请输入您要查询的百科知识:

 

词条 First Spaceship on Venus
释义

  1. Plot

  2. Cast

  3. Production

  4. Reception

     Awards 

  5. Other releases

     United States 

  6. In other media

  7. References

     Bibliography 

  8. External links

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2012}}{{Infobox film
| name = First Spaceship on Venus
| image = Derschweigendestern.jpg
| image_size = 225px
| alt =
| caption = German theatrical release poster
| director = Kurt Maetzig
| screenplay = Kurt Maetzig
Uncredited:
J. Barkhauer
| story = J. Fethke
W. Kohlhasse
G. Reisch
G. Rücker
A. Stenbock-Fermor
| based on = {{Based on|The Astronauts|Stanisław Lem}}
| starring = Günther Simon
Julius Ongewe
Yoko Tani
| music = Andrzej Markowski
| cinematography = Joachim Hasler
| editing = Lena Neumann
| studio = Roter Kreis group of DEFA[1]
{{ill|Iluzjon|pl|Studio Filmowe Iluzjon}} film studio
| distributor = Progress Film {{small|(East Germany)}}
Crown International Pictures (USA)
| released = {{Film date|df=y|1960|02|26|East Germany|1960|03|07|Poland}} 1962 U.S. release dubbed in English by Crown International Pictures
| runtime = 93 minutes
79 minutes[1] {{small|(US)}}
| country = German Democratic Republic
Polish People's Republic
| language = German
}}First Spaceship on Venus, (a.k.a. in German: Der Schweigende Stern; in Polish: Milcząca Gwiazda; literal English translation: The Silent Star), also known in English as Planet of the Dead and Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply, is a 1960 East German/Polish color science fiction film based on the 1951 science fiction novel The Astronauts by Stanisław Lem. It was directed by Kurt Maetzig and stars Günther Simon, Julius Ongewe, and Yoko Tani. The film, running 93 minutes, was first released by Progress Film in East Germany. [2]

After finding an ancient, long-buried flight recorder that originally came from a spaceship, apparently from Venus, a human spaceship is dispatched. The crew discovers a long-dead Venusian civilization that had constructed a device intended to destroy all life on the Earth prior to invasion. Before they could execute their plan, they perished in a global nuclear war.

Plot

In 1985 engineers involved in an industrial project to irrigate the Gobi Desert accidentally unearth a mysterious and apparently artificial "spool". When found to be made of a material unknown on Earth, the spool is circumstantially linked to the Tunguska explosion of 1908. The spool is seized on as evidence that the explosion, originally blamed on a meteor, was actually caused by an alien spaceship.

Professor Harringway deduces the craft must have come from Venus. The spool itself is determined to be a flight recorder and is partially decoded by an international team of scientists led by Professor Sikarna and Dr. Tchen Yu. When radio greetings sent to Venus go unanswered, Harringway announces that a journey to Venus is the only alternative. The recently completed Soviet spaceship Cosmostrator, intended to voyage to Mars, is redirected to Venus, a 30- to 31-day journey. During the voyage, Sikarna works furiously to translate the alien message using the spaceship's computer.

When their spaceship nears Venus, radio interference from the planet cuts the crew off from Earth. By then, Sikarna's efforts lead to a stunning discovery: The spool describes a Venusian plan to irradiate the Earth's surface, with the extermination of mankind being the prelude to an invasion. Rather than containing a "cosmic document", as had been expected, the spool bears a cold-blooded message of destruction. Harringway convinces the crew to press on towards Venus rather than return to Earth with news that would panic mankind.

With the ship's robot, Omega, American astronaut Brinkman pilots a one-man landing craft. On the ground, he encounters an industrial complex and finds small recording devices that look like insects. The rest of the crew follows when Cosmostrator lands, but they find no Venusian life forms. Journeying across the planet, they find the remains of a deserted and blasted city centered around a huge crater, signs of a catastrophic explosion so intense that shadowy forms of humanoid Venusians are permanently burned on to the walls of the surviving buildings.

The Venusians are gone, but their machines remain functioning, including the radiation-bombardment machine intended for Earth. One of the scientists accidentally triggers the weapon, leading to a frantic effort by the Earthmen to disarm it. Tchen Yu lowers Talua, the ship's communication officer, into the Venusian command center. When Tchen Yu's suit is punctured, Brinkman ventures out to save him. Before he can reach Yu, Talua succeeds in reversing the weapon. Unfortunately, this also reverses Venus' gravitational field, flinging Cosmostrator into space. Brinkman is also repelled off the planet, beyond the reach of the spaceship, while Talua and Tchen Yu remain marooned on Venus. The surviving crew members must return to Earth, where they warn humanity about the dangers of atomic weapons.

