FIRST MAN INTO SPACE

FIRST MAN INTO SPACE (1959). Director: Robert Day.

"-- The first picture that takes you into space."

Commander Charles Prescott (Marshall Thompson) has a problematic relationship with his test pilot brother Lt. Dan Prescott (Bill Edwards), who resents that he has to follow his more responsible sibling's orders. Dan winds up flying higher than anyone has gone before and is forced to eject, but a bigger problem is that he has been covered with a kind of metallic space dust that causes him to mutate into a blood-drinking monster that terrorizes New Mexico. First Man into Space is pretty much a mediocre rip-off of The Quatermass Xperiment [aka Creeping Unknown] with little to recommend it. The picture is slow, stints on the horror for the most part, and has only adequate acting. Marla Landi plays brother Dan's love interest.

Verdict: Neither space nor Earth should be quite this boring. **.