Assignment: Outer Space (1960) User Reviews

A nice little space opera but for one glaring scene

[Vigilante-407 · 5/10 · 18 October 2002]

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.

It's Not As Bad As Some Say It Is

[sddavis63 · 5/10 · 19 August 2009]

Set on board a space ship in the year 2116, this movie has a number of problems that have to be overcome if you're going to enjoy it at all. First and foremost is the completely wooden and often lifeless acting, which the actors try to compensate for by trying (and failing) to make every scene seem as if it's the most important scene in the movie. There are also some pretty significant plot problems. First, there really is no story until about halfway through the movie. Originally, our intrepid group of explorers are heading to "Galaxy M-12," then they're heading to Mars for some mysterious reason, then they're suddenly diverted to Venus by order of "the High Command." Finally, upon the diversion to Venus, we're told that unless this ship can do something about it, the earth is going to be destroyed by some sort of rogue spaceship. I wasn't entirely clear, though, on why the earth was going to be destroyed. I was a little confused as well about why, half-way into the movie, Ray says "it's Christmas, Lucy." The line just hung there. It came out of nowhere and nothing came from it. So, both the story and the acting are a bit ridiculous. However ...

There are some good points here. Gene Roddenberry is usually given credit for introducing minorities in command positions on "Star Trek," but I thought it was interesting that the engineer on this ship was black (played by Archie Savage, who had previously had minor roles in such movies as "South Pacific" and "The Ten Commandments") - and he was no token. He had important things to do, including a noble act of self-sacrifice. More thought was put into the conditions of outer space and weightlessness than a lot of low-budget sci-fi movies of that era worried about, and the on-board effects were not bad, as the crew clomped about the ship in their magnetic boots. The set was also fairly futuristic looking. Unfortunately, some of the animated space travel was rather poorly done. Once the crisis was introduced, there was a moderate amount of suspense about whether or not the earth could be saved. You know what? This isn't good, but it really isn't as bad as some people say it is. 5/10

Battlestar Romantica

[Coventry · 5/10 · 10 June 2006]

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.

Only of some historical interest

[winner55 · 24 April 2007]

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.

One for Quality and Two for Trying

[polsixe · 3/10 · 6 January 2008]

OK, bad FX but given it was 1960 don't be too harsh in that judgment. Not having seen all SF films from that era it's hard to say whether it was below standard or not. Star Trek didn't get so much better by 1967, substituting flashing lights for analog gauges and completely rewriting/ignoring physics. I liked some of the techno babble here - the multi-stage rocket, the sleep chamber, the arched trusses inside the space station, weightlessness, hydrazine, the paramilitary dialogue. Tossing objects out to detect the beams and stay in the middle seems reasonable and inventive for a mere reporter. "Pecking the lobe" is an electronic way to do the same thing against enemy radar in modern warfare. There was a story here but things got compromised, as usual in movies time and space (ie distances), are ignored in order to cut to the chase (see Armageddon, 1997). The guy waxing philosophical during his space walk has been done in almost every space movie since, and even Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, et al spoke that way once on earth. Anyhow, good for a laugh.

Deep space soap opera

[Chase_Witherspoon · 3/10 · 6 August 2012]

Days of Our Lives in space is the best way in which to describe this dreary, laborious non-event. Intrepid reporter (Nutter) is granted access to a space station on which the crew are less than excited about his presence to the extent he quickly earns the nickname of "Leech". Predictably, he becomes a burden in the name of any moral cause that emerges, causing conflict among the crew as they try to save the earth from oblivion.

Nutter made a very brief impression in films when we played Felix Leiter in the James Bond instalment "Thunderball", but his acting leaves a lot to be desired, hampered further by the inane dialogue that leads him to compare the hot young female cosmonaut (Farion) to that of a mascot chimp that belonged to this father. Archie Savage and Franco Fantasia are the only other recognisable names in the cast playing chivalrous space heroes, while veteran spaghetti movie-maker Antonio Margheriti directs his second picture.

A lot of goofy explanations and additional narrative is supplied via voice-over, while miniatures do their job at depicting outer space paraphernalia. The special effects are spectacularly infantile, but the plot thickens nicely and the tension almost makes palpable as the puerile dialogue pours on the sympathy like rivers of gravy over this proverbial turkey. But how can you not like a movie that features an actor by the name of "Alain Dijon"?

afterthoughts

[Ivan_Bradley · 3/10 · 2 July 2006]

Thanks to junk-monkey ([e-mail]) 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

My Three year old daughter makes up more coherent stories than this.

