Joining the ranks of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed Dune adaptation, Saturation 70 is a pop culture curiosity that, more or less, only exists in the imaginations of those who care about it. However, whereas Jodorowsky’s sci-fi epic became a documentary that animated his extensive production notes, Saturation 70, a psychedelic sci-fi epic starring Gram Parsons and Brian Jones’ five-year-old son, is getting a book. Announced on Kickstarter last month, Saturation 70: A Vision Past Of The Future Foretold, an art book that compiles what little information we have about the lost film, seeks to provide the most comprehensive look at Saturation 70 ever.
That’s easier said than done. Unfortunately, the only footage that still remains are a promo reel and a showreel of scenes from the movie. Working with director Anthony Foutz, co-author Chris Campion spoke to the remaining cast and crew and culled together surviving set photos and footage to give readers a sense of what this thing would have been.
Saturation 70 has quite a pedigree, too. In addition to Parsons and Jones’ son, Julian Jones-Leitch, the film features Michelle Phillips from The Mamas And The Papas and Nudie Cohn, the inventor of that rhinestone-heavy rodeo ware, Nudie Suits. Budgeted at $1 million, the movie featured special effects by 2001: A Space Odyssey effects-wizard Douglas Trumbull.
As for why the film collapsed, director Anthony Foutz says that producer Perry Leff abruptly pulled out of the film and took the footage with him. Foutz tells Deadline that he had “actually forgotten” about the movie until journalist Chris Campion, the book’s co-author, asked about the footage. Turns out, Campion was a year or two too late.
“[Campion] found Perry Leff, and he asked him what happened to all of this footage, and Perry had just moved from Beverly Hills to Bel-Air a year or two before Chris interviewed him, and when he moved, they had binned everything.”
Of course, as with all these kinds of movies, the lore around its loss is way better than the movie could ever hope to be. Its plot is appropriately ridiculous. Jones-Leitch plays a Victorian star child who falls through a wormhole into present-day Los Angeles, a smog-ridden dystopia he must overcome to reunite with his mother. Parsons played one of the Kosmic Kiddies, a group of space aliens in hazmat suits trying to clean Earth’s pollution.
The Kickstarter has already reached its goal, so anyone looking to see as much Saturation 70 as possible will finally have their chance.