Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- Spaceways, 1953. At a top secret British space base, a staff of scientists conduct rocketry experiments. Main lead American scientist is having marital problems with his wife chasing his male scientist comrades of the mission crew. *Special Stars- Howard Duff, Eva Bartok, Alan Wheatley, Michael Medwin, Ceile Chevreau.*Theme- Men and women matters can derail the best of missions. *Trivia/location/goofs- B & W British, stock footage uses older WW2 German U-2 footage. the file footage doesn't match the film's miniature rocket model needed for the plot. Rocket model is typical 50's design still with airplane wings and fins. Many of the sets were used from previous film, '4-sided triangle'.*Emotion- An un-usual science fiction film. More of a tawdry murder mystery with trivial sci-fi elements. *Based On- 1950's rocketry facts.

bkoganbing Great Britain's legendary Hammer Studio produced this film that was released in the USA by the Poverty Row company Lippert Pictures. It's a science fiction melodrama with some illicit romance tossed in with an espionage angle from a Cold War point of view. The anti-Communist angle plus the fact that the lead was American actor Howard Duff made Spaceways a good item for its time.Howard Duff is an American rocket science working with the British on an eventual manned rocket flight into space. The timing of that flight gets stepped up quite a bit when Duff is accused of murder.Not that he hasn't good and sufficient reason to murder his tramp of a wife Cecile Chevreau. She's carrying on with fellow scientist Alan Osborn who also happens to be a Russian spy. In any event both are looking to escape the top security base that they are on for their very different reasons.When Chevreau and Osborn disappear the day of a rocket test flight government security man Alan Wheatley best known for being the sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood TV series starts an investigation. One theory is that Duff murdered both of them and put them in the rocket which will orbit the Earth for years. That leaves Wheatley with no case to prove and Duff out in security limbo.That's not good enough for Duff who volunteers to go up himself and bring the first rocket down to clear himself. What happens after that you see the film for.Spaceways is certainly a film of its time. The British while never going as extreme as we did in the McCarthy days to prove our anti-Communism did have their own Cold War cinema which found an audience here. Spaceways is an example of it.Over there though they made Hungarian born and accented Eva Bartok who plays another scientist and one who really has it big for Howard the love interest. Over here that accent would have guaranteed she play a villain. There's a bit of suspenseful tension in the climax which viewers today of Spaceways might find enjoyable. Low production values, but good acting performances characterize this Lippert released film.

Woodyanders Dedicated, but henpecked American engineer Dr. Stephen Mitchell (a solid performance by Howard Duff) works at a secret rocket base in England. When his faithless bitchy wife Vanessa (a perfectly snarky Cecile Chevreau) and her biologist lover Dr. Philip Crenshaw (Andrew Osborn) both disappearance, the shrewd and determined Dr. Smith (a marvelously smug turn by Alan Wheatley) suspects that Stephen killed them and launched their bodies into space. Stephen plans on going into space to retrieve the satellite in order to prove his innocence. Director Terence Fisher, working from a clever script by Paul Tabor and Richard Landau, offers an adroit and interesting multi-genre mix of murder mystery thriller, foreign espionage, and space exploration. The sound acting from a sturdy cast helps a lot: Duff makes for a sympathetic protagonist, the lovely Eva Bartok impresses as fetching mathematician Lisa Frank, and Wheatley is in peak smarmy form as the arrogant Dr. Smith. Plus there's fine support from Philip Leaver as kindly, jolly project supervisor Professor Koepler and Michael Medwin as eager fuel expert Dr. Toby Andrews. Reginald H. Wyer's crisp black and white cinematography and Ivor Slaney's rousing, spirited score are both up to speed. While a bit slow and talky in spots, this movie still rates as a most enjoyable picture all the same.

keith-moyes Spaceways exemplifies the characteristic weakness of early British SF movies. It has a potentially interesting premise but doesn't develop it.It is basically a 'first man into space' movie but by the time of its release there had already been three such movies, so it needed a twist. In this case, the twist is the reason for going into space at all. A scientist's wife and her lover have gone missing and he is accused of murdering them and hiding the bodies in a satellite. He goes into space to retrieve the satellite and prove his innocence.That is a satisfactory idea for a movie, but Spaceways just doesn't know how to run with it. It takes an hour to set up the situation so that the actual space flight is shoe-horned into the final ten minutes. Even then, the premise is completely undermined, because an investigator has already found the missing couple and solved the mystery before take off, making the space flight unnecessary.The movie was crying out for the actual murderer to be on the spaceship, trying to kill the hero to prevent his own discovery - or something of the kind. It wouldn't have been hard to plot. This would have given the space flight some purpose and would have allowed for some real tension in what should have been the climactic scenes.When you call a movie 'Spaceways' you are setting up certain expectations. If all you deliver is just a tepid mystery, with a desultory spaceflight tacked on at the end, it is a breach of faith with the audience.Although this movie is thoroughly competent for its budget level, it is hard to recommend it to any but the most determined SF completist.