| The Day the Sky Exploded | |
|---|---|
Poster for the U.S release of the film |
|
| Directed by | Paolo Heusch |
| Produced by | Samuel Z. Arkoff/Guido Giambartolomei |
| Written by | Virgilio Sebel, Marcello Coscia, Sandro Continenza |
| Starring | Paul Hubschmid/Fiorella Mari |
| Music by | Carlo Rustichelli |
| Cinematography | Mario Bava |
| Editing by | Otello Colangeli |
| Release date(s) | 1958 |
| Running time | 82 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
The Day the Sky Exploded (Italian: La morte viene dallo spazio) is a 1958 Italian science fiction film directed by Paolo Heusch. It is known as the first italian sci-fi dramatic film.[1][2] It starred Paul Hubschmid and Fiorella Mari, and was also released in France and West Germany. It was also known as Death Comes from Space and Death From Outer Space, recalling the original Italian title.
Contents |
An atomic rocket is launched on a manned moon mission, but one of the engines malfunctions. The rocket's steering is broken. The pilot disengages the capsule and returns to earth. The atomic booster, however, continues on, eventually crashing into and exploding in an asteroid belt. The explosion dislodges many asteroids from their orbits. They coalesce into one giant cluster and are heading for earth. As the cluster approaches earth it causes global scale 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 in the crisis and disables the great computer needed to calculate all the firing data. He is stopped and the data provided. The nations of the world band together and fire the volley. The cluster is destroyed.
In the English version of the movie, the sun was not mentioned as the source of the asteroids. From the movie:
| “ | “We have been able to locate the source of the echo.” “Well?” “It comes from the mass of Delta asteroids. The explosion of the XZ atomic charge has driven them out of orbit. They have become attracted one to another forming a single mass which is now wandering in space.” “Direction?” “Towards the Earth.” | ” |
In the French version of the movie however, the atomic rocket stage exploded later in Asteroid belt hurtling meteors on a collision course with earth.
Nearing the climax of the film, the main character (and rocket pilot) John McLaren says:
| “ | "At this moment, the safety of the human race is entrusted to the very weapons that were created for its own destruction. Let us commend ourselves to God." | ” |
The Day the Sky Exploded was an Italian-French co-production.[1][2] however in Germany the movie was often considered as a German-Italian film. In fact the movie has an unusually high number of German actors for an Italian movie. Next to Paul Hubschmid were Eddi Arent and others actors from famous German Edgar Wallace "Krimi" movies. Some German sci-fi movie literature claims the movie director is German Paul Heusch, Paolo being a misspelling of Paul while Heusch is a German family name.