First Spaceship on Venus (1960)

- Der schweigende Stern
Now I need to see the whole, uncut version, 5 June 2007

First Spaceship to Venus is one of those movies that I seem to have been aware of for what seems like forever. Yet, until the other night, I had never actually seen the movie. I didn't know anything about it and just assumed it was another of those goofy sci-fi films Hollywood was so good at pumping out in the 50s. Well, I was wrong. The most obvious fault in my thinking was the Hollywood part. First Spaceship to Venus was made about as far from Southern California as you could get – Poland and East Germany. Yeah, that's right – First Spaceship to Venus is a commie sci-fi movie. And while the dialogue may be dubbed, inappropriate music may have been added, and story elements changed to fit American sensibilities of the time, a lot of director Kurt Maetzig's vision gets through. There's a level of intelligence and seriousness often missing from American sci-fi films of the period. I'm certainly no astrophysicist (or any kind of physicist for that matter), but a lot of what the scientists discuss and argue about at least sounds "good". The special effects are certainly much better than the cardboard cutouts found in similar American films. The special effects, especially the Venutian landscape, really help to create a surreal atmosphere for the film that's more than a little compelling. Finally, though a little too "stoic" at times, the acting is quite good. The characters are played with realism. While it may never match something like Star Wars as an entertaining sci-fi film, First Spaceship to Venus is at a minimum a nice little curiosity piece that actually provokes some interesting questions about the role of technology in the world.

For my first viewing, I actually watched the MST3K version of First Spaceship to Venus. And while I'm an unabashed fan of the show, I feel comfortable in my ability to separate the movie being presented from the nonsense going on around it. And while I found First Spaceship to Venus a real revelation, this episode of MST3K is one of the weakest I've yet seen. The jokes are too inconsistent and lack any sort of flow. And the running gag concerning Servo's non-stop sarcasm gets old real quick. Overall, on my MST3K rating scale, I give this episode of MST3K a 2/5 – find another episode to add to the top of your "to see" list.

6/10