Riders to the Stars

Considering that the film was made in 1954, I will cut it some slack when it comes to the special effects--though the outer space shots late in the film were pretty lame (I loved how the ships wobbled). However, even with crude special effects, this is an interesting and important sci-fi film because it has to do with the 1950s views of what the first space flights would be like as well as how they would recruit people to this program. Not knowing about the later formation of NASA and how they recruited pilots from the various branches of the military, the film takes a very different view of how people were brought into this ultra-top secret program--and I found this and the selection methods for the program to be very interesting--wrong, but interesting. Also, fortunately, the space travel was not nearly as rough or dangerous as the film portrayed it--otherwise practically none of our manned space flights would have succeeded! Still, it's a nice sci-fi--and nice to see that, for once, there are no bug-eyed aliens! Well worth seeing for sci-fi fans and lovers of history--though some kids will no doubt laugh at much of the film.