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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.