First Man into Space

A minor late-1950s sci-fi classic, Robert Day’s film accentuates the real anxieties, doubts, and fears we faced at the dawn of the space age, when the simple fact that a human being could travel beyond the limits of the ionosphere without incurring serious biological consequences was still a matter of serious debate, given that the film was released a good two years before the Soviets launched Vostok 1, and Yuri Gagarin became the real-life “first man in space”.

It’s hardly a surprise then that much of the dialogue reveals the lack of knowledge and data regarding what was still a substantially unexplored realm. Some examples: “We do not yet understand the physiological conditions a man may have to endure at such heights“; ‘Do you think a chemical breakdown could tell us anything?’ ‘We do not even know the primary reactor’; “It seems as if the skin was subjected to some sort of incrustation we’ve never heard of“.

As for the narrative flow, once you get through a slightly boring first half hour dominated by stock footage and repetitious closeups of Dan’s spellbound expression, the plot comes alive, enriched by horror elements, finally reaching an intensely dramatic finale (the satirical scene with the Mexican consul seems somewhat out of place, though).

The makeup isn’t bad, with the mutated astronaut looking like a long-lost cousin of Troma’s Toxic Avenger.