picture of Newton with the camera, it reveals Newton's alien physiology. Newton's appetite for alcohol and television (he is capable of watching multiple televisions at once) becomes crippling, and he and Mary-Lou fight. Realizing that Bryce has learnt his secret, Newton reveals his alien form to Mary-Lou. She struggles to accept his true form. She flees in panic and horror. Newton completes the spaceship and attempts to take it on its maiden voyage amid intense press exposure. However, just before his scheduled take-off, he is seized and detained, apparently by the government and a rival company. His business partner Farnsworth is murdered. The government, which had been monitoring Newton via his driver, holds Newton captive in a locked luxury apartment, constructed deep within a hotel. During his captivity, they keep him sedated with alcohol (to which he has become addicted) and continuously subject him to rigorous medical tests, cutting into his human disguise. One examination, involving X-rays, causes the contact lenses he wears as part of his human disguise to permanently affix themselves to his eyes. Toward the end of Newton's years of captivity, he is visited again by Mary-Lou. She is much older, and her appearance has been ravaged by alcohol and time. They have mock-violent, playful sex that involves firing a gun with blanks, and afterwards occupy their time drinking and playing table tennis. Mary-Lou declares that she no longer loves him, and he replies that he does not love her either. Eventually Newton discovers that his "prison", now derelict, is unlocked, and he leaves. Unable to return home, a despondent and alcoholic Newton creates a recording with alien messages, which he hopes will be broadcast via radio to his home planet. Bryce, who has since married Mary-Lou, buys a copy of the album and meets Newton at a restaurant. Newton is still rich and young-looking despite the passage of many years. However, he has also fallen into depression and continues to suffer from alcoholism. Seated on the restaurant's outdoor patio, Newton inquires about Mary-Lou, before collapsing in a drunken stupor on the chair. Cast Production Paramount Pictures had distributed Roeg's previous film, Don't Look Now (1973), and agreed to pay $1.5 million for the US rights. Michael Deeley used this guarantee to raise finance to make the film. Roeg originally considered casting author Michael Crichton and actor Peter O'Toole in the role of Newton before Bowie. Filming