First Spaceship on Venus (1960)

Cast:

Yoko Tani is Die japanische Ärztin / Sumiko Ogimura MD
Oldrich Lukes is Amerikanischer Atomphysiker / Prof. Harringway Hawling
Ignacy Machowski is Polnischer Chefingenieur / Prof. Saltyk / Orloff
Julius Ongewe is Afrikanischer Fernsehtechniker / Talua
Michail N. Postnikow is Sowjetischer Astronaut / Prof. Arsenew / Prof. Durand

What the box says:

Originally, "First Spaceship on Venus" was partially intended as an anti-nuclear tract. Set in 1985, a strange, extraterrestrial spool is discovered at the site of the 1906 mystery explosion in Tunguska, Siberia. The discovery of this spool confirms that an alien spaceship from Venus crash-landed there and that the spool is a memory storage device. A nuclear-powered spacecraft is manufactured and a multinational crew is assembled for a manned expedition to Venus. After a lengthy and risk-laden trip, the crew lands on Venus only to discover the planet devestated by a nuclear war and that the ship from Venus was an invasion force heading to Earth. Armed with this knowledge, the expedition returns to Earth with a warning for all mankind.

Plot:

The narrator explains how in 1985, an extraterrestrial spool was found at the site of the 1906 explosion at Tunguska, Siberia. Actually, it was a spaceship not a meteor.

Physics classes were always Numerous scientists try to decypher the daa on the memory spool. The ship was tracked to Venus. Earth begins to try and contact Venus unfortuantely to no response.

The Earth Space Foundation begins readying a ship, Cosmstratot-1, to a trip to Venus.

At least our spaceship doesn't look like a pie plate. The crew arrives before launch. After blastoff, the lunar base warns them about an approaching meteor shower.
Captain, it appears we sank their battleship...

After the meteor damage is repaired, the crew starts attending to their duties and motonay sets in as the weeks pass by and they lose contact with Earth. Finally, the memory spool is decypehered. Apparently, Venus was planning to invade and conquer Earth. They have to head towards the mysterious Venus.

Brinkman is the first to land on Venus when his landing vehicle explodes. Exploring the area, he discovers Venusian bugs.

R2-D2 could still shellack this annoying robot... The ship lands, and the crew starts searching for Brinkman. He walks up with his discovery. They realize that the landing device was destroyed by some underground power cable, and start to trail the cable to find a Venusian city.

Some of the crew return to the ship and study the bugs and realize that the bugs were used for memory archives. While the city searching continues, the crew finds the remains of a super-weapon.

You're sure this isn't Epcot Center? The Venusians were destroyed by their super-weapon.

Eventually, they find the Venusian archive where a living oil slick chases after them. An energy rifle stops the evil slime.

Reaching the ship, the crew discovers that the Venusian energy weapon is starting to activate. Apparently, the Earth invasion was stopped when the Venusian weapons accidentally activated and destroyed Venus. An energy field is disrupting the ship from launching.

A couple memebers of the crew head back with their last ditch effort to deactivate the weapon. They succeed. Brinkman heads out to rescue the other crew.

I've got less of a survival chance than a Red-shirt on the Enterprise. Unfortunately, they can't get back to the ship before it takes off.

Weeks later, the lunar base detects the ship returning. Landing on Earth, the survivng crew honor those that sacrificed themselves. Earth must explore other planets and how Venus was destroyed by their own weapons.

What I say:

Sci-Fi movies are typically almost written in the realm of B-movies as low-budget monster movies. While the US is probably more known for low-budget sci-fi. For some reason, we don't think of European sci-fi like US. First thought is England which seemed more interested with Doctor Who and the Quartermass movies but still had a few sci-fi movies that typically were the extremely dull alien invader movies like They Came From Space.

Well, another part of theEuropean continent was going wild in the early 1960s. Yes, the European space adventure movies to Venus ensued. Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women and Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet.

Other planets were used. However, with War of the Worlds Martians and the little green men from Mars even to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians in so many movies, it looks like another nearby planet should be used besides the red planet.

The original European version was longer. I've seen some descriptions saying nearly an hour was edited for the American version. Even, if that isn't true, quite a bit was taken which made the public domain version seem so disjointed. What could have been removed? I've got to think that anything edited out wasn't special effects of explosions or any type of aliens. Dialogue and bits that advanced relationships, etc... were probably removed.

A trip to another planet should have more aliens than a few flying bugs. Later, some sort of animted ooze starts chasing our crew. The black mud which animates and starts chasing the crew Blob and Green Slime. The Techno-babble explanation was even less than what you'd expect from a Lost in Space episode.

Shouldn't 1985 of the future at least have some kind of flux capacitor? A 1985 with artficially intelligent robots but all computers are called "electronic brains." The sci-fi movie from the 1950s and 1960s always wanted to be set 20 or 30 years into the future with the massive technological advancements except in the post-apocalyptic times after the "Great Death Fire" or whatever it's called.

This movie tries to almost beat you over the head with its message. Yes, it's "message." They could have only gotten the idea of Venusians being destroyed by their weapons more subtle if they showed any Venusians plucking flowers with a voiceover of a countdown. Call it the Venus version of the 1960s political ad "Daisy". Plenty of 1950s sci-fi movies showed the danger of nuclear weapons which normally was creatures irradiated by nuclear testing and growing to enormous proportions: Beginning of the End, Godzilla and Them.

The crew is a bit hard to track. Some are given names and others you have to figure from the dialogue. Brinkman is the American who seems to have sort of love interest with Sumiko, the Japanese doctor who lost her husband. The others seem to not use their names much. An Asian, African, French, and a couple of other differently ethnic characters. With this move being made by different countries including Poland and West Germany. A multi-ethnic crew. Doesn't that idea sound like it was used on a late 1960s television series? "Of course, not Bones."

Quotable Dialogue
"Around here, we have nothing but masterpieces."
"If he only had a heart..."
"Action stations, actions, everybody..."
"I need more figures..."
"The black slime started to movie."
Morals of the Story
All space crews need to be put in suspended animation before blast-offs.
Large lunar bases were established before 1985.
"Electronic brains" is a classier description than "computer".
Energy generators resemble giant golf balls.
Venus has living black slime that chases screaming Earthlings.