Uriah43 Harley Jane Kozak plays a young surgeon named "Karen Garrett" who is improving her skills by practicing on androids. Her boss, "Dr. Winston" (Ossie Davis) tells her that in order to become a better surgeon she needs to be able to improve her personal relationships with her patients. So, when she is given a difficult heart procedure to perform on a certain android named "William" (Griffin Dunne), she agrees to take him out of the laboratory to see the outside world. When she does things begin to get complicated. Anyway, rather than spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it I won't divulge the rest of the story. I would, however, like to go over some of the good and bad things in this film. First, I didn't care for Griffin Dunne's role as he was simply too juvenile in a number of scenes. Likewise, Saul Rubinek (as the android "Fiedler") looked completely ridiculous with his long hair constantly getting in the way. In many ways he reminded me of the musician, "Tiny Tim" who used to sing on the show "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In". Since I could never take Tiny Tim seriously it was very difficult to take Saul Rubinek's performance seriously either. But that's probably just me. Along those same lines, I thought Natalie Radford (as "Rachel Tyler") appeared to just be going through the motions and was totally dull and uninspired. That said, about the only good thing about this movie was the performance of Harley Jane Kozak who managed to breathe a little life into this rather lifeless film. Unfortunately, it just wasn't enough.

Woodyanders Fiesty and uptight surgeon Dr. Karen Garrett (a fine performance by Harley Jane Kozak) has to perform heart surgery on charming and jocular android William (an excellent and engaging portrayal by Griffin Dunne). William demands that he be taken out of the medical institute he's spent his whole life in. While in the outside world William and Karen go on the lam and wind up falling in love. Writer/director Richard Kletter mixes elements of the comedy, romance, and thriller genres into a pleasing and entertaining whole. Kozak and Dunne make for appealing leads; their nice natural chemistry makes the central romance both funny and touching in equal measure. Moreover, there are sturdy supporting contributions from Ossie Davis as stern, pragmatic, and demanding medical institute head Dr. Winston, Saul Rubinek as flaky robotics expert Fiedler, Peter Outerbridge as affable renegade android Tomas Benti, Natalie Radford as scrappy punkette Rachel Taylor, Chandra Galasso as tough tracker Alexx, and David Campbell as Alexx's lunkheaded partner Gunther. The story has a few neat twists and turns as well as a certain warm and pleasant quality to it. In addition, we even get a provocative main message about how all living beings yearn to be free and in charge of their own lives. Both Bernard Salzmann's slick cinematography and Simon Boswell's varied score are up to speed. A sweet little flick.

Pepper Anne Based on Issac Assimov's science fiction tale, The Android Affair is the story of a state-of-the-art medical teaching facility where surgeons learn to perfect their craft by practicing on androids. One surgeon is assigned to an android (Griffin Dunne) with a heart problem. But the android, more interested in the world beyond the testing facility, convinces the surgeon to help him escape so that, at least for a day, he can see the world outside.So it kind of starts out like the typical story of the Android who wants to explore human feelings and emotions, and exhibits at least some capability of doing so. But the remainder of the movie is a fairly ridiculous cat-and-mouse thriller where the head of the medical school (Ossie Davis)sends his goons to track down the surgeon and android when he learns of their escape. As the surgeon will soon learn, the android is much more than just a life-like robot with a heart problem. The second half of the movie, where the bulk of the action occurs, becomes fairly ridiculous mostly because the action feels pretty unbelievable and the dialog gets fairly sappy. But for a cheap, c-grade science fiction production, it isn't the worst thing that's ever been made.

sarastro7 There are extremely few movie (or TV) versions of Asimov stories. He hated Hollywood, knowing perfectly well that they would water down his stories to complete commercial blandness. He said in an interview once that Hollywood science fiction tends to be 50 years behind the literature. Very true.The Android Affair, however, is not that bad. It's not a masterpiece, but neither is it complete drek. While not terribly engaging or exciting, it is overall well-produced and well-acted, and the story is coherent, logical and has a good and satisfying ending (which is a rarity). It is of course a fairly low-budget movie that looks like it's produced for television, but it makes its low budget go a long way. Nothing looks awfully artificial or bad; the style is well maintained throughout, and the story itself is not bad at all. So, considering the dearth of Asimov adaptations out there, this one is well worth seeking out for Asimov fans.6 out of 10.