First Spaceship on Venus
About First Spaceship on Venus
In 1985, engineers irrigating the Gobi Desert dig up a spool of unknown material, linked to the 1908 Tunguska blast and read as a flight recorder from Venus. Professor Harringway sends the Soviet ship Kosmoskrator, retasked from a Mars voyage, with an international crew. The decoded message is a Venusian plan to irradiate Earth. On the dead planet they find a city blasted by nuclear war, shadows of the inhabitants burned onto walls, and a still-running weapon. Reversing it throws the ship off the world and strands part of the crew.
Cast & crew
More about First Spaceship on Venus
Kurt Maetzig directed this East German–Polish color film from Stanisław Lem's 1951 novel The Astronauts. In East Germany it is Der schweigende Stern and in Poland Milcząca Gwiazda. Progress Film released it in February 1960 at 95 minutes. The U.S. release, on 31 October 1962, used the title First Spaceship on Venus. Writers include Jan Fethke, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Günter Reisch, and Günther Rücker. Joachim Hasler photographed it. Andrzej Markowski wrote the music.
Themes
Look
Joachim Hasler photographed the color film.
Music
Andrzej Markowski wrote the score.
Notes
- Günther Simon, Yoko Tani, and Julius Ongewe are among the leads.
- The ship is the Kosmokrator. A robot named Omega goes with the one-man lander.
- Brinkmann's lander is destroyed when it settles on high-tension lines.
- Talua reverses the weapon from the Venusian command center. Brinkmann is thrown beyond rescue, and Talua and Tschen Yü stay on the planet.
Scenes
- The spool is decoded as an invasion plan.
- Humanoid shadows are burned onto the walls of the ruined city.
- Reversing the weapon flings the ship off Venus.
Influenced by
- The Astronauts (Stanisław Lem, 1951)
Also available
- Internet Archive (the_first_spaceship_on_venus)