[junk-monkey · 2/10 · 13 June 2005]

This is one of those movies you've never heard of in the box sets of 50 SF movies on DVD that no one in their right mind apart from masochists like me ever watch. Luckily for you I have watched it so you don't have to. Honestly. Read the reviews. Read the external reviews by clicking the link over there <----- but don't waste your time watching the actual movie. Please!

The Story: In 2116, in a future where everyone has a name and an alpha numerical code name painted on their backs and obeys orders from "The High Command", roving reporter Ray Peterson is sent to report on a routine mission to "check on infra radiation flux on Galaxy M13". The fact that he and the crew are put into hibernation for the trip would suggest that Galaxy M13 is a long long long way away - Wrong! If the movies internal logic (hah!) is to be believed Galaxy M13 is somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Venus. Planets that our intrepid crew zoom off to at the drop of a hat without getting deep froze - so why bother with all that malarkey in the first trip out? Dunno. But it does give the American editors a chance to cut in some switches and buttons with English words on them. "Peak Wow" and "Max Db" were two I spotted that were probably filmed in the dubbing studio as they recorded the dialogue. "Ok we need another shot of a switch here, just flip that one will you... OK, got that, what's next?"

Anyway, so there he is on Space Station XYZ-Bravo-Three or whatever it is called and has a testosterone moment with the grumpy captain. Then he sneaks out to watch the ship he came in being refuelled. Suddenly! there is a bad special effect and he pushes a suited figure out of the way of a hurtling meteorite (WOW!) it turns out later he has saved Lucy (AKA Y13) the only piece of girl-flesh within a bejillion miles! Soon Ace Space Nutter gets wind of a secret mission and blags his way on-board and they are zipping off to Mars with Nutter strap hanging all the way as there aren't enough seats for him (Though why he doesn't go lie on one the neato curved beds that they put all the people they rescue later is a bit of a puzzle).

Van-von Nutter finds out what the secret mission is all about. They are off to save Earth. A nuclear spaceship Alpha-two is running out of control and generating a sphere of deadly heat which will turn the whole planet to boiling mud unless... unless... unless they do something!

On the way to Mars they encounter another space ship in distress (I think the wick had gone out in the engine) and it was crashing into Mars! But no it wasn't crashing into Mars at all! because one of Mars' moons suddenly gets in the way! Argh! One of the stricken ships crew jumps out (WHY?) and the other one crashes his ship in the worst, I mean THE WORST special effect ever. In the history of everything - and that includes Ed Wood's hub caps.

I mean this is total sh*t. It's a stream of consciousness "...and then, and then..." screenplay. This script was written by secretly tape recording two Italian kids playing Space Rangers in their back garden. My Three year old daughter, Holly, makes up more coherent stories than this.

Our gallant crew land on Phobos and rescue the guy who jumped - then zip off to Venus. Damn! Wrong planet! I guess they had the map upside down.

On Venus (which turns out to be a lot nearer the runaway) they all stand around with their arms folded as nukes are fired at Alpha-two. All explode at 5000 miles from the target, apart from one, which convinces Al that there is a way Alpha-two can be destroyed - all power by the way to this movie for having a strong black character - the sphere of force is being generated in two halves with a thin gap between them. They borrow another space ship and try for a closer shot down the gap. Suddenly Space Station XYZ is in the Alpha-two's direct line of flight and all the crew are going to die except for two who are outside on a space taxi. (How big IS the solar system by the way?) Y13 and Space Ace go off to rescue them and Al gets blown up trying to sneak down the gap. Then Space Ace Nutter gets on board the Space taxi and by judicious throwing away of "spare bits" of it, he pilots a way through.

Hurrah!

He gets inside. He tries to disconnect the Electronic Brain but it's got really tough cables you know, but luckily all space ships have a pair of HUGE bolt croppers under the co-pilot's seat so he chops all the power cables. Terrific! the Earth is saved. Only fly in the ointment? - he has just buggered up power to the automatic door that he needs to get out of before he is toasted Space Ace. He also, in a moment of sheer genius, managed to throw away a vital bit of his space suit. But all space ships also have oxy-Acetaline cutting gear! They rescue him. The End - thank God!

