includes both of Barbra Streisand's husbands: She was married to Gould from 1963-71 and has been married to Brolin since 1998.

The real star of Capricorn One is writer-director Hyams, who takes an outrageous premise and makes you believe--if only for a moment--that it could happen. Incidentally, in regard to the cast, Hyams said in a 2014 interview in Empire: "O.J. Simpson was in it, and Robert Blake was in Busting. I’ve said many times: some people have AFI Lifetime Achievement awards; some people have multiple Oscars; my bit of trivia is that I’ve made films with two leading men who were subsequently tried for the first degree murder of their wives."

Who Is Nina Van Pallandt?

In the Ellery Queen episode "The
Adventure of Colonel Nivin's Memoirs."

Recently, we were watching an episode of Jim Hutton's TV series Ellery Queen (1975-76) and one of the guest stars was Nina Van Pallandt. I remembered her instantly, but wondered how many people were familiar with the occasional actress's intriguing life story.

Born Nina Moller in Denmark in 1932, she first gained fame as half of Nina & Frederik, a singing duo. The two specialized in folk and calypso songs, though their first big hit was the Christmas carol "Little Donkey." It reached #3 on the United Kingdom record charts in 1960 and their debut album, Nina & Frederik, hit #9 in the UK. While the duo was popular in Europe, they failed to find an audience in the U.S.

Frederik van Pallandt was a baron, so when the couple wed in 1960, Nina became Baroness van Pallandt (she later capitalized the "V"). Nina and Frederik had three children, but separated in 1969 and eventually divorced in 1975. In the meantime, Nina became romantically involved with author Clifford Irving.

Irving had gained some fame with a 1969 book called Fake!, which was appropriately subtitled The Story of Elmyr De Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time. That may have given him the idea for one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century. In the early 1970s, Irving convinced his publisher McGraw-Hill that he was working with Howard Hughes on an autobiography. Irving had forged documents which backed up his claim--and which were confirmed as genuine by handwriting experts. The hoax eventually unraveled and Irving and his accomplices, to include his wife Edith, confessed and were sentenced to prison. (Interestingly, both Irving and De Hory appeared in Orson Welles' pseudo-documentary, and final film, 1973's F for Fake.)

Nina Van Pallandt was not involved with the hoax, but her connection with Irving thrust her into the public spotlight. A 1972 article in LIFE magazine called her the "radiant survivor of the Hughes hoax." It also noted: "When the Hughes storm broke, she blushed becomingly and agreed with her manager who called it the 'opportunity of a lifetime.'" She wrote a 1973 autobiography, starred in her own nightclub act, and revived her acting career (she had appeared previously in a handful of Danish films and on British television).

With Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye.

Her most substantial role was as the female lead in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973). She played Sterling Hayden's trophy wife, with Elliott Gould on hand as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. She followed it with TV guest star roles, to include Ellery Queen.  Her later film appearances included Quintet (1979), another Altman film that starred Paul Newman and Bibi Andersson, and American Gigilo (1980), with Richard Gere. She retired from films in the late 1980s.

It's worth noting that in 2006, Gere played Clifford Irving in The Hoax, a film adaptation of Irving's book about his Hughes scam. Julie Delpy played Nina Van Pallandt in the film.

Nina Van Pallandt, who turned 82 last year, keeps a low profile these days. In researching this article, I was surprised to learn that comedian Richard Lewis had a four-year relationship with her. In his 2000 autobiography The Other Great Depression, he calls her "the most stunning, sensual, earthy-looking woman I had ever seen."

Sadly, life didn't turn out well for Frederik van Pallandt. He and his second wife were murdered in the Philippines in 1994. According to some sources, he had become involved with an Australian crime syndicate.