Review: Spaceways

Howard Duff is an American engineer involved in a top-secret British space rocket test launch. The launch proves fatally unsuccessful and Duff ends up accused of double homicide as the story becomes a mystery. Alan Wheatley plays the military investigator on the case, whilst Eva Bartok plays a mathematician, and Cecile Chevereau is Duff's histrionic wife.

 

My vote for the worst Hammer movie ever made, this 1953 sci-fi/mystery drama from director Terence Fisher (“The Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Horror of Dracula”) is based on a radio play and boy does that make a lot of sense. As a film it’s a complete and utter failure at capturing – let alone maintaining – your attention. The idea of killing two people, stuffing their bodies into a rocket, and launching the thing is a heck of an idea. This film isn’t really about that though, so even when this film stumbles upon an idea, it ends up doing nothing with it. This is just talk, talk, talk. That’s fine for radio where it’s by necessity, but a film based on this kind of subject needs more than just dialogue to keep you invested. That’s especially the case when none of the dialogue is interesting, and most of the performances are as flat as a tack.

 

Eva Bartok and Alan Wheatley come off best in the cast here and even they are just serviceable. Cecile Chevreau (whose last gig was providing English voice dubbing for the popular TV series “Monkey”) is one of the worst actresses I’ve ever seen, completely overblown and ridiculous to the point where her character seems completely unhinged. Star Howard Duff’s casting screams ‘affordable American actor’. He’s stiff, uninvested, and brings nothing to the film, but then neither does the normally reliable Fisher in the director’s chair. Fisher gives the film zero energy or excitement, or any sense of pacing. They don’t even get up in the rocket until the final ten minutes of the film.

 

If you don’t have the budget to make something like this, don’t make something like this. Almost literally a filmed radio play, more soap opera than science-fiction, and a complete waste of my time. Yes, it’s even worse than both “Terror of the Tongs” and “The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb”. Based on the Charles Eric Maine (“The Mind of Mr. Soames”) radio play, the screenplay is by Richard H. Landau (“The Glass Cage”, “The Quatermass Xperiment”) and Paul Tabori (“Four Sided Triangle”).

 

Rating: D-