War of the Satellites

Poster tagline: LIFE MAGAZINE SAYS – “THE ULTIMATE IN SCIENTIFIC MONSTERS.” Roger Corman was a talented businessman. In 1957, when the media was flooded with news of the launch of the Sputnik satellite and people were very interested, he sensed a business opportunity and within a month and a half had the script written, all the production done and the film made in just ten days, according to the saying strike while the iron is hot, and while the word is out. He gave it a title as exalted as possible, for what could sound more appealing to the average viewer in this context than War of the Satellites, and presented a not very witty tale of a scientist in charge of a project to launch satellites, which are not wanted by aliens in Earth orbit. The aliens kill the scientist and replace him with his double, a "zombie" who has no human heart and whose sole purpose is to sabotage the project. The hastily spliced-together set with the empty white corridors of the satellite and the space headquarters is not worth much, and the effects of the satellite on a string and its "assembly" in space are downright ridiculous. On the other hand, the view of the launch pads with three rockets is quite nice and there’s one effect, repeated three times, when the alien scientist "hatches" a ghost, walks and materializes into another identical body, that is quite good, they used to give Oscars for these seven or eight years ago. In the end, I would rate it more positively, because the film has a fairly fast pace, but reason gets in the way, because the whole story of infiltration, secret murders, blatant coincidences, gradual suspicions and sudden epiphanies is terrible bullshit, and the highlight is the moment when the evil alien agent falls in love with an Earth woman, even though he despises the human race. (2013.03.03)