Included on the same disc as WORLD WITHOUT END (1956), this contemporaneous sci-effort from Britain takes a much more serious approach (down to the stiff-upper-lipped characters and stirring score) with its documentary-like depiction of flights outside the Earth's atmosphere, the ultimate reason for which is the testing of a new type of bomb that's so powerful it can only be blown in outer space! While not uninteresting in itself, the treatment is so hackneyed as to render the whole dull instead of gripping, managing only a modicum of suspense during the last half-hour or so when the bomb, already timed to explode, remains attached to the back of the shuttle when dislodged! Casting is second-rate but adequate: Kieron Moore (as the stoic test pilot), Lois Maxwell (an intrepid reporter who, having lost her father and brother to science, feels a natural aversion to progress
but still can't help stowing away on the space vessel for the sake of a scoop!), Donald Wolfit (in the obligatory pompous physicist role, who then breaks into hysterics when the going gets tough!) as well as Bryan Forbes and Jimmy Hanley, playing other members of the flight each given a dreary romantic subplot fraught with complications.
