First Man Into Space has its low budget limitations, but it's story is a corker. It's one of the few 50s science fiction stories that question non-atomic technology: how far sure man go? What are the consequences of his thirst for knowledge and experience? This time there are no invading aliens, no throbbing radioactive brains from another planet, and no marauding killer tree stumps. We are simply confronted with a man who crosses a line and tries to come back. It helps that he looks like The Incredible Melting Man, but this is a movie that does more than simply shock the audience.
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JohnSeal5 April 2000
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ma-cortes27 September 2020An astronaut , Navy test pilot Lieut. Dan Prescott -Bill Edwards-, in experimental rocket plane Y-13, disobeys orders and becomes the first man to fly outside the ionosphere. When he returns to Earth by ejection he is covered with strange space dust and having a craving for blood . While his brother, an Air Force commandant, -Marshal Thompson- attempts to look for the missing astronaut throughout the countryside along with his girlfriend : Maria Landi . The pilot compartment lands with no trace of the pilot... but first animals , then people, are found their members cut . It leaps out the head lines !.Far and away the most startling and unexpected adventure film ever made!
A monster/sci-fi movie with special effects-laden and a lot ot stock-footage, dealing with an astronaut falling on Earth , being plastered with metallic meteor dust and with a starving organism needing to feed , along the way an alien tries to survive and begins killing in order to get it . First picture to lift the veil in an unpredictable future , concerning a spectacular drama of the first man in history to be rocketed into the terrifying unknown of outer space . On the virtues of this low-budget movie results in an original and eerie story with suspense , tension and horror . In spite of its short budget , filmmaker Robert Day uses his imagination indeed , that's why so often directors make their best movies when they don't have that much money. Passable FX and make-up , as the creepy astronaut/monster suit was so heavily made and risked thermal , it could only be worn for a few minutes at a time .
It contains a peculiar score , using electronic music by Buxton Orr. As well as atmospheric Cinematography in black and white by Geoffrey Faithfull .The motion picture was uneven but professionally directed by Robert Day. His first film as director, the black-comic The Green Man (1956) for the writer-producer team of 'Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat´, garnered fine reviews and a classic notoriety ; using this as a starting point , Day went on to become one of the industry's busiest directors . He relocated to Hollywood in the 1960s and began directing scads of TV episodes and made-for-TV movies on this side of the Atlantic. He occasionally turns up in bits in his own productions , including Grip of the Strangler (1958), Two way stretch (1960), the mini-series Peter and Paul (1981) . Robert was a craftsman who directed all kinds of genres as Tarzan movies : Tarzan's three challenges, Tarzan and the great river , Tarzan and the valley of gold , Comedy : Two way stretch , Terror : Corridors of blood , Thriller : Operation snatch . And he made a lot of episodes of TV series as Perry Mason, Kingston confidential, McCloud , Logan run , Robin Hood, Kojak, Sam Cade, Ironside, Streets of San Francisco, Dallas, Disneyland, among others. Rating : 5.5/10 . Fair Sciencie Fiction/monster/terror movie that will appeal to the usual aficionados . -
Marshall Thompson plays a naval officer whose brother, a hot shot test pilot, manages to get about 250 miles above the earth. Said brother then returns looking like something that crawled out of the La Brea Tar Pits. This creature goes on a rampage, seeking blood from humans and cows. It returns to its senses, somewhat, at the finale, and explains what happened in space.
But getting to the finale is a chore, because there is mostly talk, and too many people acting unwisely. For example, the creature breaks into a blood bank at night, tears off a door, and creates a lot of noise. A nurse goes to investigate, and walks calmly past the smashed-in door, without bothering to get help first. Some people deserve to have their blood drained.
Supposedly set in New Mexico, the mostly British cast do a decent job disguising their accents, but their uniforms and spelling ("authorised") give them away. -
michaelRokeefe23 September 2000Rivalry between brothers leads to main story line. Navy Commander Chuck Prescott(Marshall Thompson)has developed the Y12 aircraft to test how far man can go up in the atmosphere. His brother, Lt. Dan Prescott(Bill Edwards), seems to be the best test pilot around and is chosen to go up in the Y12. Dan of course has a problem with taking orders and is also an over confident dare devil.
