Battle Beyond the Sun

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by M. Karzukov and Aleksandr Kozyr (reworked version by Francis Ford Coppola); Produced by Tatyana Kulchitskaya for Dovzhenko Film Studios (reworked version by Roger Corman, released in America by American-International Pictures. Photography by N. Kulchiskiy; Music by Yuli Meitus (reworked version by Carmine Coppola). Starring Ivan Pereverzev and Alla Popova; plus voices by Andy Stewart and Aria Powell.

Another waste of a foreign sci-fi film (from Russia), chopped up, dubbed and voice-over narrated to no avail. Beginning with a boring prologue expressing the authors' inflated view of the film's historical importance, this set in 1997 tale of the race of Earth's two powers (North and South hemis) to claim Mars is virtually devoid of continuity or interesting stuff. Nothing really happens, and just to punch up the action, a foolish fight between a giant insect creature and a headless hulk with eyestalks is inserted amidst otherwise straight science fiction.

In anticipation of Megalopolis (2024) coming out next month, it's time for me to finally binge through the filmography of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and that begins with his first movie, Battle Beyond the Sun (1959) and it was certainly interesting.

Positives for Battle Beyond the Sun (1959): It was interesting to watch a movie made by both Francis Ford Coppola and Roger Corman. The movie's premise is very simple in both concept and execution. The effects with rockets and shuttles for the most part are decent enough in this movie.

Negatives for Battle Beyond the Sun (1959): The movie is very low budget and it definitely feels like something that Roger Corman would make. The camera quality is very granny. And finally, there were times to where I lost interest in watching the movie.

Overall, Battle Beyond the Sun (1959) is a interesting start to the legendary career of Francia Ford Coppola.

BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN opens with a seemingly endless narrated segment, featuring an array of spaceship models. The basic plot involves a race to put together a mission to Mars.

Originally a Russian sci-fi epic, it was bought, Americanized, and sensationalized by none other than Roger Corman. In typical fashion, the story was condensed and new scenes were added in order to heighten the drama and thrills. Corman knew his audience, and that the unaltered film would never make any money at the drive-ins.

Admittedly, American audiences at the time of its release would probably have slept through much of it. Even in its truncated form it's pretty dull., in spite of the dramatic music. That is, until the forced satellite docking. Cue the rubber monsters!

So, another Soviet era space adventure is Corman-ated...

Like most soviet films of the period (and I watched the original version), in has no action whatsoever. The plot is stilted as statues at the People's Economy Achievements Exhibition in Moscow, and the story drags its feet to no end. It is a typical tableau vivant aimed at kicking imperialist America one more time, and at showing Russians (but mostly Ukrainians, as the film was done at the infamous Dovzhenko Studios, legendary for its spectacularly bad productions) at their best and foremost.

However, this propaganda poster about how Soviets and Americans tried to prove to each other whose penis extender—pardon me, phallic symbol—is better, racing each other to Mars, of all places, is nicely illustrated with analog FX. The music is abominable, and is in place only in the scene of "space madness" of the one "bad American" they let out into space. The dialogue is absurdist and as ridiculous as the gadgetry shown. More than anything else, it reminds me of the old Chapayev joke: —Pet'ka, the apparatus. —Six, Vasily Ivanovich. —Six what? —Apparatus what? In some sense, it's just as silly as Gravity. Look how much time passed, and what has changed?

Nevertheless, content-wise, the film's narrow-minded positivism and typical soviet jingoism is set off by one truly Pynchonian twist, and you can appreciate it if you read Gravity's Rainbow. The film has its own Gottfried, and there is the Gottfried glorious moment there. A-and Gottfried's name in the film is Grigory.

I have just posted a synopsis for this film and noted the major differences between the original Soviet production and the American release.

Although reported to be over 2 hours long my fully subtitled version is only 67 minutes.

I suspect that the a lot of the Soviet propaganda supposed to be in the film was removed before the subtitled version came out.

If anyone wants more details of the differences between the two films don't hesitate to contact me.

Also if anyone has a longer subtitled version of the original film I would also love to know how to source it