Cast

  • Günther Simon as Raimund Brinkman (Robert in the US release), the Kosmokrator's German pilot
  • Julius Ongewe as Talua, the African communications officer
  • Yoko Tani as Dr. Sumiko Ogimura, the Japanese medical officer
  • Oldrich Lukes as Professor Harringway Hawling, the American commander
  • Ignacy Machowski as Professor Saltyk (Durand, a French engineer, in the US release), the Polish chief engineer
  • Michail N. Postnikow as Professor Arsenew (Orloff in the US release), the Soviet cosmonaut
  • Kurt Rackelmann as Professor Sikarna, an Indian mathematician
  • Tang Hua-Ta as Dr. Chen Yu (Lao Tsu in the US Release), a Chinese linguist.
  • Lucina Winnicka as Joan Moran, television reporter
  • Eduard von Winterstein as a nuclear physicist
  • Ruth Maria Kubitschek as Professor Arsenew's wife

Production

In the film's original East German and Polish release the Earth spaceship sent to Venus is named Kosmokrator.

The film was shot mostly in East Germany.[3] The outdoors scenes were shot in the area of Zakopane, Poland and the airfield of Berlin-Johannisthal and special effects in Babelsberg Studio and in a studio in Wroclaw, Poland. The spaceship mock-up at the airfield was a matter of a newspaper hoax in Der Kurier : the front page presented it as a failed attempt at spaceflight in the Soviet occupation zone.[4]

The film was noted for early extensive usage of "electronic sounds" on its soundtrack. Electronic music and noises illustrated the work of the computer that deciphers the alien message, the message itself, and the eerie landscape of Venus devastated by the nuclear catastrophe. Markowski, who produced the musical score, was assisted by sound engineer Krzysztof Szlifirski from the Experimental Studio of Polish Radio, with some sound effects added at the laboratory of the Military Academy of Technology in Warsaw and with post-production at DEFA.[5]

When first released to European cinemas, the film sold 4,375,094 tickets.[6]

Reception

In a retrospective on Soviet science fiction film, British director Alex Cox compared First Spaceship on Venus to the Japanese film The Mysterians, but called the former "more complex and morally ambiguous".[7] Cox also remarked that "Silent Star's images of melted cities and crystallised forests, overhung by swirling clouds of gas, are masterpieces of production design. The scene in which three cosmonauts are menaced halfway up a miniature Tower of Babel by an encroaching sea of sludge may not entirely convince, but it is still a heck of a thing to see".[7]

Stanislaw Lem, whose novel the film was based upon, was extremely critical of the adaptation and even wanted his name removed from the credits in protest against the extra politicization of the story compared to his original.[8] (Lem: "It practically delivered speeches about the struggle for peace. Trashy screenplay was painted; tar was bubbling, which would not scare even a child.")[9]

Awards

  • 1964: Festival of Utopian Films, Triest (Utopisches Filmfestival Triest): "Golden Spaceship Award" ("Das goldene Raumschiff")[2]

Other releases

United States

In 1962 the shortened 79-minute dubbed release from Crown International Pictures substituted the title First Spaceship on Venus for the English-speaking market. The film was released theatrically in the U.S. as a double feature with the re-edited version of the 1958 Japanese Kaiju film Varan the Unbelievable. All references to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima were edited out. The American character Hawling became a Russian named Orloff. The Russian character Arseniev became the American Herringway, while the Polish character Soltyk became the Frenchman Durand.

Some other versions of the film, differently cut and dubbed, were on the American market at the time: Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply and Planet of the Dead.[10]

The original, uncut version of the film was finally re-released in the U.S. in 2004 under its original title The Silent Star by the DEFA Film Library of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[11]

In other media

In 1980 a short sequence from First Spaceship on Venus was used as a "film-within-a-film" in the low budget feature Galaxina.

In 1990 the film was featured in the second season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and was released on DVD in 2008 by Shout! Factory, as part of their "MST3K 20th Anniversary Edition" collection.

