ManiakJiggy
This is How Movies Should Be Made
XoWizIama
Excellent adaptation.
Mandeep Tyson
The acting in this movie is really good.
microfame
This is part of a larger 50's movie portrayal of people shot into space who are so over-emotional and unbalanced, you wonder how they beat out all the other astronaut candidates.I really just wanted to see if any other viewers shared my laugh-out-loud moment from the film......when the reporter punches out that other guy and the camera fast-pans over to the female lead in the doorway, who witnessed it, and she has absolutely NO EXPRESSION on her face! Not even a trace of any reaction....This is fine as a "background movie", on a rainy weekend day when you're puttering around the house.
sddavis63
Set on board a space ship in the year 2116, this movie has a number of problems that have to be overcome if you're going to enjoy it at all. First and foremost is the completely wooden and often lifeless acting, which the actors try to compensate for by trying (and failing) to make every scene seem as if it's the most important scene in the movie. There are also some pretty significant plot problems. First, there really is no story until about halfway through the movie. Originally, our intrepid group of explorers are heading to "Galaxy M-12," then they're heading to Mars for some mysterious reason, then they're suddenly diverted to Venus by order of "the High Command." Finally, upon the diversion to Venus, we're told that unless this ship can do something about it, the earth is going to be destroyed by some sort of rogue spaceship. I wasn't entirely clear, though, on why the earth was going to be destroyed. I was a little confused as well about why, half-way into the movie, Ray says "it's Christmas, Lucy." The line just hung there. It came out of nowhere and nothing came from it. So, both the story and the acting are a bit ridiculous. However ...There are some good points here. Gene Roddenberry is usually given credit for introducing minorities in command positions on "Star Trek," but I thought it was interesting that the engineer on this ship was black (played by Archie Savage, who had previously had minor roles in such movies as "South Pacific" and "The Ten Commandments") - and he was no token. He had important things to do, including a noble act of self-sacrifice. More thought was put into the conditions of outer space and weightlessness than a lot of low-budget sci-fi movies of that era worried about, and the on-board effects were not bad, as the crew clomped about the ship in their magnetic boots. The set was also fairly futuristic looking. Unfortunately, some of the animated space travel was rather poorly done. Once the crisis was introduced, there was a moderate amount of suspense about whether or not the earth could be saved. You know what? This isn't good, but it really isn't as bad as some people say it is. 5/10
winner55
Very odd sci-fi film. Filled with quirky little details of some historical interest: The film is Italian and overdubbed in English; but if you watch the actors' lips carefully, they are mouthing the English words; so the film was intended for an English language market from the start.The writers assume that the Russians will win the space-race of the time, hence the reporter refers to the spaceship crew as "cosmonauts).The film claims to be shot in Technicolor; this simply cannot be the case. Occasionally the color red shows through, but much of it does look black and white. When Technicolor washes out, it takes on a light blue tint - other processes get very blue, light green, or, as here, simply washed out all together.Gabriella Farinon is very easy to look at; she later did a very pretty spread for the Italian edition of Playboy Magazine (1975)(some of it can be searched for on the 'net), but her film career went pretty much nowhere.The year is 1960; that may make this the first film ever to depict a black male as extremely intelligent, brave, wistfully philosophical, and treated by the other crew members as simply another crew member, no reference to race whatsoever. I'm afraid that would make this one of the most important films ever made, in terms of social history (which doesn't mean it's a good film - it isn't).Director Antonio Margheriti, AKA Anthony M. Dawson, was extremely prolific; however, a filmography search, both here at IMDb and on Google, only discovers his fantasy films, and a small handful of westerns; but I remember his name popping up on almost every other spaghetti or sauer-kraut western produced in the '60s, at least until Sergio Leone came along (and radically changed that genre).Yes, I can see the influence of this film on Kubrick's 2001; but beyond the film's essential pessimism, it's unclear why Kubrick would be impressed by a film so poorly made.My viewing confirms a previous reviewer's note that the explosion of a spaceship is represented with brief stock footage of a car blowing up in a parking lot. Why?! Not the lowest budget imaginable for such a film can excuse this gaff - it would have been more effective to take the spaceship miniature and toss it on the ground - and then step on it.Yet despite flaws like this, the writers seem to be determined to deploy science and technology (at least as it was popularly known at the time) in a fairly realistic manner.A real stew of a film, made of leftovers as yet not fully cooked.
Ivan Bradley
Thanks to junk-monkey (liam@merriol.freeserve.co.uk) for the review I read on one screen while watching the movie on the other. Read his excellent review for proper details. This is just a "me too' rider on that.A quandary on the scoring: 3 out of 10 for stand-alone entertainment, but 7 for teaching value. It's great for analysis.I'm teaching my 9 yr old daughter the basics of film-making, and so far this is the best "how to do a low budget job without spending money on a continuity girl" effort I've yet found. You really _could_ make this film at home with a few mates, a roll of black paper and the contents of a junk radio surplus store for props and scenery. You'll also need some fishing line and a couple of plastic construction kits with burning candles stuck up their orifices, some mud and a source of smoke - a cigar, or a pinch of dry ice. Because of that, for the stated instructional purpose, I loved the film. and even though it's not "Dark Star," it must have helped pave the wayThe kid's about to do a remake starring teddy bears and a washing-up liquid bottle with fins stuck on. It should be no less convincing.I downloaded it from a public domain collection. Would I buy it? Probably not for more than £1.00