On Dan's second flight, he hits over the 300 miles up comfort zone and his craft passes through a meteor dust storm. Returning to earth, Dan becomes a monster that resembles 200 pounds of bad asphalt. He also has a demanding craving for blood, whether it be from farm animals or fellow human beings.
Short runtime of an hour and seventeen minutes; black & white with near stoic acting...typical of low budget sci-fi.
Rounding out the cast is Marla Landi, Robert Ayers and Carl Jaffe. Noteworthy trivia: about two months after this film was released; the Russians put the real first man in space. -
gavin694224 October 2016The first pilot to leave Earth's atmosphere lands, then vanishes; but something with a craving for blood prowls the countryside...
After being turned down by AIP, Gordon successfully pitched the film idea to MGM. Gordon and Vetter then signed on as producers for the project because of the financial success of their two previous films, "Fiend Without a Face" and "The Haunted Strangler". Because of MGM's financial involvement, the budget set for "First Man into Space" was slightly higher than for the producers' two previous films.
While the film is not terribly well-known today, it is a great movie about space exploration before such things became standard. Indeed, who knew what might happen in space, or if the radiation would be a problem? The makeup and costume effects are excellent, and more than make up for any shortcomings from the actors. -
1958's "First Man Into Space" was an early Richard Gordon British production starring Hollywood import Marshall Thompson, though not as well regarded as "Fiend Without a Face." The most intriguing name associated with this entry is that of actor/writer Wyott Ordung, whose original story was titled "Satellite of Blood," a more promising moniker than anything that ended up on screen (he previously scripted "Robot Monster" and "Target Earth," and directed Roger Corman's "Monster from the Ocean Floor"). Director Robert Day was retained from Gordon's two Boris Karloff vehicles, "The Haunted Strangler" and "Corridors of Blood," and Italian actress Marla Landi went on to a pair of Hammer films with Christopher Lee, "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and "The Pirates of Blood River." Thompson is once again a no nonsense military type, here working with his younger brother (Bill Edwards) on launching man into orbit, only his sibling is the daring reckless type who craves the glory of becoming the first man into space. To this end he disobeys orders to turn back at the proper time and continues skyward, over 300 miles above the earth's atmosphere, where a shower of cosmic dust envelops the ship and sends it back down to a landing near the New Mexico air base. A series of murders follow the discovery of the wrecked vessel, yet no sign of its missing occupant, and the film plays as a mystery for the on screen characters when the audience knows damn well who's responsible. This was a virtual blueprint for the 1977 Rick Baker effort "The Incredible Melting Man," jettisoning all exposition with the affected astronaut immediately going on a killing spree (the much better known "Alien" was essentially a remake of the earlier Thompson feature "It! The Terror from Beyond Space," depicting a deadly creature on the loose inside a cramped spaceship). Viewers could be forgiven for believing that they'd be treated to a George Pal-type special effects extravaganza on early space travel, the lifeless first half lacking even real conflict between the brothers, the final result proving a disappointment to both them and the patrons who prefer a monster (tiny moon craters embedded in the makeup). The climax attempts to humanize the menace, forced to devour human blood to replace the lack of oxygen, but the thrills just aren't there.
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dbborroughs3 September 20071959 movie about a test pilot who disobeys orders and ends up flying higher than he should -becoming the title in the process. He also returns to earth looking like the burnt casserole man.
Filmed in England yet set in White Sands New Mexico this is a slow but decent little scifi thriller about an experiment that goes horribly wrong. Its the sort of thing you put on late at night to fall asleep to or laugh at or drift off in the ways that black and white movies of the period are prone to make you do.
