Throwing well-known stories into genres they didn't initially start out in can be a gamble. Thankfully, for the director and writer Peter Hyams and for Sean Connery as his lead, it paid off in 1981.

Sean Connery was best-known as a movie star, but he got his start as a bodybuilder. In 1950, the young Connery entered Mr. Universe but found that he was no competition for the bulkier American ...