I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A multi-national space mission including astronauts from the UK, the USA and the Soviet Union venture into space but they experience technical problems resulting in the mission being aborted, but unfortunately this is just the first in a chain reaction of events which results in catastrophic disasters back on Earth, including scores of asteroids, earthquakes and extreme weather.The Day the Sky Exploded is fairly notable for being the first Italian sci-fi movie. Having said that, this is a fairly limited claim to fame given science fiction wouldn't exactly go on to become one of the movie sub-genres that the pasta masters are most well remembered for. This one is fairly ahead of its time in some respects though and quite ambitious for its time. It also is unusual in that it showed Americans and Russians working happily together at the height of the Cold War. So, it has some interesting things about it for sure but on the whole it was pretty forgettable stuff unfortunately. Interestingly, it was also photographed by the great future directing legend Mario Bava; to be honest, the version I saw this was a public domain pan-and-scan copy in which it was difficult to really tell if it had great cinematography or not sadly.

Leave it to the Italians to copy American and British sci-fi quickies back in the 1950s. Only, the Italians manage to do so very badly. An off-course rocket launched from Cape Shark (!) apparently dislodges an asteroid from its path, and which begins to hurtle toward the Earth. Scientists around the world try to figure a way to stop it before it hits. We are treated to endless stock footage of forest fires, burning buildings, animals stampeding, missiles and rockets being launched and crowds running in panic as the massive rock closes in on our planet. My favorite footage were the crowd scenes. No matter where in the world they took place, the sound man used the same 10-second loop of some bizarre crowd noise, almost like that of a circus audience going wild, and which includes an abbreviated scream or shout that sounds like a macaw or parrot shrieking. I came to look forward to those crowd running wild segments and that repeated sound effect to keep from falling asleep. The acting isn't all that bad, and the leading man, a foreign-born Gordon "Tarzan" Scott lookalike, is actually pretty good. About half the movie is composed of stock footage, so be prepared. Only two or three babes in the entire movie, and none is worth writing home about -- which is really sad, considering this was an Italian job from 1958, smack dab in the era of pointy bras and Gina Lollabrigida. I guess the Italians saved the real cuties for their sand and sandal epics of that period.

The actor voicing McLaren in the American version is Shane Rimmer, who also provided the voice of Thunderbird 1 pilot Scott Tracy. I win the contest!To me, the oddest thing about this movie is McLaren's demeanor during the space flight. He looks like death warmed over, like he really really wants to go home right NOW, like he might vomit at any moment, and like he can barely bring himself to speak. Or admit that he feels like hell.This movie is not bad enough to be a source of amusement for that reason alone. It makes a serious attempt to tell a story, and is more coherent and intelligent than some recent similar films which commanded budgets hundreds of times larger.

Day the Sky Exploded, The (1957) * 1/2 (out of 4) Poor science fiction film about the first spaceship being sent to outer space where it accidentally sets off a missile, which sends debris back to Earth. This is yet another science fiction film that bites off more than it can chew. A lot of the films from this era worked on low budgets because they worked with what they had and didn't try doing to much. Then, there's this film, which tries to be a lot bigger than the budget will allow and this makes the film come off looking very cheap. It also leads to a lot of boring dialogue through the bad dubbing. The dubbing here is perhaps the worst I've ever heard but I doubt the film would play any better in its original language. Mario Bava did the cinematography.