First Man Into Space (1959)

The first pilot to leave Earth's atmosphere lands, then vanishes; but something with a craving for blood prowls the countryside...

Director:

Robert Day

Writers:

John Croydon (screenplay), Charles F. Vetter (screenplay),

Stars:

Marshall Thompson, Marla Landi, Bill Edwards

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Marshall Thompson	...	Cmdr. Charles Ernest Prescott
Marla Landi	...	Tia Francesca
Bill Edwards	...	Lt. Dan Milton Prescott
Robert Ayres	...	Capt. Ben Richards
Bill Nagy	...	Police Chief Wilson
Carl Jaffe	...	Dr. Paul von Essen
Roger Delgado	...	Mexican Consul - Ramon de Guerrera
John McLaren	...	State Dept. Official, Harold Atkins
Spencer Teakle	...	Ratings Control Room
Chuck Keyser	...	Ratings Control Room
John Fabian	...	Ratings Control Room
Richard Shaw	...	Witney
Bill Nick	...	Clancy (as William R. Nick)
Helen Forrest	...	Secretary (as Helen Forest)
Roland Brand	...	Truck Driver (as Rowland Brand)

Storyline

Navy test pilot Lieut. Dan Prescott, in experimental rocket plane Y-13, disobeys orders and becomes the first man to fly outside the ionosphere. Unable to turn, he ejects...and is plastered with metallic meteor dust. The pilot compartment lands with no trace of the pilot... but first cattle, then people, are found with their throats cut as if with an axe, by something that seems to have a craving for blood...

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Plot Keywords:

dust | rocket | alien | police chase | new mexico | 

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Taglines:

First motion picture to lift the veil, forsee the future in a spectacular drama of the first man in history to be rocketed into the terrifying unknown of outer space!

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Genres:

Drama | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 February 1959 (USA)

Also Known As:

De eerste ruimtevaarder

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

£100,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Amalgamated Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

77 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Bill Edwards' voice is dubbed.

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Goofs

The test aircraft are repeated said to have to pass through "the heat barrier" and then "the controllability barrier" - two "barriers" that do not exist.

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Quotes

Doctor Paul von Essen: The conquest of new worlds always makes demands of human life. And there will always be men who will accept the risk.

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Connections

Referenced in Making Space (2007)

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Soundtracks

"Blue Fever"
(uncredited)
Music by Ronald Binge and Leslie Vinall
Josef Weinberger Ltd

User Reviews

Stiff As A Bored

What if Ed Wood had an actual budget of some type? And he really, really, really applied himself in his directing chores? And maybe had some other person do a polish on the script for him, to smooth out some of his legendary surreal dialog? And then he hired some people as actors that were much less embarrassing than anyone in his usual stock player company?

The result would have been something close to First Man Into Space.

It has a low budget, and some really obvious science fiction tropes. Everyone plays the whole scenario deadly seriously, but not SO seriously that they enter bizarro world, say, in the manner of Criswell in Plan Nine From Outer Space. If you want to be generous, you could say the acting is reserved and tasteful. If you want to be less generous, you could say the performances are stiff and mind-numbingly boring.

There have been many other bad, low budget science fiction movies with similar premises (astronaut goes into space, comes back to Earth as inhuman monster), such as The Crawling Hand, The Incredible Melting Man, and that abomination to end all abominations, Monster-A-Go-Go. I'm sure there were some that pre-date this film as well.

Nobody's shaming themselves here, but still, this is not worth seeking out as some sort of lost classic or anything. There are many science fiction classics of yore you should check out before this one. If you want a bonafide well-done, outstanding film, it isn't this. By the same token, if you want a hilarious, goofy, over-the-top slab of goofball incompetence to mock and deconstruct, this is not that type of movie either. Put this one on the back burner, there's plenty of other flicks to get to before you spend 75 minutes with this puppy.