55 years ago, The Andromeda Strain put the science in science fiction

After the runaway success of The Sound of Music, Robert Wise followed with strong, varied work, and his sci-fi thriller The Andromeda Strain debuted 55 years ago on March 12, 1971. A faithful adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel with a meticulous screenplay by Nelson Gidding, the film keeps the jargon-heavy scientific focus intact and reads now as a prototypical killer-virus picture whose prescience resonates amid post-pandemic anxieties.

The film opens with a government satellite crashing near Piedmont, New Mexico, where a retrieval team finds most residents dead. Military authorities summon an elite group of scientists who determine the mysterious organism is a virulent contagion, and the plot becomes a race to prevent its spread as the strain mutates and containment risks breaching.

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