The Sky is Calling

Battle Beyond the Sun (aka Nebo Zovyot)
American poster
Directed by	Mikhail Karyukov Aleksandr Kozyr Francis Ford Coppola (additional sequences US version)
Produced by	Roger Corman (US version)
Written by	Mikhail Karyhukov, Yevgeni Pomeshchikov Aleksei Sazonov
Starring	Aleksandr Shvorin Ivan Pereverzhev
Music by	Yuli Meitus, performed by Vyacheslav Mescherin Carmine Coppola (US version)
Cinematography	Nikolai Kulchitsky Jack Hill (add. sequences US version)
Edited by	L. Mkhitaryyanch
Production company	Dovzhenko Film Studios
Distributed by	Filmgroup (US)
Release date	1959 (1959) (USSR) 1962 (1962) (US)
Country	United States
Language	English

Battle Beyond the Sun is the English-dubbed and re-edited U.S. version of Nebo Zovyot, a 1959 Soviet science fiction film directed by Mikhail Karyukov and Aleksandr Kozyr. It tells of the "space race" of two future nations competing to become the first to land a spacecraft on the planet Mars.

A reporter interviews Dr. Kornev about his work in space travel. While writing his story, the reporter daydreams about such a future. In the daydream, he and others board a rocket that takes them to an orbiting space station. There, he learns the large rocket, the Rodina, is docked at the station. A short while later, an American rocket, the Typhoon, arrives at the space station. The Soviet scientists hold a dinner for the visitors. At the dinner, Kornev announces that the Rodina will travel to the planet Mars in a few days, The Americans, Clark and Verst, are taken aback. The Typhoon was secretly prepared to make the first Mars mission. The reckless American authorities order Clark to take the Typhoon to Mars immediately. In their haste to blast off, they injure Somov, the Rodina's pilot. Gordiienko steps in as the new pilot. He and Kornev take off in Rodina as planned. Not long after departure, things go wrong aboard Typhoon. Their course is off and they have too little fuel to correct it. Now they are headed for an asteroid belt and if they survive that, a collision course with the sun. Clark radios the bad news. Kornev decides they can help and flies Rodina to the rescue. Doing so, however, uses too much fuel, so Rodina must land on the asteroid Icarus where they all at least get a fine view of Mars. A pilotless refueling rocket is sent to Icarus, but crashes. The men on Icarus despair. Verst awakens to see a fifth man on Icarus. It is Somov. He flew another pilotless refueling rocket to Icarus, but since it was not built as a manned spacecraft, he suffered lethal cosmic radiation and dies. The four are able to blast off and return to a hero's greeting in the Soviet Union.

Roger Corman acquired the film for US distribution and hired a young film-school student named Francis Ford Coppola to Americanize it. In addition to preparing a dubbing script free of anti-American propaganda and all references to the USSR, and supervising the dubbing, Coppola slightly re-edited the footage, eliminated the framing "daydream" sequences, and even saw to it that a pastel rhombus shape was matted in on a shot-by-shot basis, to cover the Cyrillic letters CCCP (USSR) which adorned the space station and Soviet rocketships.