Battle Beyond the Sun

{Note: these comments and score refer to the Russian film 'Nebo Zovyot' ('The Sky Beckons') (1959), NOT the AIP film 'Battle Beyond the Sun' which was pieced together using the Russian special effects (plus a couple of ridiculous monsters)}. The Soviet spaceship "Motherland' is being prepared on a space station for the first journey to Mars when the mission leader Yevgeny Petrovich Kornev (Ivan Pereverzev) gets a call from another team (presumably American but this is not explicit), also planning on going to Mars in their spaceship "The Typhoon", who request access to the space station's facilities. Kornev assures them that the station is 'open to all'. During subsequent conversations, The Typhoon's crew, pilot Robert Clark (Constantine Bartashevich) and publicity man Erwin Verst (Gurgen Tonunt), are very leery about revealing their exact plans and seem flustered when they find out the Soviets are leaving a few days hence. Verst contacts his boss, who orders them to leave immediately, despite the risks, as all that matters is getting to Mars first (in 1959, the real 'space race' was just beginning). The Typhoon breaks station regulations and takes off without authorisation, injuring Motherland crew member Gregory Somov (Valentin Chernyak). The takeoff triggers an orgy of capitalistic marketing, as seen in a montage of Times Square signs proclaiming the success of the "Mars Syndicate" to be the first to reach Mars, plugs for Mars themed cocktails, and real estate ads pushing the sale of cheap Martian land (an unsubtle dig at Western commercialism and blunt counterpoint to Kornev 'knowledge for knowledge's sake' explanation for why the Russians want to go to the red planet). Paying for their recklessness, the crew of the Typhoon soon find themselves low on fuel and drifting toward the sun. They send an SOS to the Russians who, without hesitation, abandon their own Mars trip to rescue their rivals, despite the hazards of the meteor field the Typhoon has entered. The Motherland, with too little fuel to return to Earth or land on Mars, touches down on the tiny asteroid 'Icarus', the orbit of which has taken it near Mars, to await help from Earth. When an unmanned fuel shuttle crashes, all seems lost until Kornev spots a space-suited figure staggering across the asteroid's surface: Somov had heroically taken command of a second shuttle and delivered the necessary fuel. The film opens with a lengthy present day (i.e. 1959) prologue but just ignore the 'just a dream of the future' framing device and watch the film as straight, hard science fiction. The film is a product of its times and its blatant cold war politics (noble Socialists vs. grasping Capitalists) seems trite and dated, but the story is entertaining and the special effects and imagery outstanding (especially the 'Mars-rise' scene on Icarus or the numerous shots of the spaceships and the space station). I watched a sub-titled version, so somethings may have been lost in translation (such as the nature of Somov's fate). Definitely a must-see for space-opera junkies (or fans of Soviet-era cinema). The best of the 'space' scenes can also be seen in the ridiculous AIP opus 'Battle Beyond the Sun', assembled by one of Roger Corman's more famous umpa loompas, Francis Ford Coppola, or the even more dire 'Queen of Blood' (1966), both of which incorporated recycled 'Nebo Zovyot' footage.