Some of the science in this SF movie is just hysterical even to a layman like me.

"What are these? - Flowers?" asks roving Space Hunk Van/Von Nutter."No," replies Space Babe Lucy (Y13 - who, by the way, has a very nice bum)."They are converting hydrogen into breathable oxygen." What???? Hydrogen into Oxygen??? They have plants that do cold fusion!!!!!!

DO NOT watch this film. Go read a book instead. The High Command orders it.

Now I Know What Eternity Is Like!

[Hitchcoc · 2/10 · 24 April 2006]

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.

Not the director's best work

[ONenslo · 2/10 · 23 September 2005]

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.

"He still smells Earthy."

[classicsoncall · 3/10 · 16 May 2006]

Had the film maker taken a lighter approach, this picture might have had more of a chance. At what I don't know, but given the monotone personality of every cast member aboard Bravo Zulu 88, this is a movie that takes itself way too seriously. By the time Commander George (David Montresor) laments the human condition of making so much progress that we have lost ourselves, I knew it was time to hit the space warp button.

I'm always amazed at the way these era sci-fi flicks allow whoever's in charge to just make decisions without checking in with anyone. References to a High Command aside, when a rogue space body threatens to destroy Earth, it's up to George to change course from Mars to Venus because of course, it's on the closest elliptical path to Alpha 2.

Here's my question - when reporter Ray Peterson (Rik Von Nutter) makes his way aboard the Alpha 2, how could he tell that the pilot in the hibernation cell was dead? Couldn't he have just been asleep?

Searching restlessly for even a minor break in the monotony, closeups of the instrument panel on BZ88 focused for a brief second on the term 'Peak Wow'. That was probably a defining moment, either that or George's command to black crew member Al X15 (Archie Savage) to retreat from his suicide mission. Al must have thought he had to stick around till the end of the movie, because in a valiant voice he proclaims - "I'm sorry Sir, but I'm not taking orders anymore."

Not a silly movie.

[cieloliquido · 9/10 · 2 September 2005]

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.

I spent 30 years trying to find this flick again!

[davidemartin · 6/10 · 12 March 2004]

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.

Not bad

[arfdawg-1 · 5/10 · 5 June 2014]

This movie is not as bad as some of the reviews suggest.

It's made on a shoestring budget but still pretty neat.

The special effects are better than you'd expect considering and it keeps your attention.

The plot.

In the 21st century.

Ray Peterson, reporter for the Interplanetary News, is assigned to write a story aboard a space station.

Tension mounts between Peterson and the station commander, who believes he is in the way, but has orders to leave him alone.

Errant spaceship Alpha Two enters the solar system and its photon generators are radiating enough heat to destroy Earth as it approaches.

It falls to Peterson to try to figure out a way to enter the spaceship, disarm the generators, and escape before suffocating.

Silly low budget Italian sci fi adventure.

[Infofreak · 5 August 2002]

'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.

Italians Lost In Space

[gftbiloxi · 2/10 · 10 June 2007]

Now and then you encounter a film so tiresome that the thought reviewing it is every bit as tiresome as the film itself. Such is the case with ASSIGNMENT: OUTER SPACE, also known as SPACE MEN, a 1960 Italian flick.

The story is unimpressive. A reporter (Rik Van Nutter) is assigned to cover the goings-on aboard a space station--and happens to arrive just in time for a nuclear space ship to go out of control and threaten the earth and everyone on it. So they all blast off for Mars, and then they blast off for Venus, and then they blast off for the runaway space ship. There is a romantic subplot and more uninspired cliffhangers than a Pearl White serial.

The special effects aren't, the actors are stiff, and there are numerous insults to audience intelligence along the way. The absolute best thing I can say for this movie is that I've seen worse dubbing jobs--and now and then it does have an idea that seems interesting, although in truth nothing much comes of it. Unless you are a die-hard fan of lousy 1960s sci-fi, give this one a miss.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

60's Space Crap

[gamera64 · 3/10 · 27 January 2007]

Antonio Margheriti's 60's outer-space saga is pretty typical of the Italian space stuff being done at the time.

