War of the Satellites ** (1958, Richard Devon, Dick Miller, Susan Cabot, Eric Sinclair, Michael Fox, Robert Shayne, Bruno VeSota) – Classic Movie Review 3753

Producer-director Roger Corman’s primitive 1958 low-budget ($70,000) black-and-white science-fiction film stars Richard Devon (as Dr Pol Van Ponder), Dick Miller (as Dave Boyer) and Susan Cabot (as Sybil Carrington), and was quickly made to exploit the media frenzy over the launch of the Russian Sputnik satellite, the first in space.

In the plot, the United Nations disobeys warnings to stop assembling and launching the first satellite into space – and an unknown force declares war against Earth. After the bad guys kill Dr Van Ponder and replace him with a lookalike, a satellite is sent into space with him aboard and he starts killing off the other crew members.

As an ultra-cheap, independently made movie, it did well to be distributed by Allied Artists. Supposedly, the movie was playing in cinemas only eight weeks after it was completed. Of course the movie looks ultra-cheap, and of course the outer space effects are awful, even for the time, but the cast do well and it’s still quite fun.

Corman has a cameo as the ground controller. The control panel is the automatic pilot from a WWII B-17 bomber.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3753

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