War of the Satellites (USA, 1958) 66 min B&W DIR-PROD: Roger Corman. SCR: Lawrence Goldman, based on a story by Jack Rabin, Irvin Block. MUSIC: Walter Greene. DOP: Floyd Crosby. CAST: Dick Miller, Richard Devon, Susan Cabot, Eric Sinclair, Michael Fox, Robert Shayne. (Allied Artists)
A hidden gem in Roger Corman’s massive filmography, War of the Satellites is a fast-moving and engaging quickie that he was hired to hurriedly slap together in a few weeks, so that its release would coincide with the buzz surrounding the Sputnik. And true to form, he met his deadline!
Like Rock All Night or Sorority Girl, this movie offers the unusual (yet delightful) proposition of Dick Miller, the king of cameo roles, in a leading role. (And lest we forget, Bucket of Blood was not far away.) As with the premise of It Conquered the World, this film also illustrates the problems NASA is having with their satellite probes being sabotaged by aliens who feel that humans are progressing far too fast in the space program. Richard Devon plays scientist Pol Van Ponder (check out that name!), who gets killed by the aliens, who then assume his identity, and then can replicate himself at will (the superimposed special effects aren’t half bad) to carry out this act of sabotage when this new probe blasts off into orbit. Lucky for us, Dave Boyer (you guessed it, Dick Miller) notices something fishy because the commander is acting even more ineffectual than usual, and saves the day.
Even though this movie will have you believe that aliens are possessing people to sabotage space missions, it is still a bit much to buy the scene where Van Ponder, thought dead after his car crash (the scene where he meets the aliens), walks into the United Nations meeting to a standing ovation! In a darkly humourous note, the alien imposter realizes that he is being too cold and “unhuman”, so he tries to make up for it by rigidly making a date with co-worker Sybil (Susan Cabot, who otherwise has little else to do).
Roger Corman gets a lot of mileage out of a script that is essentially people walking around a lot of metal corridors. Floyd Crosby’s charcoal cinematography adds some mood to the slight proceedings, and the editing makes it a lot more exciting than it ought to be. After a creaky start, this little movie gets more fun as it goes along. Once again, Dick Miller rocks our world.
War of the Satellites was unavailable on any home video format, until the 2011 Shout! Factory DVD release of the Roger Corman’s Cult Classics set, which included this with Not of this Earth and Attack of the Crab Monsters, two other films also making their home video debuts.
Updated from a review originally published in The Roger Corman Scrapbook.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.