In 2007 the film was shown on the horror hosted television series Cinema Insomnia.[12] Apprehensive Films later released the Cinema Insomnia episode on DVD.[13]

References

1. ^{{cite web|title=FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS (U)|url=http://www.bbfc.co.uk/AFF034567/|work=British Board of Film Classification|date=1963-01-23|accessdate=2012-11-14}}
2. ^An entry about Der Schweigende Stern and DEFA film database (retriever October 27 2018)
3. ^{{cite book |author1=Allan, SeDn |author2=Sandford, John | year=1999 | title=DEFA: East German cinema, 1946-1992 | publisher=Berghahn Books | isbn=1-57181-943-6 | page=80 }}
4. ^"RAUMFAHRT - Die Ost-Venusier", Der Spiegel, June 24, 1959 (retrieved 2017-09-22)
5. ^Off the Planet: Music, Sound and Science Fiction Cinema, [https://books.google.com/books?id=louaDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 p.11]
6. ^List of the 50 highest-grossing DEFA films.
7. ^{{cite web|first1=Alex|last1=Cox|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jun/30/russian-science-fiction-sci-fi-films-bfi|title=Rockets from Russia: great Eastern Bloc science-fiction films|work=The Guardian|publisher=Guardian Media Group|date=June 30, 2011|accessdate=August 22, 2016}}
8. ^MILCZĄCA GWIAZDA, filmpolski.pl (retrieved 2017-09-22)
9. ^"Filmowe światy Stanisława Lema", citing Lem's interview from the book Thus Spoke... Lem ([https://web.archive.org/web/20030402114619/http://www.stopklatka.pl:80/artykuly/artykul.asp?wi=13044&sekcja=3 Wayback Machine archive of the relevant section])
10. ^Off the Planet: Music, Sound and Science Fiction Cinema, [https://books.google.com/books?id=louaDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA27 p. 27]
11. ^{{cite web|title=DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015144702/http://www.umass.edu/defa/silentstar.shtml|work=DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst|accessdate=22 May 2011}}
12. ^{{cite web |url=http://www.cinemainsomnia.com/show.php#episode |title=Cinema Insomnia |date= |work= |publisher=Cinema Insomnia |accessdate=20 July 2010 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100328140102/http://www.cinemainsomnia.com/show.php#episode |archivedate=28 March 2010 |df=dmy }}
13. ^{{cite web |url=http://www.thecrippledmasters.com/cifirstspaceshipdvd.html |title=First Spaceship on Venus DVD |date= |work= |publisher=Apprehensive Films |accessdate=20 July 2010 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716230703/http://www.thecrippledmasters.com/cifirstspaceshipdvd.html |archivedate=16 July 2011 |df=dmy-all }}

Bibliography

  • Ciesla, Burghard: "Droht der Menschheit Vernichtung? Der schweigende Stern – First Spaceship on Venus: Ein Vergleich". (Apropos Film. Bertz, Berlin 2002: 121–136. {{ISBN|3-929470-23-3}})
  • Kruschel, Karsten: "Leim für die Venus. Der Science-Fiction-Film in der DDR." (Das Science Fiction Jahr 2007 ed. Sascha Mamczak and Wolfgang Jeschke. Heyne Verlag, 2007: 803–888. {{ISBN|3-453-52261-3}}.)
  • Warren, Bill. Keep Watching The Skies, Vol II: 1958–1962. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1986. {{ISBN|0-89950-032-3}}.

External links

  • {{Internet Archive film|id=the_first_spaceship_on_venus|name=First Spaceship on Venus (dubbed in English)}}
  • {{IMDb title|0053250|First Spaceship on Venus}}
  • {{allrovi movie|17504|First Spaceship on Venus}}
  • {{rotten-tomatoes|first_spaceship_on_venus|First Spaceship on Venus}}
{{Lem}}{{Kurt Maetzig}}{{GDR cinema}}{{DEFAULTSORT:First Spaceship on Venus}}

20 : 1960 films|1960s science fiction films|German science fiction films|Polish science fiction films|East German films|Polish films|German-language films|Films based on works by Stanisław Lem|Space adventure films|Films about astronauts|Films about nuclear war and weapons|Alien invasions in films|Venus in film|Films set in the 1970s|Films set in New York City|Films set in Russia|Films shot in Germany|Films shot in Poland|Crown International Pictures films|Films based on Polish novels

随便看

 

开放百科全书收录14589846条英语、德语、日语等多语种百科知识,基本涵盖了大多数领域的百科知识,是一部内容自由、开放的电子版国际百科全书。

 

Copyright © 2023 OENC.NET All Rights Reserved
京ICP备2021023879号 更新时间:2024/9/24 11:35:26