Here's the plot with spoilers: OK, this reporter guy is constantly treated like crap throughout this whole movie. The only guy that's nice to him at all is this black dude with white hair and he calls him a leech all the time!(and I guess the chick who grows flowers is sorta nice to him to) So anyway there's a bunch of scenes of them floating around space(and I guess they have some special kind of suits that let them steer and swim around in whatever direction they want to go) then another spaceship crashes on Mars and we actually see some stock-footage shot of an explosion right next to a car(which I guess someone left parked on Mars?). Then another ship is on a runaway crash-course with the earth which they say is gonna wipe out all humanity somehow. I guess it had a lot of nukes on it? So the black dude gets killed trying to stop it then the reporter dude knocks out the captain guy with one wimpy-ass looking punch and saves the earth. Oh yeah and of course he gets the girl in the end(even though she was supposed to already be with the captain guy in the beginning, I guess the punch really turned her on).

The cheap-ass 25 cent DVD I have of this doesn't exactly lead to optimal viewing conditions. I think it's supposed to be in color but I really couldn't tell from the print I saw. It only took me 2 tries to be able to stay awake long enough to actually get to the end of this so I guess it's not the worst but don't spend more than a quarter on it.

A sure cure for insomnia!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 29 June 2007]

While this film may be slightly better than PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, at least technically speaking, overall it is much more dull and less fun to watch. In fact, during the first twenty or thirty minutes I kept finding my self falling asleep. I don't think this says a lot about my sleep habits but more about how tedious and uninteresting the film was--at least for the first half or so. About the only interesting things at all are that there is an important crew member ("Al") who is Black (a little unusual for 1960) and it's fun to watch the Captain and Al make fun of the reporter who they were forced to take along with them on the mission. In the second half, things pick up a bit (they couldn't have gotten any slower or duller--otherwise audience members would have begun committing suicide), as they are called away from their mission to rescue the Earth. It seems some space ship built by the Earth is screwed up and its engines will vaporize the Earth when it returns. So it's up to the useless reporter to spring to action and save them all--and teaching us an important lesson that when the safety of the planet is in question or you need someone who's an expert in astrophysics, get a reporter.

By the way, the special effects were awful--even by 1950s or early 1960s sci-fi movie standards. As usual, the space rockets have flames that come out at an angle (due to gravity--which should NOT be a factor in the vacuum of space), they wear silly silver suits and there are a lot of useless dials and gizmos. The film was originally an Italian flick and with a bit of re-dubbing (with really awful voice work), it became this "masterpiece"---yech! Even for fans of bad films (and I am one), this one is pretty tough going!

Enough interesting touches to warrant watching despite weak acting and an awful script

[jamesrupert2014 · 5/10 · 13 May 2019]

Italy's first 'big' space opera (and second modern science fiction film after 1958's "The Day the Sky Exploded"), this early Antonio Margheriti film presents a novel story and good miniature work but is hindered by a terrible script (at least in the dubbed version I watched) and amateurish acting. The Alpha II, a spaceship with an experimental photon-drive that generates high-temperature fields 5000 kilometres wide is approaching Earth. The ship's human crew is dead and the 'electronic brain' that's in control is programmed to bring the ship into Earth orbit, close enough to the planet to incinerate all life. The heat-fields thwart attempts destroy the ship with missiles and the only hope is whether the intrepid crew of the BZ-88 can navigate a narrow gap between the fields and get close enough to the Alpha II to deal with the problem. The film has a simplistic framing device, with reporter Ray Peterson (a wooden Rik Van Nutter) on assignment in outer space (hence the alternate title), providing expositional voiceovers and serving as 'second man' in a gratuitous love-triangle subplot. Peterson is only interesting in that he is rejected as a useless outsider (who "smells Earthy") by the real 'spacemen', suggesting the development of an insular 'off-Earth' culture (this dichotomy is a common trope in science fiction novels, for example Larry Niven's stories about conflicts between 'belters' and 'flatlanders'). Peterson is also unusually whiney and self-pitying for a hero. The miniature sets (such as the base on Venus) are quaint by modern standards but are fun to look at and some effort was made to design spaceships that don't all look like V2 rockets or flying saucers. The concept that Earth could be destroyed by a computer that was simply executing its programming is fairly sophisticated for this kind of film, as is the use of 'hibernation' tanks for long distance space travel. Unfortunately, the terrible script (dubbed or original) undermines many of these pluses. What ever biotechnology is used in the hibernation' tanks, it is almost certainly not 'congealing' and a grade-school science student could tell chemist Lucy (Gaby Farinon) that plants generate oxygen from CO2, not from hydrogen). The cast is nondescript other than the unusual (for the era) inclusion of a black actor playing one of the most competent and brave members of the crew (especially odd as the actor was noted dancer Archie Smith). The film has some odd touches: everyone in space has an alphanumeric name (as well as their regular name, Lucy is Y13), which seems pretty futuristic except for the fact that the alphanumeric names are emblazoned on their backs with tape (the whole point of the name dichotomy may have been simply to allow Ray and Lucy to 'meet cute'). In general, despite the acting and the script's stilted dialogue and glaring errors, the premise and some of the visuals are reasons enough for fans of the genre to watch the film.