Not one of my favorites I recently picked it up as part of a Criterion box set called Madmen and Monsters of four lesser films from the late 1950's packaged together with a host of typical extras. Why Criterion would choose these films was a bit beyond me until I realized that all of the films were made by the same producers and were the follow ups to Fiend Without a Face (the crawling brain film) which Criterion put out several years ago. The transfer and such is sterling and the commentary is very informative dealing with the film and the producers life as exploitation filmmakers and to be honest listening to it boosted my appreciation of the film.
Its a good way to see the film- though to be honest I'm still not convinced the film needed a Criterion edition-especially since its pricey set (which I got greatly reduced) will limit peoples exposure to the film. -
poolandrews10 February 2008First Man Into Space is set in Albuquerque where the US Navy are trying to send the first man into space, that man being pilot Dan Prescott (Bill Edwards). Dan pushes things too far & disobeys orders going higher than he should, while in space his spaceship is engulfed by a mysterious cloud of meteorite particles which attach themselves to the ship & Dan inside. Crashing back down to Earth in Mexico Dan has undergone a hideous transformation into a space crud encrusted monster who needs to feed on blood to survive, it's up to Dan's brother Commander Charles Prescott (Marshall Thompson) to hunt Dan down & try to help him...
This English production was directed by Robert Day & feels like an attempt to cash in on the success of Hammer studios The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) in which an astronaut is sent into space comes back turned into some sort of alien monster, personally I think First Man Into Space is a little slow going & not as good as Hammer's effort. The script by John Croydon & Charles F. Vetter for some reason is set in America even though the film was financed & made in England, disappointingly even at a scant 75 minutes in length First Man Into Space felt really padded & slow moving. The first 30 odd minutes are totally forgettable with the initial exploration into space which goes alright & it's the second time Dan goes into space that he gets turned into a monster where I feel it should have been the first, I mean the makers could have hit the ground running with the monster turning up within the first 10 minutes but for some reason they padded the story out. I wouldn't call it a bad film, there's a few minutes of decent monster action & it's competent throughout but I will probably have completely forgotten about it by the end of the week.
Don't be fooled by the DVD box artwork, the monster feels like a secondary sub plot for the majority of the film before it turns up at the end. The monster itself is quite good with it's deformed space mud encrusted face. There's a bit of blood but nothing too graphic. The special effects aren't too bad either, even though the spaceship looks like an ordinary US Navy jet plane the model work is alright as are the scenes set in outer space.
Technically the film is OK, filmed in black and white the cinematography is satisfactory & help make the very English locations look American. There's plenty of stock footage as well just to pad things out even more. The cast are alright, look out for an appearance by Roger Delgado who would later go on to star in several Doctor Who stories from the 70's as the Master.
First Man Into Space is a passable way to spend 75 minutes even though it still seems slow & padded. The monster is decent as are the effects but when all said & done it's nothing special. Although not credited as such AIP remade this in the 70's as the rather good The Incredible Melting Man (1977) which is much, much better & a lot gorier. -
sanzar27 May 1999Marshall Thompson (pre - "Daktari") as Commander Chuck Prescott, toplines this modest sci-fier in earnest fashion as he agonizes over the impulsive behavior of his test pilot brother, a hotshot determined to be the "First Man Into Space". Seems brother Chuck just can't follow orders, as he exceeds the safe-altitude limit of his aircraft and is forced to abandon his mission some 300 miles up, only to find himself in the midst of a "hurricane' of meteor dust.
This mysterious meteoric material coats our spaceman with an impervious crust that leaves him looking like a petrified victim from the last days of Pompeii. Not to mention the fact that he also has an insatiable craving for blood (human, animal; any blood will do).
Space happy Chuck manages to shamble from his crash site all the way back to the aerospace lab, commandeering the odd truck & car along the way, taking a few breaks for some throat slashing & blood drinking. You see, he told his brother he would bring back all the "dope" from his test mission, so he's duty bound to get back to the base & make his report.
Having filled in the brass on what happened, Chuck keels over, dead. End of movie. Final tally: 6 or 8 people and 15 or so cows dead, authorities and service types scratching their heads in bewilderment.
