La morte viene dallo spazio (1958)

Scientists discover that a group of meteors are hurtling on a collison course with Earth, and if they hit, the planet will be destroyed.

Director:

Paolo Heusch

Writers:

Sandro Continenza, Marcello Coscia

Stars:

Paul Hubschmid, Fiorella Mari, Madeleine Fischer

Cast

Credited cast:
Paul Hubschmid	...	John McLaren
Fiorella Mari	...	Mary McLaren
Madeleine Fischer	...	Katy Dandridge (as Madeline Fischer)
Ivo Garrani	...	Prof. Herbert Weisse
Dario Michaelis	...	Peter Leduq (as Darrio Michaelis)
Peter Meersman	...	Gen. van Dorff
Jean-Jacques Delbo	...	Sergei Boetnikov (as Jean Jacques Delbo)
Massimo Zeppieri	...	Dennis McLaren
Sam Galter	...	Randowsky
Annie Berval	...	Lab Assistant
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gérard Landry	...	Landowsky
Livio Lorenzon	...	British General
Shane Rimmer	...	John McLaren (voice)
Giacomo Rossi Stuart	...	Stuart (as Giacomo Rossi-Stuart)
Gianni Solaro	...	French General

Storyline

Scientists discover that a group of meteors are hurtling on a collison course with Earth, and if they hit, the planet will be destroyed.

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Plot Keywords:

mass panic | tsunami | radar screen | international cooperation | asteroid | 

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Genres:

Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Italy France

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

27 September 1961 (USA)

Also Known As:

Death from Outer Space

Company Credits

Production Co:

Compagnie Cinématographique de France, Lux Film, Royal Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

82 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Trivia

The voice of the American astronaut character, John McLaren is provided by Shane Rimmer, Canadian actor better known for voicing Scott Tracey of the English series Thunderbirds (1965).

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Goofs

In the control room there is a large world map which is drawn very poorly. One would expect such a map to be very accurate, but South America and Africa are clearly distorted.

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Crazy Credits

For the English dubbed version, director of photography Mario Bava's name is given as "Mario Baja." His camera operator, Ubaldo Terzano, is listed as "Uraldo Terzano."

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Connections

Edited into Out of this World Super Shock Show (2007)

User Reviews

Some interesting ideas indifferently executed.

The film begins with a nuclear powered rocket flight to the moon. Something goes wrong and the pilot is able to eject. However, the self-destruct mechanism is not activated and the ship blows up in the sun. As a result, it causes so much havoc that a group of killer meteors are bumped towards Earth and the planet is doomed. While the whole idea of a nuclear explosion damaging the sun or having any effect on it is silly, the idea of rogue meteors is pretty cool--and has been the subject of several more recent films.

Unfortunately, while there is something to some of the plot, this Italian film also has a lot against it. First, instead of subtitles, it was dubbed into English. Some of the voices are just terrible (such as the reporter and the whiny sounding kid) and I always prefer subtitles. Additionally, since this film is brought to us by Alpha Video, you can safely assume the print will be terrible--which it definitely is. While some of Alpha's films are great because they aren't available elsewhere, too often they are grainy and never have captions. They are strictly a grade-z producer of DVDs--and this is no exception.

In addition, even if the film was subbed and a pristine copy, it would still only perhaps merit a 5. Overall, a forgettable film.