Movie review: ‘The Satan Bug’

FloridaGator80

I enjoy checking out the translation of a novel to the big screen and “The Satan Bug” is a good example of just of a 1960s film that doesn’t do justice to the source material. “The Satan Bug” has all the issues of poor films of the ’60s: The action isn’t up to par and it appears to be just a TV movie released in theaters. “The Satan Bug” is taken from a novel by Alistair MacLean writing under a pseudonym and the film cannot ever convey all the silly espionage nuances that MacLean wrote in his popular novels. Of course, filmmakers didn’t have CGI back then, but when someone can make a thriller such as “Bullitt” with Steve McQueen (click here for my review), we shouldn’t have to suffer “The Satan Bug” with George Maharis.

‘The Satan Bug’
(1965; 114 minutes; rated “Approved;” directed by John Sturges and starring George Maharis, Richard Basehart and Anne Francis)

VERY LITTLE TO ENJOY WITH ‘THE SATAN BUG’

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on April 19, 2025.)

I shouldn’t rely too much on fond memories of old films, as “The Satan Bug” is a prime example of a memory best left to time. “The Satan Bug” is a Cold War thriller from a novel by a best-selling author, but it comes up short in just about every department despite having a legendary director and pretty much a second-tier cast.

“The Satan Bug” is the story of biological weapons development and the theft of some pretty nasty crap that the bad guy is prepared to use to bring an end to the world. Basically, it’s a “James Bond-ian” plot without the international scenes, beautiful characters and over-the-top action … or “007.” It’s a thriller with only a few moments of very dainty action, reserved gunplay and pretty much comes across as an expression of dinner theater-quality direction and acting.

The film is based on the novel by best-selling author Alistair MacLean. He originally published “The Satan Bug” under the pseudonym “Ian Stuart” and it was later re-released under his given name. The screenplay was co-written by one of my favorite authors: James Clavell, who also co-wrote and directed “To Sir With Love” and wrote a series of novels about Asia including “Shogun” and “Noble House” (click here for my review of the TV miniseries). Add in legendary director John Sturges and we should be able to watch a nice film.

Sorry, but “The Satan Bug” isn’t very good and the only interesting thing about the cast is that a couple of supporting characters are played by James Doohan, who was “Star Trek’s” “Scotty,” and Ed Asner of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Lou Grant” fame. Unfortunately, Doohan doesn’t have a spoken line and both expire in the second half of the film.

In a nutshell, “The Satan Bug” is the story of the theft of several flasks of world-threatening chemicals from a top secret bio-weapons laboratory in the southern California desert. Everything is obvious in the early stage – especially the two crates being taken into the laboratory that are big enough to each hold a bad guy.

Well, the bio-weapons are stolen and a former intelligence officer is called in to investigate how it happened and what’s going on. At the same time, officials are dealing with a shadowy bad guy who is threatening to set loose the bioweapons and destroy life on the planet.

Naturally, the investigator, George Maharis as “Lee Barrett,” gets right on the bad guys’ trail; finds the stolen flasks; gets captured by the bad guys; things look grim; there are some tense moments in a helicopter (there was no CGI back then); and he finally prevails at the end. Oh, and along the way, some of the bio-weapons are used to kill everyone in Key West.

By the time “the end” shows on this kind of film, you’d be cheering for “007” having just saved the world in a most spectacular fashion after an international chase. With “The Satan Bug,” you yawn and ask yourself why you just watched this film.

Now, since I must, let me take look at the top of the cast …

  • A promotional “still” photograph from the movie “The Satan Bug.”

    A Primetime Emmy nominee, Maharis is the lead in this film for gosh-who-knows-why reasons. He displays no acting chops and always appears to be a walk-on to a dinner theater show. I have never watched an episode of “Route 66,” but the iconic TV series, in which he co-starred with Martin “Adam-12” Milner, must have showcased his talents much better than “The Satan Bug.” After all, once he left “Route 66,” the show was canceled within two years. Plus, talent on TV doesn’t always translate to the big screen … and it sure didn’t in “The Satan Bug”` for him. Maharis, who also recorded popular music albums, was also in the films “Exodus” and “The Happening” as well as the popular miniseries “Rich Man, Poor Man.” Maharis did many episodes of TV shows (but never my favorite, “The Love Boat” – click here for my look at that kitschy series) and had his last acting credit in 1993. He was nominated for his work on “Route 66.” He died of hepatitis at 94 in 2023.

