The cause

Roger Ebert's review of what sounds like a sad new documentary by Austrian actor Maximilian Schell got me thinking about his appearance in one of my very favorite movies, Disney's The Black Hole. In what is basically a sci-fi remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Schell plays a mad scientist and space explorer who lobotomizes the crew of his spaceship, aboard which he lives in lonely splendor. A team that includes Robert Forster and Ernest Borgnine is sent to investigate what happened to Schell's ship. As they learn, he has parked next to a black hole, which he plans to explore.

Schell's performance is a hammy delight; he really wraps himself around the pseudo-scientific inanities of the screenplay. My favorite Schell line comes as he gazes at the black hole through a huge window and says something like, "There must be cause for all this...but what is the cause...of that cause..."