Good Looking and Unsensational But Boring

[richardchatten · 2/10 · 21 June 2018]

For every asset this film set in the year 2116 has there's an equal and opposite liability. The interiors of the rocket look great, but the model work is awful. The script attempts to be intelligent and unsensational but is wordy, dull, trite and leadenly humourless, with reporter Ray Peterson (Rick von Nutter) constantly narrating on the soundtrack things we should be shown, or - worse still - already are being shown.

It opens promisingly enough with the crew being awoken from suspended animation as at the start of 'Alien'; the first crew member we see being Archie Savage as 'Al' - with his striking mane of white hair - who is tall, handsome, intelligent and noble and the fact that he's black is never mentioned. So far so good, but when Ray gets defrosted he gets the obligatory chilly welcome from the ship's commander and most of the rest of the crew - who call him a parasite to his face - and we're forced to fidget impatiently through half the film's duration before finally reaching the usual grudging respect bit we all knew was coming.

Ray expresses the usual open-mouthed astonishment all newly arrived hunks do at finding that one of the crew members is "a girl!" (his word) and as usual they fall in love. Fortunately the radar operator at the interplanetary base on Venus is also a women (played by Anita Todesco) shown just doing her job without any of the men being obliged to fall head over heels in love with her too (onscreen, at least).

The music's not bad (some of which I recognised from 'Destination Moon').

Gravity

[crystallogic · 4/10 · 21 July 2018]

It could be my love of vintage SF in general, but still, there's something about these creeky old Italian space movies that keeps me coming back to them. Despite their often formulaic natures they somehow end up being oddly memorable, even if perhaps for the wrong reasons.

The movie here is notable because it's Antonio Margheredi's first feature. He would go on to do the mostly-charming Gamma 1 movies, along with lots of entertaining gothics, gialli, action and horror films. This is a clunky hard SF picture (or at least, it's trying to be hard SF) without the weirdness of the Gamma cycle and thus ends up being really dry and a bit unexciting.

nevertheless, the film prefigures 2001 by showing spaceship crews placed in cryogenic suspension for long space journeys. It's clear that someone involved in writing the script did some background reading and that is pretty cool. Unfortunately they get a lot of things totally wrong. The film shares in common with many others of its type, along with vintage TV shows, some real howler scientific errors. First off, nobody really seems to know what a galaxy actually is. This is just something you have to ignore, and when someone urgently shouts a line like "it's in the next galaxy, Commander!" with a worried look and a frisson of sweat, you just have to pretend they're actually saying something else.

The ships all have annoying and totally unmemorable names like ZX226 and LD410. This is another characteristic of the Italian space opera. Why can't they call 'em Gladio, Roma or something? Italians surely would give colourful names to their spacefleet. But wait, I forgot, this is dubbed in English of course with pompous American voice actors shouting the dialogue at one another! Actually I believe there are some real-life Americans in the cast, too, this time.

It's cool that a black guy has a position of respect on board ship and nobody even mentions it, but that's slightly undercut by the reporter's utterly flummoxed reaction to there being a woman in the crew. This leads to a totally bad non-sequitur romance, of course. In the end the black fellow, a friendly guy named Al, who is a really fun character, has to sacrifice himself. He was the best character in the movie.

There's some really poor model-work and an infamous explosion shot that is supposed to be in space but is actually clipped straight out of a movie about cars. Probably looked ok on the tiny low-resolution screens of the day. But what's really hilarious about this movie to me is the absolute gravity and seriousness with which everything is done. You just don't see this anymore. Normally, I actually appreciate this quality of old SF films, but this one's attempt to be hard science fiction and its simultaneous utter failure in that department renders the stiff acting and dialogue a real scream. nevertheless, I appreciate how hard they were trying with this -- I really do.

