cult film freak: HOWARD DUFF IGNITES HAMMER'S SCI-FI MYSTERY 'SPACEWAYS'

Written by James M. Tate / 3/15/2023 / No comments / british , hammer films , howard duff , mystery , science-fiction

HOWARD DUFF IGNITES HAMMER'S SCI-FI MYSTERY 'SPACEWAYS'

3/15/2023 | No comment

Title: SPACEWAYS Year: 1953 Rating: **

Before their famous Victorian horror flicks, Hammer Films did either film noir crime or science fiction, making SPACEWAYS a cross between both but mostly mystery as two people vanish inside a headquarters along with a rocket that blasted into space to become a satellite... and it's imported American actor Howard Duff, friends and partners with a pretty scientist prettier than the wife who'd gone missing with a womanizing doctor she'd been cheating with...

Both stories pan out practically side by side... a shame because the sci-fi rocket aspect... especially during the early 1950's... feels straight from one of those space magazines from that era... having more potential than whoever might've killed two unlikable characters and possibly sent them into outer space on that rocket... a lesson for Hammer to stick with one genre or the other: in five years hitting the bigger leagues with good sci-fi including the QUATERMASS while horror classics DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN weren't far behind.

Howard Duff and Eva Bartok in SPACEWAYS

Doomed cheating couple Andrew Osborn and Cecile Chevreau in SPACEWAYS

Michael Medwin and (doomed wife) Cecile Chevreau in SPACEWAYS

Howard Duff and Eva Bartok in SPACEWAYS

Philip Leaver in SPACEWAYS

Alan Wheatley in SPACEWAYS

Howard Duff and Eva Bartok in SPACEWAYS

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Tags : british , hammer films , howard duff , mystery , science-fiction

James M. Tate

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