bjboulden I remember this movie as a kid. Its been 40 years since i saw it and it still is powerful. This is when TV Networks made ground breaking movies; Brian's Song, That Certain Summer, Rich Man Poor Man, Roots, QB VIIThe Astronaut is was ground breaking. Just wish I could get this Video. ABC TV should release all their Movie of the Weeks

inspectors71 At 71 minutes, you can't tell much of a story. That was one of the problems with the weekly TV flicks ABC showed for 6 or 7 years back in the early 70s. Movie makers had to cut to the chase and play up the easily understood, the quickly digestible, the cliché. There just wasn't the ability to go long and deep, to add layers of understanding and detail to a story.With that said, danged if I didn't like 1972's The Astronaut, a complicated-relationship story wrapped up in an attempt by government baddies to cover up the death of an astronaut on Mars by pulling the old plastic surgery gag.Monte Markham is the poor, sympathetic schlub who looks like the dead guy. Markham, a veteran TV actor is actually believable as a ne'er-do-well who says yes to the plot in order to get rid of his past life. Susan Clark, an elegant actress who always struck me as being somewhat broken in her roles, starts off all hysterical and pregnant-brained, but when she begins to suspect the nice man who has come home from space is, well, nice--and that doesn't sound like her brittle, driven husband--she begins to show some real toughness, and eventually, tenderness. Jackie Cooper, as the head of "Voyager" program, is smooth, slimy, and, thank goodness, a moral man who finally says no to the Nixonian types who have been whispering in his ear. The Astronaut has so many character actors I grew up with that I can't list them all. You'd recognize them if you were my age. What I didn't recognize at first was how satisfying the relationship between Markham and Clark becomes. For a cheapo TV-movie, this emotional depth was unexpected. I liked the movie because I liked the characters and the moral dilemmas that are presented.Unlike--I swear--half the ABC Movies of the Week, this isn't a pilot for a cheesy cop show or a idiot-level comedy. The Astronaut stands alone, and it's a quality act.

mpoconnor7 From the title, you might think The Astronaut was a sci-fi movie, but it wasn't. It was a very good made for TV movie which focused more on people than special effects, and dealt with the human cost of living a lie. The basic plot is that on the first manned mission to Mars, the first man to step on the Martian surface dies of poisoning due to mysterious gases in the Martian atmosphere that permeated his spacesuit. The head of the space program, fearing that this disaster could end the space program, covered it up and found a pilot who bore an uncanny resemblance to the deceased Astronaut and trained the lookalike to be the first man to step on Mars once the spacecraft returned to Earth. The deal was that after a period of time, the Astronaut would be killed in a pre-arranged boating accident with the body never found, giving the lookalike his life back.The Astronaut's wife soon figured out he was a fraud, but, over time, began to fall in love with the lookalike. She chose to join him on the boat so she also would be "killed" and have her identity changed to be with him. As they were getting ready to board the boat, they were informed that the Soviets had just announced that they had launched their mission to Mars. Knowing the same fate that befell the American Astronaut would also happen to the Soviet Astronauts, and the scam they pulled would be revealed, they decided not to board the boat, and instead decided to come clean. The Space Program Administrator, coming to the same conclusion, decided that he too had to come clean to the President and tell the truth about what happened on Mars.The acting was a notch above your run of the mill MFTVM, with Monte Markham playing the Astronaut and his doppleganger, Susan Clark as the Astronaut's wife, and Jackie Cooper as the Space Program head. The movie was predictable, but it was well done by TV standards.

gildaevf This is the movie that made me a fan of Monte Markham. He positively shines! And I love how the movie is more concerned with the human factor rather than the hardware. Special effects are well and good, but that's all a lot of newer movies have. I taped this a couple of years after its first airing, and have never tired of watching it!