MISSION STARDUST (1967)

MISSION STARDUST (1967)

Tagline: 2076 AD · Planet Against Planet in a Bionic Battle for Space.

(Sci-Fi, Adventure, This Blasted Science) [PG]

That’s a very primitive act…

In this one, a group of astronauts is sent to the moon to look for a precious metal thought to be there, but on the way, a mysterious force takes them to the dark side where they can’t reach Earth. When they arrive they find a group of aliens there who are trapped due to a broken down ship. Naturally, when the astronauts are arriving they are immediately insulted and called primitive etc. The aliens tell them that they have a sick doctor with them and the astronauts attempt to help them. Meanwhile, back on earth, a crime boss has a plant on the mission there for a nefarious purpose. They want the precious metal the astronauts are after. 

Apparently, a lot of writers back in the 1950s and 1960s were really hoping if you got to the moon, there were going to be some really attractive females there. This movie is no exception, without even knowing really anything about Thora (an alien woman played by Essy Persson), is just gonna get grabbed and kissed by Maj. Perry Rhodan whether she likes it or not. Pretty crazy. I was raised to be an alpha male, but also not to just randomly grab women and kiss them with no permission whatsoever. What the cow?

The effects in this movie are pretty cheap looking, especially for 1967. The sets and designs are okay, but if anything is floating around, this is going to be really probably just a piece of paper with a picture on it moved around in stop motion like. It’s really janky. Acting wise this is one of the better foreign films of the era that fall into the “full cheese” category. Full cheese meaning, that the entire film feels like it was crammed into a food processor and just spit out with whatever. Everything looks amateur and the camera angles are just really stiff and static. This is not to say there are no decent shots, but man oh man. 

I did like that they threw a humanoid robot in here that looks super freaky when it removes its helmet. They did rent real military equipment and none of the footage appears to be stock footage even if it is. The downside of this film is that after the first 30 minutes or so, everything happens on Earth, and outside of a few cool shots of the spaceship blowing stuff up, the plot just goes really downhill and starts turning into more of a lame 60s James Bond-like film only less interesting. It actually starts getting boring. Because of this, the pacing is bad. There are a couple of pretty funny fight scenes. 

The cast is good, but outside of that, this movie had a hard time keeping my attention as it relied too heavily on just having Essy Persson or Ann Smyrner (who plays Dr. Sheridan) show up and try and tantalize the audience by just acting tough and insulting everyone. If I ever need that I can just go to the gym across the street and sign up for a personal trainer. We do actually get a plot, it’s not just a canned sci-fi story, but it comes across as processed as I mentioned earlier. 

Overall this is far from the worst 1960s sci-fi flick I have seen, but this is definitely not something you need to run to. If you have a list of 1960s sci-fi movies you are trying to watch, this one should be in about the middle or lower half of that list. There are a couple of fun elements in this film but the lulls bring down my score. 

MISSION STARDUST gets a 4 out of 7. I do like that they at least tried a few different things. 

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