This medical thriller with sci-fi underpinning is seemingly the first movie to feature cloning. In it, a U. S. Senator and future presidential hopeful is involved in a car crash but he mysteriously disappears from the hospital and is taken to the New Mexico desert for some sinister surgery; a diligent reporter tries to find out what's going on.
When watching this, I was sure it must be a TV movie as opposed to a feature film, as it has that cosy dependability and restraint that 70's American telly movies have. Turns out though it was at the cinemas, so what do I know? With its dark goings on in secret hospital complexes, it does foreshadow later films such as Coma. But this one is definitely less fully realised, with the clones themselves being a bit under-utilized - they're sort of like low budget zombies. Cast-wise it has Brad Dillman as the Senator who barely gets out of bed and Angie Dickinson running through the motions as a nurse. Its mostly a Leslie Nielsen vehicle, with him as the reporter out for the truth. He's dependable enough of course but, given Nielsen's career moves later in the 80's, its hard not to think its actually Frank Drebin on the case.
When watching this, I was sure it must be a TV movie as opposed to a feature film, as it has that cosy dependability and restraint that 70's American telly movies have. Turns out though it was at the cinemas, so what do I know? With its dark goings on in secret hospital complexes, it does foreshadow later films such as Coma. But this one is definitely less fully realised, with the clones themselves being a bit under-utilized - they're sort of like low budget zombies. Cast-wise it has Brad Dillman as the Senator who barely gets out of bed and Angie Dickinson running through the motions as a nurse. Its mostly a Leslie Nielsen vehicle, with him as the reporter out for the truth. He's dependable enough of course but, given Nielsen's career moves later in the 80's, its hard not to think its actually Frank Drebin on the case.