not bad at all
ok forget that, it is bad but in a fun 50's sci-fi way
6/10
When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...
The Day the Sky Exploded (1958) is nifty low-rent theater. Effective use of many performers in lead roles, day players, locations and stock footage (Child of the 60's: How many of the missiles used can you name?)
Paul Hubschmid, a Gene Barry look-alike, plays the hero as a heel until he comes to his senses. DP Mario Baja classed it up with light and shadow. Director Paolo Heusch gets my vote for the Best Director with A Zero Budget and Plenty of Imagination Award (The enviable D.Z.B.P.I. better known as the Dizzy Bippy).
The menace from space looks just like the one in the big budget Meteor (1979) that some wag pointed out looked like a "giant burnt corn flake". Lesson learned: all the money in the world can't do much with a rock. Trying to give it a sense of scale by comparing it with a full Moon was a good idea but didn't quite work unfortunately but somebody was thinking.
The smug Russian is a hoot and likable, too. The little boy looks All-American in his Theodore Cleaver outfit, but Moms looks a bit too continental.
This is as good and often better than some of the early Dr. WHO (60's era) productions. Better than much of the fare produced today in this old timer's opinion, by cracky!
Correction: DP is the resplendent film director Mario Bava, not Baja!
Nothing is more beautiful than nothing.
True enough. However, it is not I that stands corrected, Yodzingie! It is the film's credits themselves!
Ha, ha! Absolved! Absolved! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
(OK, I noticed the similarities in the names but did not investigate further. thanks for pointing it out. Nevertheless, he did a good job of it.
A DP by any other name....)
I'm surprised you don't know Bava as he is the one credited with being the greatest of all horror masters from Italy! He invented "giallo". Remember that?
But this "spazio" flick was just before he began to direct his own. Go look him up. He was quite an artiste.
Nothing is more beautiful than nothing.
The fact is I do know his work and his name, on the credits of this title, it is spelled "Baja" or at least it looks that way (see title card).
And you'd brought him up in recent time to me, Yodzingie. Quite well acquianted, you see.