.......that a on a voyage to the stars, you'll either meet a monster.......or become one.
"First Man Into Space" belongs to the latter, with its titular character returning from his brief jaunt into the cosmos encrusted with a thick layer of cosmic dust......
This unfortunate occurrence leaves him looking like he did the backstroke in a septic tank, not to mention giving him an overwhelming thirst for blood, animal or human.
After plummeting to earth, Crusty Cosmic Guy shambles around, offing people and cattle, much to the chagrin of his mission control commander (Marshall Thompson) who's also his older brother.
Well, that's what baby brother gets for carrying on like an arrogant hot-rodding hot dog whenever he blasted off, aggravating the normally mild, bland Thompson into furious fits. Jeez, the kids today.....
We kid this movie now, but make no mistake about its effect on the Boomers who saw it a few years before they hit puberty.......it scared the cosmic crap out of us.
Credit director Robert Day, working with a typically poverty stricken 50's sci-fi budget, for making two movies out of one......the first half is a kind of pre-cursor to "The Right Stuff", with top brass military trying to control a fledgling star voyager with a reckless addiction to pushing the envelope....
The second half turns into an all-out booga booga Frankenstein fandango........and even works up a measure of sympathy and pity for the creature as he breathes his last......proving he wasn't such a bad guy after all, if you overlook the trail of slashed up corpses he left in his wake.....
And we love the ambition of the filmmakers here, setting their movie in New Mexico and filming it in somebody's back yard in England........though we're not sure why the actor playing the cocky, glib pilot-turned-creature sounds ;blatantly dubbed in, as if he's in an Italian gladiator movie.......
That poor shmuck sounds more human in the horror section, when he's covered with cosmic crapola........and far more easier to feel sorry for. For that singular achievement.....being scary and pathetic all at the same time, we'll blast off a fondly remembered 3 stars (***)
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