The most improbable movie...

[LaoagMikey · 3/10 · 2 December 2012]

There may be a spoiler here but this one is so old and predictable that it won't make much difference. The "spoiler" is key to the inane plot so here goes...

I give it a 3 because it was made and out there and that deserves some credit, right? Well, I may be being generous but, after all, it is one more movie than I have ever made! So you get the plot going by placing a newspaper reporter on a space ship (there's the "Assignment" in the title). He knows absolutely nothing about going into space and there is not even a seat for him on the ship. How much planning went into the decision to send him along? Absolutely NONE!!! So he, his newspaper boss and the space commander's boss are all clueless and there is nowhere for him to sit.

But, wait, it gets worse!

Then when you really get into a jam and need someone to go and do technical stuff on a different ship to save the planet Earth, who do you think gets elected to go. No, it is not the captain, he has to stay with the ship and steer it. Where's the navigator? Don't know. How about one of the technicians who actually are supposed to know something about space ships and space suits and wires and computers, etc. Nope! Wrong again. Well, you guessed it right the third time. We will send the hopelessly clueless newspaper reporter over to save the day by trying (badly) to disable a computer. He is too weak to pull the wires out and has to radio for help on what to do. That was a big laugh and wasn't supposed to be! Yup, the most clueless idiot on the ship gets sent over to another ship which he knows absolutely nothing about to work through whatever it takes to save the Earth.

Well, that's just a minor taste of this stink-burger. Incredible. Now that I think about it, 3 stars may be about 15 to many. Oh, well, give the guys and girl a break. After all, they had to make it in Italian. I could not do that, either! Enjoy if you can...

any movie starring Rick Von Nutter-must have something going for it..

[ephiriel · 8/10 · 9 September 2001]

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 :)

Saving the World With The Human Spirit

[Aegelis · 6/10 · 30 December 2021]

Dubbing is not very good, the voices are almost wooden. Slow to start and a bit of a space soap opera in the first half, the second half did pick up speed (literally and figuratively). Even with the pseudo-science, there was a good mental picture being painted of the crisis situation. Some dynamic characters are found within the cliché, there is a fairly good build-up of tension. Rocket models were cool, wouldn't mind having a few of them on the shelf. The ending dialogue did overdo it on waxing poetic about humanity. All-in-all, I was entertained, glad I watched.

Assanine caption insert

[Bezenby · 5/10 · 2 April 2017]

This is possibly Antonio Margheriti's first film, as I've read somewhere, or perhaps his second feature, as I've read somewhere else. It may also be the first Italian sci-fi film ever made, but then in the crazy world of cinema from a foreign country from almost 60 years ago, who knows what is true and what isn't? This one stars Rick Von Nutter (great name) as a roving reporter sent into outer space to a space station to report on something or other. Once awoken from hypersleep (just like Alien!) he's told that basically he's a pain in the arse and no one likes him. He space walks from the shuttle to the space station and it's round about this time where you can guess that the special effects budget perhaps wasn't that large. Also, when Rick tires some fancy moves out in space and almost gets himself killed, you get the feeling  that Rick's brain isn't that large either.

Once he eventually gets to the space station he's basically told he's a pain in the arse again! Rick sort of proves them right when he ventures back into space, saves someone from a meteorite, but destroys gallons of space fuel in the process! Turns out the Cosmonaut he saved is a girl, which seems to confuse him for a moment, until the film then becomes Assignment: Under Garments.

Rick's got to get into this lady's pants and also get involved in stopping a runaway space station that's heading for Earth! We also get a sequence here involving another space ship which crashes on Venus, and we're given a split second shot of an explosion taking place in a car park, complete with cars? I'm not making this up. I guess you couldn't really ask the projectionist to pause and rewind the film to the head scratching thing you've just witnessed while watching the film in the cinema.

First time I tried to watch this film I was in a coma almost straight away, but second time round it's not so bad. It's the weakest Margheriti film I've watched so far but is still full of his trademarks: namely loads and loads of miniature sets! Tiny models of astronauts floating about in space certainly help the film along, as do all the crappy shots of people floating through space, simulated anti-gravity acting from the cast, and the idea that it's impossible to conceive that women might work in scientific fields in the 22nd Century.