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16 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Only of some historical interest, 24 April 2007
Author: (winner55) from United States

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.

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15 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Silly low budget Italian sci fi adventure., 5 August 2002
Author: Infofreak from Perth, Australia

'Space Men', directed by Anthony Daisies (aka Anthony M. Dawson of 'Cannibal Apocalypse' infamy), is a low budget, and I mean LOW budget, 60s Italian sci fi adventure. Anyone expecting a stylish gem ala Mario Bava's 'Planet Of The Vampires' will be sorely disappointed, and anyone expecting an Ed Wood worst-movie-ever-made laughfest will also not get what they expect. This movie is neither of the two, but if you take it for what it is - basically a simple 40s style pulp plot with special effects a smart 12 year old could build in their own backyard - it is a fairly enjoyable slice of silliness.

The wonderfully named Rik Van Nutter ('Thunderball') plays an arrogant (but actually quite decent underneath) space reporter who is sent as an observer on a space mission. He clashes with the arrogant (but actually quite decent underneath) ship Commander (Alain Dijon - 'La Dolce Vita'). The two also vie for the affections of the lovely Lucy (Gabriella Farinon) in between trying to save Earth from possible destruction by an out of control space ship. Yes, it's that kind of movie. Entertaining enough but nothing special.

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13 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
A nice little space opera but for one glaring scene, 18 October 2002
5/10
Author: Rich Meyer (muzik@ptd.net) from Saint Clair, Pennsylvania

I kinda like Assignment Outer Space. It's a real simple little sci-fi flick with your typically bad Italian effects. One scene made the movie for me though.

There's a scene where an astronaut tries to escape a crash by jumping down to one of Mars' moons (strangely similar to the big budget Mission to Mars). Suddenly, there's an explosion when his ship hits. Unfortunately, the person handling the mattes was apparently sleeping that day, because you see an explosion in front of a bunch of buildings and behind a Chevy. Here we are in deep space near the Red Planet and there's a Chevy on a street in Italy. One of the most jarringly funny scenes I ever saw in a grade z movie.

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11 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
I spent 30 years trying to find this flick again!, 12 March 2004
6/10
Author: davidemartin (davidemartin@cs.com) from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

I saw it on a Saturday matinee double feature sometime in the '60s. And then completely forgot the name of it. The one thing I remembered was the spaceship with the dead crew and the deadly forcefield that destroyed any ship remotely near it. Which of course was not enough to base a search on.

And it didn't help that I thought Ed Platt played a role in it, as the spaceman who dies trying to stop the deathship.

I lucked out when I bought a $5 DVD of it on a lark and, lo and behold, it was the film I'd been looking for!

Anyway, if you want to see a great example of a scifi space flick prior to 2001, give this a try.

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8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Battlestar Romantica, 10 June 2006
5/10
Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

I only wanted to see this movie because it looked like charming 60's Sci-Fi and, most importantly, because it was the first film directed by Antonio Margheriti (A. Dawson) who would later become one of Italy's most reliable horror/western/crime filmmakers. "Assignment: Outer Space" is a pretty insignificant and poorly produced science-fiction romp, but it's entertaining and you can clearly detect the enthusiasm of both director and cast-members. The first half is boring and filled with clichés, but the second half and particularly the climax offers some amusing, albeit textbook space adventure. The recently (October 2005) deceased Rik Van Nutter plays a pulpy reporter on board of a routine space mission and falls in love with the only female crew member, who's actually sort of like involved with the captain of the mission already. This results in a somewhat hostile relationship between all the passengers, until they all have to get over their personal troubles and prevent an unmanned ship to crash down on earth. The sets and special effects couldn't look more amateurish, still I think this actually ADDS to the charm of these kind of movies. In case you don't like fake planets made out of carbon or astronauts on strings, this certainly isn't your movie.

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7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Now I Know What Eternity Is Like!, 24 April 2006
2/10
Author: Hitchcoc from United States

I, too, got this in a collection. As my son and I watched it, we thought it would never end. The slow talking, slow moving presentation. The overt seriousness of everything. The long dull explanations and speech making. It just never ends. Not to mention, "Why is it exactly that Earth is going to be destroyed?" I guess we just need to take their word for it. The acting is so stiff. The reporter guy is such a loose cannon. He has his own agenda. He is given way too much responsibility for a guy there just to report the facts. Then there is the romance. The captain has virtually no personality, yet is admired by the token woman on the flight. When things don't work, we don't know why exactly. We don't really know why throwing things at a power source is enough to disrupt the force field or whatever. It's just so inane.

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8 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
afterthoughts, 2 July 2006
3/10
Author: Ivan Bradley from England

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 way

The 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

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13 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Not a silly movie., 2 September 2005
9/10
Author: cieloliquido from Italy

Kubrick didn't think Marghriti's movies were so silly. Watch them carefully and you will find 2001.

Hear the desolation of the space, when Rick swims for the first time in the space.

Pay attention to the mad space ship that kills its crew.

Follow the beginning, when the spacemen wake up: not so different from the awakening of 2001.

Watch all his science fiction movies carefully and you will find 2001.

think he had no money and this is the first experiment, the first Italian sci-fi movie.

Margheriti deserves much more respect.

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8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Not the director's best work, 23 September 2005
2/10
Author: (nenslo@yahoo.com) from Portland Oregon USA

I found that this movie actually slows down time. It seemed to take a lot longer to watch than its actual running time. I was impressed in good and bad ways by certain aspects of the movie: good in that it placed a black man in a major and very sympathetic (though ultimately tragic) role, bad in that it was nearly incoherent in every major dramatic moment. The occasional "stirring philosophical monologues" which being in space seems to inspire were truly baffling head- shakers. The most impressive thing of all, and the one I will recall long after the rest of the movie has faded in my memory, was an effect sequence so cheesy that the explosion of a spaceship over one of the moons of mars was emphasized by cutting in a half second of footage of an explosion occurring BETWEEN TWO CARS IN A PARKING LOT. I went back and looked at it very carefully to confirm this. I couldn't help feeling that, like the Russo-American pastiches Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, the model shots might have been swiped from a slightly better film made in another country. The director is also responsible for my all-time favorite sci-fi film, The Wild Wild Planet, which seems to have everything this one lacks, including a Butterfly Dance. I don't think even a Butterfly Dance would make me want to see this, or even a few minutes of this, again.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
any movie starring Rick Von Nutter-must have something going for it.., 9 September 2001
8/10
Author: ephiriel from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I caught this one on the late-night movie screening...who knew that i would walk away from it not knowing wether i had actually enjoyed it?...but in the end i decided that i had enjoyed it.

the story line is not bad....the staging & effects were low budget. But the things i enjoyed most though were the "disintegration" scenes, the "space craft landing/take-off" scenes, the "jumping out of the spacecraft" scenes & who could not forget the final heroic scene before they all go hurtling into Earths' atmosphere???

i would have rated it more than 4.6... probably around the 6-7 mark for this one :)

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