Spaceways
They are a dedicated team whose small size belies their big ambition, Doctor Stephen Mitchell, engineer, Doctor Philip Crenshaw, biologist, Doctor Toby Andrews, fuel expert, and Doctor Lisa Frank, mathematician, overseen by Doctor Koepler, head of the project to create a multi-stage rocket to launch a satellite into permanent orbit, the first of its kind and the first stage towards building a space station, opening the spaceways.
A critical test failing, the final stage failing to boost as it should, the disappointment is tempered by the urge to understand the reason for the failure, but it is realised there are two individuals missing from the tightly guarded Deanfield Experimental Station, Crenshaw and Vanessa Mitchell; security confirming they could not have left, suspicion falls on Mitchell that he murdered his wife and her lover and hid the bodies on the rocket before launch, never to be found.
Adapted by Paul Tabori and Richard Landau from the radio play by Charles Eric Maine, author of The Tide Went Out and Darkest of Nights, Spaceways was the second science fiction film produced by Hammer, released only two months after Four Sided Triangle and again directed by Terence Fisher, though it fits only nominally within that framework, the AS-1 rocket the ploy by which the “perfect crime” might have been orchestrated, though it is as much a contrivance as any similar inaccessible location in a murder mystery.
Starring American Howard Duff as Stephen Mitchell and Hungarian-British Eva Bartok as Lisa Frank and released four years before Sputnik was launched and a decade before Kennedy would accelerate the Space Race, it was perhaps reasoned that an international cast would expand the the appeal of what was then a niche interest, and while the matte paintings of both the rocket and the base are convincing the action shots are stock footage with only occasional model work, the majority of the film taking place in mission control or administrative offices.
The investigation conducted by snide new arrival Doctor Smith (Alan Wheatley) leaping forward with gaps in logic, the plot is as thin as the evidence and the internal security protocols are as haphazard as the rocketry, the relationship of Crenshaw and surly Vanessa (Cecile Chevreau) sizzling with the passion of a dead fish and the scientists pompous, stuffy and dull, a tepid and underwritten mystery with a flat resolution and any sense of jeopardy entirely artificial.
Crisply restored in 4K UHD from the original negatives, Hammer’s new edition of Spaceways is given admirable ground support with the UK and US theatrical versions, the latter marginally shorter, two commentaries, a look at the differences in style between the British and American science fiction cinema, a conversation between Tim Lucas and Stephen R Bissette on the science fiction films of the era, a trailer and a gallery of stills and publicity material.
Spaceways will be available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Hammer from Monday 9th March
