MICHAEL CRICHTON DIRECTS 'COMA' WITH MICHAEL DOUGLAS

Geneviève Bujold investigates in Michael Crichton's COMA Year: 1978 Rating: ***1/2

The best damsels-in-distress are those tough cookies in complete denial of being damsels, and you can take your distress and shove it because they don't need help from anyone, especially not males, and especially in the 1970's...

Enter Geneviève Bujold as Dr. Susan Wheeler who, with a chip on her shoulder about being the only female doctor in an old school men's club type of hospital, has a kneejerk reaction for anything easygoing boyfriend Dr. Mark Bellows, played by Michael Douglas, has to say; particularly “Can you get me a beer?”

Lois Chiles as a gorgeous Patient X in COMA

Her feelings of insecurity are shielded with a narrowed countenance — the pushy and contrived feminist viewpoint making it difficult to root for her character... It's almost as if she's bitching out the entire audience...

But she's really onto something as patients at the hospital, including her best friend (a perfect looking Lois Chiles followed by a perfect looking Tom Selleck), are slipping into comas following routine procedures...

Jefferson Institute is the Death Star of comatose patients from COMA

Here’s where the intentionally overbearing anti-heroine becomes more relatable as the investigation kicks into gear. And novelist turned director Michael Crichton has a mechanical approach to directing films that, whether written by himself or in this case, source author Robin Cook, are intentionally farfetched...

But when Susan gets in over her head, searching through files in the hospital and eventually finding the place where the patients are being sent, the mystery/suspense peaks too easily, and conveniently...

Geneviève Bujold and a dead ringer for Data from Star Trek years earlier in a deep COMA

In one scene she overhears two maintenance men discussing everything needing to know i.e. what the comatose bodies... suspended in a spooky warehouse within a formidable white building while overseen by monotone and robotic, steely-eyed Elizabeth Ashley... are being used for...

With thirty-minutes left it’s all about Susan escaping for her life in scenes liken to a television potboiler, and especially when she's under the knife of villainous surgeon Richard Widmark that the fingernails are worth biting: finally providing the backseat Douglas a chance to possibly save his once stubborn, reluctant girlfriend who finally needs saving.

Geneviève Bujold investigates in Michael Crichton's COMA

Tom Selleck would star in Michael Crichton's Runaway here a cameo in COMA

Tom Selleck as Sean Murphy the Comatose Adam to Lois Chile's Eve in COMA

Geneviève Bujold starring in COMA

Geneviève Bujold starring in COMA

Geneviève Bujold COMA with Michael Douglas

A cold Elizabeth Ashley with a Yoda mouth in COMA

Lance LeGalt is the bad guy's henchman in COMA

Michael Douglas first billed yet backseat w/ Genevieve Bujold in COMA

Ed Harris gives some deathly ideas in Michael Crichton's thriller COMA

Geneviève Bujold sneaks around through Michael Crichton's thriller COMA

"1, 2, Mars, Venus.. We don't need no Stinkin' Penis!" Feminist Aerobics in COMA w/ Lois Chiles

Lois Chiles with Geneviève Bujold in COMA with who looks like Leigh-Taylor Young

The perfect Lois Chiles is put into a not-so-perfect coma in Michael Crichton's COMA

Michael Crichton's COMA opening credit sequence during the introductions

David "Little Earl" Hollander and Geneviève Bujold in COMA

Geneviève Bujold and Richard Widmark in Michael Crichton's COMA

Geneviève Bujold facing Richard Widmark in Michael Crichton's COMA