The Day the Sky Exploded

The Day the Sky Exploded
Poster for the U.S release of the film
Directed by	Paolo Heusch
Produced by	Samuel Z. Arkoff/Guido Giambartolomei
Written by	Virgilio Sebel, Marcello Coscia, Sandro Continenza
Starring	Paul Hubschmid/Fiorella Mari
Music by	Carlo Rustichelli
Cinematography	Mario Bava
Editing by	Otello Colangeli
Release date(s)	1958
Running time	82 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

The Day the Sky Exploded (Italian: La morte viene dallo spazio) is a 1958 Italian science fiction film directed by Paolo Heusch. It is known as the first italian sci-fi dramatic film.^[1][2] It starred Paul Hubschmid and Fiorella Mari, and was also released in France and West Germany. It was also known as Death Comes from Space and Death From Outer Space, recalling the original Italian title.

Plot

An atomic rocket is launched on a manned moon mission, but one of the engines malfunctions. The rocket's steering is broken. The pilot disengages the capsule and returns to earth. The atomic booster, however, continues on, eventually crashing into and exploding in an asteroid belt. The explosion dislodges many asteroids from their orbits. They coalesce into one giant cluster and are heading for earth. As the cluster approaches earth it causes global scale disasters: tidal waves, wind, fire storms and earthquakes. Mankind's only hope is to arm every missile on earth with a nuclear warhead and fire them all at the cluster. One scientist loses his sanity in the crisis and disables the great computer needed to calculate all the firing data. He is stopped and the data provided. The nations of the world band together and fire the volley. The cluster is destroyed.

In the English version of the movie, the sun was not mentioned as the source of the asteroids. From the movie:

“

“We have been able to locate the source of the echo.” “Well?” “It comes from the mass of Delta asteroids. The explosion of the XZ atomic charge has driven them out of orbit. They have become attracted one to another forming a single mass which is now wandering in space.” “Direction?” “Towards the Earth.”

”

In the French version of the movie however, the atomic rocket stage exploded later in Asteroid belt hurtling meteors on a collision course with earth.

Atomic-Age Moral

Nearing the climax of the film, the main character (and rocket pilot) John McLaren says:

“

"At this moment, the safety of the human race is entrusted to the very weapons that were created for its own destruction. Let us commend ourselves to God."

”

An Italian or a German-Italian sci-fi movie ?

The Day the Sky Exploded was an Italian-French co-production.^[1][2] however in Germany the movie was often considered as a German-Italian film. In fact the movie has an unusually high number of German actors for an Italian movie. Next to Paul Hubschmid were Eddi Arent and others actors from famous German Edgar Wallace "Krimi" movies. Some German sci-fi movie literature claims the movie director is German Paul Heusch, Paolo being a misspelling of Paul while Heusch is a German family name.

See also

• Moon in fiction
• The Mechanical Man, an earlier Italian science fiction feature

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Roberto Chiavini, Gian Filippo Pizzo, Michele Tetro (2003). Il grande cinema di fantascienza: aspettando il monolito nero (1902-1967) (Vol. 2 of Il grande cinema di fantascienza, Collana gli Album ed.). Gremese. p. 145. ISBN 8884402662, ISBN 9788884402660. http://books.google.it/books?id=2L52yZx9YCwC&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Roberto Chiti, Roberto Poppi, Enrico Lancia (1991). Dizionario del cinema italiano (Vol. 2 of Dizionari Gremese, Vol. 1-2 of I film ed.). Gremese. p. 240. ISBN 8876055487, ISBN 9788876055485. http://books.google.it/books?id=EXeCF5f-JB4C&pg=PA240. 

External links

• The Day the Sky Exploded at the Internet Movie Database
• The Day the Sky Exploded is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]