  • Richard Basehart plays “Dr. Gregor Hoffman,” but he’s really “Charles Reynolds Ainsley,” who is the baddest of the bad guys. I’m not spoiling anything for anyone because you see Basehart’s deception coming from a mile away. Basehart does as good a job as possible and, after Maharis, has the most screen time of any actor. Still, you don’t get a good handle on what depth Basehart could pull out of a character. He is best-remembered as “Adm. Harriman Nelson” on TV’s “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” and was also in “Moby Dick” with Gregory Peck and an episode of “The Love Boat.” Basehart did episodes on dozens of TV shows in the ’60s and ’70s and was the narrator on the “Knight Rider” TV series. He died at 70 in 1984 of multiple strokes.
  • A Golden Globe winner (not for this one) and a Primetime Emmy nominee, Anne Francis is the female lead in “The Satan Bug.” Unfortunately, she had no opportunity to make her character “Ann Williams” anything more than your basic window dressing as so many female stars found themselves back-in-the-day. However, I’ll say that she did manage to elevate the character beyond the helpless woman. Still, Francis managed to rescue more than a “good job” for her work in this one. Francis won and was nominated for her role on the short-lived TV series “Honey West.” She was in the classic “Bad Day at Black Rock” with Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan and had 168 acting credits over seven decades with the first in 1947 and the last in 2004 – including an episode on “The Love Boat.” Francis died at 80 in 2011 of pancreatic cancer.

I know that Sturges is a “legendary” director, but he’s put some real stinkers out there including “Ice Station Zebra” (from another MacLean novel – click here for my review) and “The Eagle Has Landed” from a Jack Higgins best-seller (click here for my review). “The Satan Bug” is nothing but tedious except for a few moments of action, just the same as Sturges’ “Ice Station Zebra,” but that one at least had a submarine and the Arctic ice for better scenic flavor.

I just don’t know how the director of the war classic “The Great Escape” and iconic western “The Magnificent Seven” could put out “The Satan Bug,” but it has all the hallmarks of Sturges’ worst efforts. The Illinois native died at 82 in 1992 of emphysema and a heart attack.

OK, here’s my boilerplate explanation about the “approved” rating: It comes from Hollywood’s rating system known as the “Hays Code” from the name of its chief censor, according to Wiki. From 1938 through 1968 films were evaluated and either deemed approved or disapproved (“moral” or “immoral”). Although officially abandoned in 1968 in favor of the start of the initial version of the rating system you see today, the “Hays Code” had pretty much disappeared in the 1960s due to the influence of television, edgy directors and U.S. Supreme Court rulings, according to Wiki.

“The Satan Bug” was outside the top 24 films of 1965, according to The Numbers website. The No. 1 film was “The Sound of Music” with $163.2 million in ticket sales and at No. 2 was “Doctor Zhivago” with $111.7 million. Here are the other films from 1965 that I’ve reviewed for my blog (and all are much better to watch than “The Satan Bug”):

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com and Wiki):

  • Maharis’ birth name was George Maharias; Andrews’ full birth name was Carver Dana Andrews; and Sturges’ birth name was John Eliot Carne.
  • The film’s stunt productions reportedly was the first to use a stabilized camera system for helicopter shots.
  • Maharis, who also recorded popular music, was one of the first Hollywood “stars” to pose nude for Playgirl magazine, according to Wiki.
  • An Oscar nominee-to-be and seven-time Primetime Emmy nominee-to-be, Lee Remick has an uncredited role as a waitress in a club who brings Maharis a phone for a call. Remick was nominated for “Days of Wine and Roses” and I liked her in “Telefon” with Charles Bronson (click here for my review). She died at 55 in 1991 of multiple cancers.
  • Oh, boo-hoo! Directly from IMDb.com: “John Sturges wanted a gigantic climax on the Los Angeles freeway, with the population trying to evacuate the city before the plague begins. Sturges wanted something exciting, huge, with thousands of cars glued into a behemoth traffic jam. But the mayor and city hall of LA refused. Sturges was livid and felt great grief because of this.”
  • Francis replaced Joan Hackett as “Ann Williams.”
  • Six other actors in “The Satan Bug” worked with Maharis on TV’s “Route 66.”
  • Charlton Heston wrote in his memoirs that he was asked to play the lead in “The Satan Bug,” but it didn’t work out. Six years later in “The Omega Man,” he would play a doctor who develops a vaccine for a “bug” that nearly wipes out the population of Earth.

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