The cast is pretty stiff, giving the entire film a pseudo-documentary feel. Italian love interest Marla Landi gets to talk "some Macaroni" (that's Italian, you know)and wring her hands in distress. Everyone else just looks like their in some other kind of distress.
All in all, pretty quaint, but still better than most direct-to-video sci-fi junk produced these days. Worth a look! -
Theo Robertson9 February 2008It's not just Hollywood that is interested in making a fast buck , even the British aren't immune . FIRST MAN INTO SPACE is a rather cynical excersise in remaking a superior story , namely THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT , while pretending that it's an American film by casting a couple of American actors while cutting to a sign saying " Welcome To The American State Of ... " at every opportunity . So ignore the tagline of " The first motion picture to lift the veil of the first man in history to be rocketed into the terrifying unknown of outer space " because Nigel Kneale captured this concept several years earlier . It should also be pointed out that New Mexico where much of the story is set has a lack of vast forests as seen here
The real problem however is that there's a serious lack of internal logic . By this I mean you'll be entirely puzzled as to the monster's motive for killing people . For example a couple of highway cops see a car driving erratically , so they stop the car and find a dead female driver and a man mutated into a monster who then kills the cops . Ask yourself this: How would a crazed bloodthirsty monster be able to drive a car ? Perhaps more importantly why would a driver stop to pick up a crazed blood thirsty monster in the first place ? It also becomes more puzzling that this monster is able to articulate its motives when the script demands it at the end of the film . None of this makes much sense
Of course this is a problem with a great number of horror films where in order to follow horror convention so that someone gets killed every 15 minutes people do things that are totally unrealistic and you could argue that if someone is pointing out these faults then they're taking this film far too seriously . Maybe . But there are also some horror films that compelling and thought provoking and FIRST MAN INTO SPACE isn't one of them -
seattlemuse24 April 2013I also saw this movie in 1959 as an 8-year-old. I went to the theater with my "older" friends, they were like 11-12. The movie scared the wits out of me; I hid my view behind the person sitting in front of me, my friends never let up on making fun of me. This was the first time I had gone to the movies with non-adults...big mistake! The monster was scary and creepy. It haunted me for years. In fact, I probably had some persistent subliminal turmoil over the movie. Fast forward to 2008 and I found the DVD to rent. I watched again, and guess what? The movie is still scary! It's pretty high-camp and was made on a limited budget, but the creepiness is still there. I suppose the fact that the back line story is believable makes it even more scary. Watching it with my wife probably exorcised some demons. Funny how movies can move us, positively or negatively. All my 60 years I can still rehash this event when I was eight. Still the scariest movie I ever saw. I dig it.
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vtcavuoto7 January 2006"First Man into Space" is one of those movies that doesn't have much in the way of thrills but is good viewing nonetheless. Marshall Thompson is good in the lead as a commander for the space program but the rest of the acting is so-so. The space scenes are dated but hold up O.K. Special effects aren't very special but the make-up is pretty cool. So, why do I recommend this film? It's because it's one of those"so-bad-it's-good" movies. Actually, it's not real bad. I wish there was more action in the film. The pacing is a bit slow in parts and some of the lines are laughable. There were far worse films of this genre though. Still, it's something you may want to catch at least once.
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Bill Edward's experimental spaceship vanishes on an attempt to go higher than ever before. When a monster starts to drain the blood of people, first at the air force base, and then elsewhere, his brother, Marshall Thompson, investigates.
It's a production of MGM in England, and its cheapness shines through. There's lots of stock footage, often of Chuck Yeager, and of US war planes on the ground. There's also some subtext about the risk of ambition, but it's mostly about the "there are some things man was not meant to know" trope. Geoffrey Faithfull, who started as a cinematographer with Hepworth in the 1910s and would work for another decade, shoots the movie efficiently. -
Bruce_Cook2 March 2002A first rate little sci-fi story, told on a modest budget. Air Force office Marshall Thompson (star of 'It! The Terror from Beyond Space', and 'Fiend Without a Face') is the Earth-bound brother of an undisciplined test pilot who yearns to be be the 'first man into space'.
