Great Britain's legendary Hammer Studio produced this film that was released in the USA by the Poverty Row company Lippert Pictures. It's a science fiction melodrama with some illicit romance tossed in with an espionage angle from a Cold War point of view. The anti-Communist angle plus the fact that the lead was American actor Howard Duff made Spaceways a good item for its time.
Howard Duff is an American rocket science working with the British on an eventual manned rocket flight into space. The timing of that flight gets stepped up quite a bit when Duff is accused of murder.
Not that he hasn't good and sufficient reason to murder his tramp of a wife Cecile Chevreau. She's carrying on with fellow scientist Alan Osborn who also happens to be a Russian spy. In any event both are looking to escape the top security base that they are on for their very different reasons.
When Chevreau and Osborn disappear the day of a rocket test flight government security man Alan Wheatley best known for being the sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood TV series starts an investigation. One theory is that Duff murdered both of them and put them in the rocket which will orbit the Earth for years. That leaves Wheatley with no case to prove and Duff out in security limbo.
That's not good enough for Duff who volunteers to go up himself and bring the first rocket down to clear himself. What happens after that you see the film for.
Spaceways is certainly a film of its time. The British while never going as extreme as we did in the McCarthy days to prove our anti-Communism did have their own Cold War cinema which found an audience here. Spaceways is an example of it.
Over there though they made Hungarian born and accented Eva Bartok who plays another scientist and one who really has it big for Howard the love interest. Over here that accent would have guaranteed she play a villain.
There's a bit of suspenseful tension in the climax which viewers today of Spaceways might find enjoyable. Low production values, but good acting performances characterize this Lippert released film.
Howard Duff is an American rocket science working with the British on an eventual manned rocket flight into space. The timing of that flight gets stepped up quite a bit when Duff is accused of murder.
Not that he hasn't good and sufficient reason to murder his tramp of a wife Cecile Chevreau. She's carrying on with fellow scientist Alan Osborn who also happens to be a Russian spy. In any event both are looking to escape the top security base that they are on for their very different reasons.
When Chevreau and Osborn disappear the day of a rocket test flight government security man Alan Wheatley best known for being the sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood TV series starts an investigation. One theory is that Duff murdered both of them and put them in the rocket which will orbit the Earth for years. That leaves Wheatley with no case to prove and Duff out in security limbo.
That's not good enough for Duff who volunteers to go up himself and bring the first rocket down to clear himself. What happens after that you see the film for.
Spaceways is certainly a film of its time. The British while never going as extreme as we did in the McCarthy days to prove our anti-Communism did have their own Cold War cinema which found an audience here. Spaceways is an example of it.
Over there though they made Hungarian born and accented Eva Bartok who plays another scientist and one who really has it big for Howard the love interest. Over here that accent would have guaranteed she play a villain.
There's a bit of suspenseful tension in the climax which viewers today of Spaceways might find enjoyable. Low production values, but good acting performances characterize this Lippert released film.