Released 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.
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.