While testing a new rocket plane, the pilot kicks in all his reserve power and takes his ship right out of the atmosphere. Please note that this not a far-fetched idea in view of the fact that the X-15 had special attitude rockets along the fuselage to allow it to maneuver in the near vacuum of the upper atmosphere!
In space the pilot encounters a strange cloud of meteoric particles that smashes through his canopy and envelopes both his ship and his spacesuit-clad body in a flexible, asbestos-like coating. The material alters his physiology, changing him into creature that can survive in the low pressure of the upper atmosphere but NOT in the killing pressure at sea level.
He returns to Earth as a hideous monster (good makeup), gasping as his lungs struggled with the pressure that he's now unsuited for. In his dazed and desperate mental condition, the monster commits acts of violence, using the razor-sharp edges of his rough coating to slash his victims flesh.
While trying to track down the monster, Thomas and a scientist discuss the possibility of using the strange substance on the wreckage of the rocket plane as a heat shield for future space craft. Nice thinking, there.
All in all, a film with more to think about than to laugh at, unlike so many other low budget 1950s films. -
Hitchcoc6 June 2015A not too exceptional fifties science fiction film involves an impulsive astronaut who can't follow orders. The up side is that it has allowed the program to go ahead by leaps and bounds; the down side is that he is out of control. On a dangerous mission, he breaks through the earth's atmosphere and finds himself in orbit. While there, he passes through some space dust which coats his ship and him. The ship comes down, an automatic parachute breaking the fall (sort of hard to swallow) and when it is found, Dan is gone. We finally get to see him. He is in a monster suit that is impenetrable (actually it's his skin). He also has a lust for as many pint of bloods as he can get his hands on. He goes on a killing rampage. Hs brother, who warned him about his lack of coach-ability (spoilsport), is trying to save him while other work to do him in. He ransacks a blood bank and siphons several innocent people. The movie shots of space are better done than most, but the acting is stiff and uninspiring, with dull sets and little real action.
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lee_eisenberg10 June 2006While the plot involves a man getting blasted off into space, running into a meteor shower, and getting turned into something resembling a golem carved out of rock and having a strong desire for blood, I notice something else here. There seem to be some references to marijuana. Aside from the fact that they talk about the astronaut being very "high", he says that he'll bring back the "dope". If only they knew what they were saying! As for the movie itself, "First Man Into Space" was mostly like any '50s sci-fi flick. Although what the Italian woman said seems more relevant than ever: "Sometimes you have to understand that people are more important than science." As it is, if I'd had a hubby like that babe, you couldn't have paid me to go into space! All in all, nothing special, but worth seeing.
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planktonrules18 June 2009I love 1950s sci-fi films, so seeing FIRST MAN INTO SPACE is a natural. While there are usually two types of sci-fi from the era, serious and bug-eyed monster types, this film managed to be a little of both. In the process, it ended up being neither so super-cheesy it was funny nor serious enough to merit seeing--making it instead an adequate time-passer.
The first third of the film has to do with the experimental rocket plane program of the 1950s. Instead of calling them 'X planes' (like they actually referred to them at the time), they were called 'Y planes' and were concerned with seeing if a rocket plane fired from a bomber (in this case, an old B-50) could pass through the Earth's atmosphere. Problems seemed certain when a hot-shot pilot (the brother of the Commander in charge of this specific program) showed a lack of restraint and caution--taking unnecessary risks to go farther and higher than anyone before this time. Eventually, on the second flight, he actually does leave orbit and then something terrible occurs. The plane crashes, but the pilot is nowhere to be seen. Unknown to everyone is that the guy was alive...of sorts, and is now an enemy of mankind (what else?).
Overall, despite being released by MGM, it has all the marks of a reasonably well-done B-movie from a secondary film studio. All of the actors are unknowns or nearly unknowns and some times they tend to talk over each other's lines. As far as the special effects go, mostly they were excellent for the era...but the guy with the slime layer over him is a bit silly (you'll just need to see it to understand). -
Ah, just what I love, a '50s B-movie. This low budget, shuddery sci-fi shocker uses much the same premise as THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN would twenty years later, but obviously without the gore. The plot is pretty minimal, and with most '50s films, the main thrust concentrates on pseudo scientific babble about why what has happened has happened. Although the film is obviously dated because of this, it's kind of fun too, as we listen to the gobbledegook about 'cosmic dust' and stuff like that. Very funny indeed.
