The Day the Sky Exploded

This little Italian oddity offers the drama of a world-wide disaster and the themes of international cooperation which were better capitalized by the Star Trek franchise and several similar disaster films of more recent vintage.

The film is somewhat unique for its unusually jerky pace, clever low budget effects, odd use of stock footage, and strange cinematography. The Day the Sky Exploded begins as if it is going to be a space-flight adventure, but instead treats the space flight in a realistic, almost mundane manner, before proceeding to reveal the real plot - concerning the meteors. The astronaut (nicely played by Hubschmidt) is forced to eject from the nuclear powered rocket and the rocket flies off to .... where? before you know it, a cluster of meteors, probably blown off of some planet or perhaps the moon, is threatening to destroy the earth.

Some of the 'scientists' allude to unknown religious beliefs and seem to think that some great big meanie out there has it in for us because we've ventured off our planet in a serious way for the first time (like the perspective offered by Star Trek First Contact inverted). The plot begins with the rocket launch and a great feeling of optimism and then proceeds into panic, and then a feeling of inevitable doom, as nobody seems able to come up with an adequate solution.

There are also some amusing but really unnecessary romantic elements and some decent character development which help to round the film out in a general way. The acting is generally good, but there are a few really odd moments where people seem either too calm or absurdly evocative given the circumstances they are dealing with. There are also a couple of bad moments for the script, which may be a result of translation problems from the film's native language.

I have noticed a lot of people making fun of the special effects. Sure, the dozens of stock footage clips of rockets being launched is over-done, and yeah, some of the scenes showing people and cars moving around in the parking lot of an unidentified building are kind of funny, but I actually enjoyed the primitive but creatively filmed scenes of asteroids and explosions. They were, at the very least, more artistically designed than some of what appears in contemporary films with similarly low budgets.

A multi-national space mission including astronauts from the UK, the USA and the Soviet Union venture into space but they experience technical problems resulting in the mission being aborted, but unfortunately this is just the first in a chain reaction of events which results in catastrophic disasters back on Earth, including scores of asteroids, earthquakes and extreme weather.

The Day the Sky Exploded is fairly notable for being the first Italian sci-fi movie. Having said that, this is a fairly limited claim to fame given science fiction wouldn't exactly go on to become one of the movie sub-genres that the pasta masters are most well remembered for. This one is fairly ahead of its time in some respects though and quite ambitious for its time. It also is unusual in that it showed Americans and Russians working happily together at the height of the Cold War. So, it has some interesting things about it for sure but on the whole it was pretty forgettable stuff unfortunately. Interestingly, it was also photographed by the great future directing legend Mario Bava; to be honest, the version I saw this was a public domain pan-and-scan copy in which it was difficult to really tell if it had great cinematography or not sadly.

In THE DAY THE SKY EXPLODED, a space exploration disaster causes impending doom when a super-asteroid heads toward Earth.

We know this is science fiction because in this story the UN takes immediate action, scrambling all forces to deal with the situation. In reality, they would convene in order to call for a future meeting, so they could decide whether or not to pass a resolution that could lead to a plan.

Thankfully, the fantasy UN is mighty!

Is this movie cheeezey? Oh yes, but it's also entertaining. Compared to the more modern, multi-million dollar space catastrophe films that tell the same basic tale, TDTSE is -very little- money well spent...

One problem that has long bothered most filmmakers, since the dawn of cinema, is the smoke-and-mirrors magic act itself--namely, getting big, great, creative ideas that movie watchers will be interested in and like, while getting these ideas across in as budget-conscious a manner as possible. Take this film, 'The Day the Sky Exploded', for instance (but make sure you give it back--I liked it LOL). Rome-born director Paolo Heusch (who later made the no-budget enjoyable thriller, 'Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory') wisely utilized as much stock footage as humanly possible, and a fine cinematographer in future horror-aficionado hero Mario Bava (though his name is bizarrely misspelled in the film's credits), to credibly bring his ambitious ideas of widespread panic and civil unrest to fruition.

Mildly problematic is the dated way that women are portrayed here. Usually in older films, this isn't bothersome to me, simply because it was so widespread, and thus expected to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean it was right. For example, the only two principal women in the film are the wife of the main astronaut, who basically is left to complaining that she doesn't get enough attention from him while the world is in chaos, and a math expert, considered 'cold' because she dares to simply think about her job, who basically falls to pieces when the going gets tough (though, to her credit, she comes to her senses). And, playing the devil's advocate for a moment, it was kind of crappy that it was a Russian who went crazy and made thinks difficult for the scientists who were binding together to try and save the world. But those are minor nit-pickings.

It made me very happy to watch this valiant cinematic attempt. It left me far more satisfied than later, big-budget efforts in the area, such as 'Deep Impact' and 'Armageddon'. Some fanfare for the common man, please! =)

It is hard to give a rating to old movies like this. This Italian/French film is a predecessor to modern fare like Meteor or Armegeddon.

No Bruce Willis, but Paul Hubschmid, the first Swiss film star. He is on a team of astronauts that included a Frenchman and a Russian and was selected for the first mission in space. Such international cooperation! Absolutely brilliant for the time. It will be even more amazing as the film goes on.

Don't look for great acting or fancy special effects. Stock footage is the norm and the dialog is corny, but there is a bright shining moment when they know they are all doomed and some scientist wigs out.

The solution to the falling meteor is the use of all the nation's atomic warheads. Like that would happen. You know the USA or Russia, probably both, would hold a few in reserve. I am sure the USA did, as I saw no missiles leaving silos.

It's interesting to see the first films of this type before CGI, which is why I am investing the week exploring them.