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Spaceways | 
| Director: Terence Fisher
Actors: Howard Duff, Eva Bartok, Alan Wheatley, Philip Leaver, Michael Medwin
Studio: Image Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.99
Buy New: $5.20
You Save: $4.79 (48%)
New (24) Used (6) Collectible (1) from $5.20
Rating:  6 reviews
Format: Black & White, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 74 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5 x 0.6
UPC: 014381921625
EAN: 0014381921625
ASIN: B00004Z4VX
Theatrical Release Date: August 7, 1953
Release Date: November 21, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW AND FACTORY SEALED
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
A strange mix of space-age rocketry and old-fashioned murder mystery, the 1953 Spaceways is notable as the first British science fiction film since the legendary Things to Come. Howard Duff stars as the strapping American physicist working on a top-secret British base; Eva Bartok is the European mathematician who pines for the married Duff. She gets to prove her love when he's accused of murdering his philandering wife and her lover, a fellow scientist, after they suddenly disappear from the high-security compound. Where did they go? A coldly logical detective (Alan Wheatley) suggests their bodies have been stuffed on an experimental satellite and shot into space, so Duff suits up for a space flight to prove his innocence. This early Hammer thriller is a cut-rate production with functional special effects and a talky, often ludicrous script. Duff is an amiable hunk who would look more at home on a football field than a laboratory and Bartok is all goo-goo eyes, but Wheatley is excellent as the cunning investigator driven by pure reason and deduction, a role Peter Cushing would make his specialty in the coming decade. It's pure B-movie hokum, but director Terence Fisher does it up in smart style, creating a thick atmosphere of tension on the tiny sets and keeping the story moving with interesting camera work. The Image DVD is beautifully mastered from a gorgeous, sharp print. --Sean Axmaker
Description
Space is a cold place to die! At a secret rocket base in England, Scientist Howard Duff (Brute Force, The Naked City) is accused of committing the perfect crime--murdering his adulterous wife and her Russian spy lover and disposing of their bodies by firing them into space aboard a satellite. To prove his innocence, he must go into space and retrieve the orbiter with fellow scientist, lovely Eva Bartok (The Crimson Pirate, Blood and Black Lace), who insists on accompanying him, possibly never to return! Historically the first British space adventure since "Things to Come" in 1936. Also of note, "Spaceways" in the first science fiction film produced by famed British film studio, Hammer Films. Early Atomic Age science fiction complete with murder, commies and the promise of exciting futuristic space exploration!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 SPACEWAYS-Early sci-fi film strictly for Space Cadets July 17, 2008
Keith Mirenberg (www.spaceanimations.org)
SPACEWAYS-was a very interesting film that I never saw as a youngster. Because of several Amazon reviews I was hesitant to buy this film and first rented it to see what I thought of it. My score of four stars is not that different from the average viewer, but I do think I enjoyed it much more than the typical reviewer because of my personal taste.
One fact we can agree on, and as another reviewer has commented, this is an unusually fine DVD transfer for an old film made from good original source material, and produced a very excellent picture on a large screen TV.
The much discussed mystery plot, (which included murder, espionage and the efforts of a lead engineer to clear his name of same in the eyes of military intelligence), was written around a nice film expose of von Braun's early three stage space vehicle, first conceived to orbit the Earth in a two hour orbit at 1075 miles altitude. That, plus the nice screen presentation of this craft, good sets, costumes, models, and the decent special effects were a very pleasant surprise after all these years of laboring under the impression that these concepts were only available in the form of book drawings and an early Disney feature animation.
A nice job was done of presenting the very dated plot, outdated relations between the genders and the never dated physics of orbital mechanics. I am going to purchase this inexpensive film for my library of sci-fi classics. Howard Duff always puts on a good show and pulled off this unconventional acting assignment credibly. The entire cast (Howard Duff, Eva Bartok, Andrew Osborn, Alan Wheatley) did a fine job considering their acting assignment. Note, this movie is strictly for space cadets and I would not recommend it for anyone else.
 Review of the Spaceways film. March 9, 2007
Judith Morrell Gribble (Burbank, California)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I thought that the science regarding what we now know as the space station was interesting. I did not think that the movie lived up to the description on the outside of the DVD case. I know that the actors have done much better work in other films and were not used to the best of their abilities.
MISLEADING TITLE May 2, 2004
T. A. Hansen (eagan, mn USA)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
This is a quality Image DVD. The image is sharp and crisp. There are a few trailers and a chapter index.This movie is not science fiction. This movie was marketed wrong and still is. The Amazon reviewer writes, "it's a strange mix..." There really is no mix. There's no space station and very little of the rocket. This is a murder-mystery plain and simple and I think a pretty good one. The acting is good and the story good.
It`s a triller, not a sci fi movie. November 13, 2002
Oscar Hernan Gonzalez (Mexico City, D.F. Mexico)
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
In general it`s a little bit bouring, it`s not a scifi movie like others in his time. It`s more like a police suspence and triller.Just if you do`n`t have any more to do......
Hammer's first venture into sci-fi! December 16, 2001
Bill W. Dalton (Santa Ana, CA USA)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This tidy little murder mystery with a sci-fi setting features tough,
gruff Howard Duff and beautiful, exotic Eva Bartok as star crossed
lovers working together on the first attempt to put a satellite into
orbit above the Earth. Duff and Bartok becomes the first man and
woman into space when they have to rocket off to the satellite to
prove his innocence in the murder of his wife and her lover, whose
bodies are thought to be hidden on the satellite. The story is from a radio play by novelist Charles Eric Maine, who
had two of his other works turned into movies--The Isotope Man
became The Atomic Man and Escapement became The
Electronic Monster. He had a penchant for writing Alfred
Hitchcock-like murder mysteries with a science fiction flavor.
And like Hitchcock's movies, Spaceways is rather slow paced and
tedious at times, before the payoff comes, such as it is. Director Terence Fisher, in his pre-Frankenstein and Dracula
efforts for Hammer Films, does a good job with what little he has--
a low budget and stock footage of German V-2 rocket launches,
plastic spacesuits, and sparsely designed control room sets. It all
works pretty well, though, because of the fine cast. This DVD features excellent image quality and sound, a chapter
index, and the theatrical trailer, and that's it. Recommended
mostly for fans of Eva Bartok and early British sci-fi.
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