The cast is nothing to write home about, but the dialogue can be hilarious and frequently is, because it has dated so badly. The man of the title is an excitable chap who speaks like one of the teens from I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF all grown up, talking about "dope" and other silly things. The rest of the cast are all pretty stiff and stilted in their delivery of their clichéd lines, but there's no need to worry about that, it's just typical for a film like this.
The special effects aren't bad. The space travel looks quite poor in these post-STAR WARS days, but at least it has some imagination put into it and has that odd quality of looking fake and unrealistic yet looking interesting, magical even, in a way that CGI animation can't create. I can't explain it very well. The makeup for the monster is surprisingly simple and effective, he just looks like he's been covered in some molten rock or something which has then settled. I like the way you can see one of his eyes too.
While FIRST MAN INTO SPACE may not be original, or scary, it remains a solid piece of entertainment from a much different time. The scenes of the rampaging monster and weird space travel deserve classic status, these types of things WERE cinema in the '50s. Not brilliant, but okay anyway. -
Bunuel197627 April 2007Lame rip-off of THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1955): the first half is deadly dull, even dreary - but the latter stages improve considerably with the scenes involving the rampaging 'monster'. In the accompanying featurette (a rather dry affair at a mere 9 minutes, when compared to the ones created for the other titles in Criterion's "Monsters & Madmen" set), director Day - who admits to not being a fan of the sci-fi genre - tries to justify the film's shortcomings by saying that he had a zero-budget to work with (where all the outer space scenes were composed of stock footage!)...and I'd have been inclined to be more lenient with the film had I not recently watched CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (1959) - a similar (and similarly threadbare) but far more stylish venture from Italy!
Bill Edwards as the cocky but unlucky astronaut - obsessed with achieving the titular feat - is positively boring at first, but he eventually manages to garner audience sympathy when his physical features are deformed and the character develops a taste for blood! Marshall Thompson as his commanding officer and elder brother is O.K. as a leaner Glenn Ford type; he had previously starred in FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (1958), another (and more successful) Richard Gordon-produced sci-fi which, incidentally, is also available on DVD through Criterion. Italian starlet Marla Landi, struggling with the English language, makes for an inadequate female lead; even her input in the featurette proves to be of little lasting value!
The Audio Commentary is yet another enjoyable Tom Weaver/Richard Gordon track where, among many things, the fact that FIRST MAN INTO SPACE was intended as a double-feature with CORRIDORS OF BLOOD (1958) is brought up - but it was eventually put out as a standalone release, so as to exploit the topical news value of the current space race; it's also mentioned that the monster dialogue was actually dubbed by Bonar Colleano (who, tragically, died in a traffic accident prior to the film's release!). Weaver even recalls a couple of anecdotes from the time when he was involved in the production of the DVD featurette shot by, of all people, ex-cult-ish film-maker Norman J. Warren: Landi, who by then had become a lady of title, was still ready to help out in carrying the equipment necessary to film the interview down several flights of stairs!; Edwards was supposed to have contributed to the featurette but, once in London, he proved reluctant to co-operate with Weaver - eventually, the latter learned that the actor had been recently diagnosed with cancer and, in fact, he died in 2002! -
Cosmoeticadotcom7 June 2012All in all, First Man Into Space is a solid example of mid-level 1950s science fiction. It's not on par with Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Forbidden Planet, Gojira, nor The Day The Earth Stood Still, but it's amongst the better entries in the second tier, and a good deal of the 'believability factor' has to be credited to the always underrated Marshall Thompson. In both presence and ability, he was one of the few B film actors it can honestly be said it was a shame that he wasted his talent in them. The obvious exemplar of this was Vincent Price, but not even Price could pull off military and leading man roles the way Thompson did. And, although he eventually did garner some level of fame on television, to me, he will always be best recalled in such films as this, where the joy received, especially to young boys, was always far greater than it reasonably should have been. And how many films, A, B, C, or Z, can claim that?
