First Man into Space (1958)

First Man into Space (1959) just about managed to get into cinemas before there really was a first man into space - a Russian, as it turned out, rather than the American featured here.  It was one of a pair of low budget science fiction films starring Marshall Thompson produced by Richard Gordon for Anglo Amalgamated, (the other being 1958's Fiend Without a Face).  Both films, despite being filmed in the UK, purported to be set in North America.  While Fiend's Canadian setting was carried of reasonably convincingly, First Man into Space never really convinces us that it is set in New Mexico, Surrey proving to be a poor substitute for the desert state.  Despite turning a profit at the box office, First Man into Space is, artistically, far inferior to Fiend, thanks largely to its overly derivative story.

Actually, it isn't so much derivative as it is a complete rip-off of Nigel Kneale's 1953 BBC TV serial The Quatermass Experiment.  Indeed, while the titles might credit the story to Wyatt Ordung (the man who gave us Robot Monster), but, in truth, the film's execution owes far more to Kneale's creation (and its subsequent, hugely successful, film adaptation by Hammer).  As in Quatermass Experiment, the first space traveller returns to earth horribly mutated after an encounter with an alien force.  In this case, her comes back encrusted in some form of cosmic dust, which turns him into a blood drinking monster.  The film's climax even echoes that of Kneale's original TV script, with the creature briefly regaining its humanity before expiring.  To be fair, despite its derivative nature, First Man into Space is a reasonably effective B-movie, with atmospheric black and white direction from Robert Day and a memorable and well realised monster in Bill Edwards' space suited and dust encrusted killer astronaut. The make-up for the lumbering creature is excellent, but, thanks to Bill Edwards' unsympathetic character, it is difficult to feel much sympathy for it, even during what is clearly intended to be a tragic climax.  Ultimately, First Man into Space isn't a bad film, but it lacks the originality of concept and fevered nightmarish atmosphere that makes its companion piece, Fiend Without a Face, so compelling.