VividSimon Simply Perfect

HeadlinesExotic Boring

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

O2D This movie was a lot better than I expected.While it was another short movie with extended periods of nothing and the plot wasn't the greatest, the acting is above average and the movie isn't boring.They do a good job of covering the bases and making sure there are no plot holes but the plot is so average that it doesn't help that much.A scientist is accused of killing his wife and another man and putting them in a rocket and sending it into space.Instead of telling them to look for the those people, he just jumps in a rocket to go get the other rocket and prove they aren't in it.The best thing about the movie is that their space program is realistic, it doesn't work.Four stars, give it a shot.

Jonathon Dabell Many people don't realise that Hammer had been producing films as far back as 1935, when their first ever film – The Public Life Of Henry The Ninth - hit the screens. The director who really made the difference for Hammer was Terence Fisher,whose incredible work on the original Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummy films helped the studio become the name to watch in the field of horror. He had already made a few films for them before his horror entries found such favour, and Spaceways (1953) is one such example of Fisher's early output for the company.At the top-secret and ultra-secure base of Deanfield, British scientists are carrying out test rocket flights in an on-going attempt to send a man into space. Helping them with their work is an American, Dr. Stephen Mitchell (Howard Duff). Mitchell's wife Vanessa (Cecile Chavreau) is going crazy stuck on the base, and enters a love affair with fellow scientist Dr. Philip Crenshaw (Andrew Osborn). Then, mysteriously, the illicit lovers go missing around the same time that another rocket is launched into space. Government security agent Dr. Smith (Alan Wheatley) suspects that Dr. Mitchell has murdered his wife and her secret lover, then stashed their bodies aboard the rocket which is now in space orbiting the Earth. Since the rocket isn't scheduled to return for several years, it's a case of "no corpses, no crime". As suspicions mount about his guilt, Dr. Mitchell offers to undertake the first manned mission into space to recover the rocket and prove his innocence. Mathematician Dr. Lisa Frank (Eva Bartok) – who is madly in love with Mitchell – volunteers to join him on this dangerous flight into the unknown.The film's poster promises a Jules Verne-style space adventure with exciting zero-gravity action and cosmic vehicles and sets. Alas, as it turns out the film is a decidedly earthbound affair, concerned above all else with the deteriorating relationship of Duff and Chavreau, the budding romance between Duff and Bartok, and the cynical suspicions of Wheatley. The film has used up 66 of its 74 minutes before Duff and Bartok even get off the ground, which gives an indication of how little rocket-ship action it actually contains. Since the film came out eight years before the first actual manned space mission, much of the space- flight science in the script is quaint and amusing. Nevertheless, it is not a total loss. Duff gives a decent enough performance within the constraints of the role, while Wheatley as the suspicious government agent is quite wonderful. Bartok has little to do other than supply eye candy, though she does finally get to be more pro-active in the proceedings as the film enters its closing ten minutes Fisher directs it all competently enough, though there's no obvious sign of the great things he would go on to achieve later. It's all very efficient without ever quite setting the pulse racing. Spaceways is one of those films that Hammer completists may harbour some burning desire to watch, but other viewers will find it little more than a dated curiosity item. Great theatrical poster plus a smashing performance from Wheatley… but apart from that, its wider appeal is very limited.

Woodyanders Dedicated, but henpecked American engineer Dr. Stephen Mitchell (a solid performance by Howard Duff) works at a secret rocket base in England. When his faithless bitchy wife Vanessa (a perfectly snarky Cecile Chevreau) and her biologist lover Dr. Philip Crenshaw (Andrew Osborn) both disappearance, the shrewd and determined Dr. Smith (a marvelously smug turn by Alan Wheatley) suspects that Stephen killed them and launched their bodies into space. Stephen plans on going into space to retrieve the satellite in order to prove his innocence. Director Terence Fisher, working from a clever script by Paul Tabor and Richard Landau, offers an adroit and interesting multi-genre mix of murder mystery thriller, foreign espionage, and space exploration. The sound acting from a sturdy cast helps a lot: Duff makes for a sympathetic protagonist, the lovely Eva Bartok impresses as fetching mathematician Lisa Frank, and Wheatley is in peak smarmy form as the arrogant Dr. Smith. Plus there's fine support from Philip Leaver as kindly, jolly project supervisor Professor Koepler and Michael Medwin as eager fuel expert Dr. Toby Andrews. Reginald H. Wyer's crisp black and white cinematography and Ivor Slaney's rousing, spirited score are both up to speed. While a bit slow and talky in spots, this movie still rates as a most enjoyable picture all the same.

Bruce Cook The title and the poster tend to set the viewer up for a large disappointment with this one, a less-than-gripping film from director Terence Fisher, laudable mostly for the fact that it was made so early in the 1950s. The story is based on a radio play by Charles Eric Maine, with a plot that smacks just a little of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.Howard Duff plays an American scientist involved with the British space program (they actually had one of those, once). His wife is having an affair with another scientist (Andrew Osborn) who is also a spy. When both wife and lover disappear, an investigator (Alan Wheatley) suspects Duff of murdering them and disposing of the bodies by placing them in a new satellite which is sent into orbit!There's only one way Duff can clear himself: blast off in a rocket, retrieve the satellite, and bring it back for inspection. He takes Eva Bartok (heroine of 'The Crimson Pirate') with him.I won't divulge the ending, but it is a twist. The film's slow pace lessens the tension, and the special effects consist largely of stock footage and a few scenes cribbed from 'Rocketship X-M'. Definitely a case of the poster being far better than the movie -- but what a poster!