STAR PILOT (1966)

STAR PILOT (1966)

Tagline: They discovered strange new worlds, but they were not alone ...

(Sci-Fi, Adventure, Red Head in Space) [PG]

Note: This movie was also known as 2 + 5: MISSIONE HYDRA

Frightening. Space creatures are holding you, prisoner? The commander is a girl you say? And the punchline, when do you get to that?

In this one aliens crash land on an island and need the help of humans to get their ship repaired. They decide the best people for the job are a scientist named Professor Solmi, Luisa Solmi his daughter, a couple of oriental spies that just happened to be trying to rob the professor, a really smart guy named Belsy, and a couple other random coworkers of the professor. The aliens tell the humans they will be returned to Earth after the ship returns to its planet with them in tow. The humans decide to mutiny and the alien ship is thrown off course to another planet where for some reason everyone can breathe just fine. 

Apparently, after STAR WARS was a hit, this movie was dubbed in English to include a lot of references from STAR TREK, which included terms like “Star Fleet”, “Warp Speed” and more. I was kind of impressed with the dub itself. A lot of these older films really suffer trying to find talents that will do the dub in a way the fits the original tone of the film. As far as the plot, we have kind of seen this before. Earth sucks and aliens are partially here to tell us all about how are nukes could pose a threat to the universe. Gee thanks, none of us had figured that out already.

One interesting thing they did for the space scenes, was give the characters breathing tubes “space respirators” that go in their mouths rather than a full helmet. The design work is actually pretty cool in some shots, but the models for the ships are pretty lame compared to even stuff we got in the 50s. I also loved the space suits themselves. One thing I didn’t expect was actual non-human-looking aliens and we do get some finally which is cool, but they only get about a minute of screen time. 

There is some physical attraction stuff in this movie, but no real love story or romance. One of the prisoners is really into the female leader of the aliens. An alien is into Luisa, and she is into him. It’s all a giant love fest for about 5 minutes before we get back to the “Earth sucks” theme. 

Acting wise the movie's main star is Leonora Ruffo who had a really rad lineup of flicks in her resume. She plays the alien leader Kaena in this. Leontine Snell also stands out as Luisa Solmi. She is sort of a headstrong go-getter in this. Roland Lesaffre gets plenty of screen time as Professor Solmi. He wasn’t in any other films I am familiar with. Wrapping things up we get Kirk Morris who plays Belsy. He’s a pretty big dude who also played Hercules during his acting career. 

Overall this flick is a bit of a blast, but it’s also got a lot of issues if you are looking for super serious dialog and a cohesive plot. The ending gets a bit crazy and doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s also a bit of a downer, so this isn’t a movie to watch thinking you are going to go skipping through the meadow afterward. It will be more like a solemn…” oh, okay, that’s what’s going on here”.

This one is fun enough to get a 4 out of 7 even with its issues and the wonky ending. 

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