a5c7b9f00b A government investigator tries to find out the truth behind the break-in at a top secret research facility.
A break-in and sabotage attempt occurs at a top secret research institute and the culprit is cornered and captured. The problem is that he's been badly injured and claims to have lost his memory entirely. A cat-and-mouse game ensues between investigator Tuxan, the mystery intruder Welles and the people who sent him on the mission.
This film originally had the more evocative title "The Alien". David Janssen was to play the title role with Robert Stack in the George Peppard role.<br/><br/>Talented Douglas Heyes ("Kitten With a Whip", "Captains and Kings", "Aspen"), who wrote the screenplay, was set to direct. David Levinson (the Emmy winning Hal Holbrook series "The Senator") was going to produce.<br/><br/>Genevieve Bujold was originally set to play the Christine Belford role. But, for some unknown reason, Genevieve quit just before production was to start. This delayed the start of filming, and Janssen had to leave since the film was already scheduled to finish just days before he would start his Jack Webb series "O'Hara, United States Treasury".<br/><br/>Apparently they couldn't find an actress hungry or brave enough to come in immediately and replace Bujold. I might have tried to get Sharon Acker, Diana Muldaur, Gena Rowlands, Salome Jens or Rosemary Forsyth to just jump in and do their best.<br/><br/>I think David Janssen could have given the story a more mysterious, magnetic core than Michael Sarrazin did, and Janssen would have had interesting chemistry with any of those five women.<br/><br/>I also think Peter Falk (who was starting "Columbo" the next season) could have been even better than Stack or Peppard as the tough-as-nails investigator.<br/><br/>Steven Spielberg and John Badham were hot Universal TV directors at the time. This might have been an interesting first film for either of those young Turks.
The Groundstar Conspiracy is your average spy thriller with George Peppard as the ruthless investigator from an unnamed government agency and Michael Sarrazin as a scientist who is the only survivor of a lab explosion at a top secret US space program called Groundstar. Peppard knows that Sarrazin is not who he says he is. But how did he get clearance in the place, what may or may not have been taken from the lab that the explosion covered up are the questions Peppard has answers for. Because Sarrazin's memory has been wiped clean.<br/><br/>The key character in The Groundstar Conspiracy is Peppard as a ruthless government investigator, a man who could be J. Edgar Hoover if given half a chance. That title phrase comes from Peppard's mouth who would like to bug every bedroom in the country for security's sake, better to ferret out would be subversives.<br/><br/>Of course Peppard plugs up his security leak, but Sarrazin, freedom, and Sarrazin's freedom pay a price.<br/><br/>The Groundstar Conspiracy has some interesting notions to put forth, but the productions values are pretty skimpy. Christine Belford as a woman that Peppard's using to keep tabs on Sarrazin has her role very poorly defined. The players do their best, but the film's general mediocrity weighs heavily on their work.