Ah, just what I love, a '50s B-movie. This low budget, shuddery sci-fi shocker uses much the same premise as THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN would twenty years later, but obviously without the gore. The plot is pretty minimal, and with most '50s films, the main thrust concentrates on pseudo scientific babble about why what has happened has happened. Although the film is obviously dated because of this, it's kind of fun too, as we listen to the gobbledegook about 'cosmic dust' and stuff like that. Very funny indeed.
The cast is nothing to write home about, but the dialogue can be hilarious and frequently is, because it has dated so badly. The man of the title is an excitable chap who speaks like one of the teens from I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF all grown up, talking about "dope" and other silly things. The rest of the cast are all pretty stiff and stilted in their delivery of their clichéd lines, but there's no need to worry about that, it's just typical for a film like this.
The special effects aren't bad. The space travel looks quite poor in these post-STAR WARS days, but at least it has some imagination put into it and has that odd quality of looking fake and unrealistic yet looking interesting, magical even, in a way that CGI animation can't create. I can't explain it very well. The makeup for the monster is surprisingly simple and effective, he just looks like he's been covered in some molten rock or something which has then settled. I like the way you can see one of his eyes too.
While FIRST MAN INTO SPACE may not be original, or scary, it remains a solid piece of entertainment from a much different time. The scenes of the rampaging monster and weird space travel deserve classic status, these types of things WERE cinema in the '50s. Not brilliant, but okay anyway.
The cast is nothing to write home about, but the dialogue can be hilarious and frequently is, because it has dated so badly. The man of the title is an excitable chap who speaks like one of the teens from I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF all grown up, talking about "dope" and other silly things. The rest of the cast are all pretty stiff and stilted in their delivery of their clichéd lines, but there's no need to worry about that, it's just typical for a film like this.
The special effects aren't bad. The space travel looks quite poor in these post-STAR WARS days, but at least it has some imagination put into it and has that odd quality of looking fake and unrealistic yet looking interesting, magical even, in a way that CGI animation can't create. I can't explain it very well. The makeup for the monster is surprisingly simple and effective, he just looks like he's been covered in some molten rock or something which has then settled. I like the way you can see one of his eyes too.
While FIRST MAN INTO SPACE may not be original, or scary, it remains a solid piece of entertainment from a much different time. The scenes of the rampaging monster and weird space travel deserve classic status, these types of things WERE cinema in the '50s. Not brilliant, but okay anyway.