Product Details

• Actors: Marshall Thompson, Marla Landi, Bill Edwards (IX), Robert Ayres, Bill Nagy
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• VHS Release Date: July 21, 1998
• Run Time: 77 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305071527
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,015 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The early reels of First Man into Space should delight fans of the Mercury/Sputnik era in rocket technology... though it may delight fans of low-budget '50s sci-fi even more. A small manned rocket, launched from a jet cruising at high altitude, manages to poke its nose up about 250 miles above the earth---thus making its cocky, reckless pilot the (you guessed it) first man into space. Unfortunately, weird cosmic debris clings to the spacecraft when it crash-lands, and also to the astronaut: he's now covered with a layer of scaly, sparkly space rock. To put it in technical terms, the returned pilot is categorized as "a great big lumbering deformed monster." He's lumbering around a rocket facility in New Mexico, and the monster-pilot's brother (played by the always sober, always reliable Marshall Thompson) must find the thing before it kills again. Oddly enough, once the cheesy space-flight FX wear off, First Man into Space turns into a competent and surprisingly thoughtful thriller; give this movie some points for at least trying to emphasize the science in its fiction. --Robert Horton

Product Description

A cocky test pilot takes his experimental aircraft higher than anyone has ever flown before--and he is bombarded by cosmic rays and crashes without a trace, until a mysterious string of vampire-like killings occur.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One of those "You had to be there at the time" films, September 9, 2000

By 

Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: First Man Into Space [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This seemingly harmless, boilerplate fifties scifi "thriller" is of special significance to me, which is the reason I purchased the VHS version. When I was eight years old, I attended a double feature matinee at the Varsity Theater in Palo Alto, California. The main feature was Disney's "Darby O'Gill and the Little People," a decent, semi-comedic flick most well-known for being a showcase for a budding actor named Sean Connery. "Darby" included a few scary moments, however, in which an animated "banshee" was shown floating ominously in the evening sky. Perhaps because of these briefly frightening scenes, the geniuses in charge of putting together the double bill selected "First Man Into Space" as the second feature.

The results were nothing short of disastrous.

Although "First Man" seems cheesy and at times downright plodding by today's frenetic standards for scifi films, showing a movie that includes a mutated, cyclopic, blood-drinking murderous monster to a crowd of under-ten children resulted in pandemonium in the theater and countless youthful nightmares afterward. I was so scared by the "monster" (I was certain it was going to come bursting through my bedroom window) that I could not sleep alone for several nights.

Since I never forget to just what extent "First Man" scared the bejibbers out of me was back in 1959, I eagerly anticipated seeing the movie again some forty-plus years later. Needless to say, it was a very different experience the second time around. The "monster," who actually was the "first man into space" deformed by some mysterious variety of cosmic radiation, still appeared slightly scary (the one staring eye was an inspired effect, truly). But overall, the film seemed slow, dull, and oh, so cheesy. As other reviewers have indicated, the plot line of the movie has some admirable elements, with its "pride goeth before a fall" morality and the compassion showed by the authorities in the final scenes. But the film definitely qualifies as fodder for ridicule and wisecracks a la the late (and much missed) series, "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

In seeing the movie for the first time themselves, my own sons, far more jaded in terms of what qualifies as "frightening," politely commented that they "could see how the monster might be scary," but I confess they were so bored by the production overall that it was all they could do to keep from leaving the room prior to the conclusion.

I guess to appreciate some of the virtues of this not-bad-but-not-great fifties scifi "thriller," you hadda be there, in the dark, on a Saturday afternoon with a hundred other terrified suburban kids.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You'll be surprised!, June 29, 1999

By 

Mark Savary "moon_city" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: First Man Into Space [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I rented this movie with low expectations. It looked like the typical Z-grade movie that, if it were not for Mystery Science Theater 3000, would be a chore to watch.

Boy, was I wrong!

While the picture was obviously made on a low budget, it comes off much better than you'd think. The special effects are surprisingly good, especially the scenes of the experimental rocket in flight.

There is some interesting stock footage of planes from the X-1 era, being launched from bombers (which at the time was how they thought they'd do rocketry).

I kept wondering when the picture would start to go bad, but it kept my interest throughout. Low budget 50's sci-fi, but a real gem!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars first man into space a 50s gem, May 2, 2005

By 

sci fi Steve (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Man Into Space (DVD)

I remember seeing this film a a young boy and it helped hook me on Sci Fi for life. 50s rockets and a space plane right out of the newsreels of the time coupled with a risk taking pilot, responsible older brother who is his superior officer and the beautiful scientist who they both want make for a great movie. The science and horror are blended into a believable tale of ambition gone wrong as a disobeyed order to stay below the threshold of space so the pilot can be the first man into space leads to a hideous fate. By doing so he passes thru a cosmic cloud that covers the ship and him in a protective reflective dust which insulates both him and the ship from the atmosphere. What follows is a mystery as to what happened to the pilot when the ship re enters the atmosphere and what is causing the mysterious slasher type murders that have their victims drained of blood leading to a typical 50s climax where a noble act ends in tragedy but gives future pilots a new safety element to continue into space.

a real gem of a film cheaply but professionally done. dont pass this one up.