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dfranzen7029 March 2014Released ten years before man actually landed on the Moon and during the height of the race to the stars between Russia and the United States, First Man into Space is oddly deficient in actual science. No, it's not very good, but it's okay for a few unintentional laughs.
Simple plot runs like this: cocky ace test pilot Dan Prescott (Bill Edwards) is on a mission to fly an experimental plane/rocket (it's kind of both) up, up, and away, higher than anyone's gone before, and then come back down, nice and easy. But our Dan, he's a daredevil! So he goes higher and higher, trying to become the first man to go into space. Not the first IN space, just into it. I know, it's sketchy. Anyway, he does come back down, sasses his superior – his brother Charlie (Marshall Thompson) – and is immediately assigned to pilot the next plane, to go even higher.
Which he does, only instead of making his turn and heading back Earthward, Daring Dan goes higher and higher, and this time his craft, bombarded by meteorites (I know, I know) and the ever-popular cosmic rays, is smashed open. Dan and the ship crashland. And then the killings start, and no one can find ol' Dan's body.
As the picture hints, there may be some kind of ugly monster involved. I don't want to give away the twisty plot, but – oh, who am I kidding, there is no twisty plot. Dan's survived his crash, only he's now covered in some sort of protective layer of cosmic whatever. Seems that when his ship broke apart, this stuff coalesced on Dan's mortal human body in order to protect him from those nasty cosmic rays. (Doesn't explain how he could breathe when there was no air to be breathed, but perhaps they were SUPER COSMIC RAYS, now with added Oxygen!)
Anyway, it's a funny movie. -
opsbooks10 April 2008I came across this movie and wrongly assumed it was a cobbled together compilation of three episodes of William Lundigan's classic MEN INTO SPACE TV series, the year of release (1959) being the same. I've not seen the latter since it first screened in Australia around 1960 so momentarily forgot that the hero in that series was Colonel Edward McCauley and not Commander Charles Prescott! The box art should have cured my memory as McCauley would never have faced a monster.
Much to my surprise I did enjoy the movie. Why my high rating? Considering the low budget, the result was an entertaining, generally well-acted movie. The story was good, certainly well above average for the period when so much dross was being screened. The script could have been better but the actors managed to rise above it for the most part. The photography and direction were first rate.
In one line, I'd suggest this movie was value for money.
The DVD, in Australia anyway, is a good transfer. A cheap release but with no extras. -
g-hbe6 February 2019I don't think I've ever seen Marshall Thompson look so gosh-darned serious in any other film. Mind you, if I had a brother as impetuous and unpredictable as he did, I'd probably think twice before giving him the controls of my new high-altitude rocket plane. Not once, but twice he pushes his luck and goes too high, and on the second occasion things get out of hand. What transpires is somewhat reminiscent of the BBC's production of Nigel Kneale's 'The Quatermass Experiment' of 1953, later made into a feature film by Hammer. (Spoiler alert) The horribly-changed astronaut needs blood and goes on the rampage to find it. It's impossible not to feel pity for the poor man/creature as he struggles to breathe and does anything he can to survive. Despite the poverty-row production, this is a very watchable film.
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ebeckstr-119 December 2020This subpar rip off of the British classic The Quatermass Experiment is chock full of stock footage in the first half and inadequate acting throughout. It suffers from poor pacing, a more or less non-existent score (a low-budget deficit which makes the pacing even more excruciating), one of the worst rubber suit monsters of the decade, and two fairly unlikable main protagonists. In addition, the movie's message, which amounts to "militaristic progress at all costs," makes this movie one of the more conformist products of the Cold War era. It is passibly, if snoozily, interesting as a historical artifact, but has none of the panache, endearing dialogue, craftsmanship, or repeated watchability of other low-budget movies such as The Thing from Another World.