The Day the Sky Exploded
| The Day the Sky Exploded | |
|---|---|
Italian film poster for The Day the Sky Exploded
|
|
| Directed by | Paolo Heusch |
| Produced by | Guido Giambartolomei |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Story by | Virgilio Sabel |
| Starring |
|
| Music by | Carlo Rustichelli |
| Cinematography | Mario Bava |
| Edited by | Otello Colangeli |
|
Production
company |
|
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
82 minutes |
| Country |
|
The Day the Sky Exploded (Italian: La morte viene dallo spazio) is a 1958 Italian-French science fiction film directed by Paolo Heusch. It is known as the first Italian science fiction film, predating even the science fiction films of Antonio Margheriti.
An atomic rocket is launched on a manned moon mission, but one of the engines malfunctions. The pilot disengages the capsule and returns to Earth. The atomic booster, however, continues on, eventually crashing into and exploding in the asteroid belt. The explosion dislodges many asteroids from their orbits, which coalesce into one giant cluster heading for Earth. When there seems to be no reasonable hope that humans can avoid the crash, scientists find that the Moon will pass in front of the cluster, shielding Earth from most of it. However, a small part of the cluster is not shielded and continues towards the Earth. As the cluster approaches it causes global wide disasters: tidal waves, wind, fire storms and earthquakes. Mankind's only hope is to arm every missile on earth with a nuclear warhead and fire them all at the cluster. One scientist loses his sanity and attempts to disable the great computer needed to calculate all the firing data. Fortunately, he is stopped and the missiles are launched, destroying the cluster and saving Earth.
The Day the Sky Exploded was shown in Rome, Italy in September 1958. It was shown in France in 1959.
It premiered in the United States on September 27, 1961 in Los Angeles.
In a contemporary review, The Monthly Film Bulletin stated that "The producers of this Franco-Italian science fiction film have turned to stock footage to such an extent that this might well be termed the stock-shot film par excellence." and that "this disparate material has been quite ingeniously assembled" and that the film was "otherwise routine" and "tamely directed"
TV Guide gave the film a one out of four rating, referring to the film as an "Ineffective sci-fi outing" In Phil Hardy's book Science Fiction (1984), a review stated that "the picture's main asset is Bava's excellent cinematography; both acting and direction fail to transcend a poor script."
...
Wikipedia