If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Admirable film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Made in 1953, this is more of a cold war spy yarn than a real movie of science. Howard Duff is part of the space program, designing rockets that will crack the atmosphere. He is in a terrible marriage and his selfish wife can't stand that he makes so little money as an engineer. He has fallen in love with a beautiful technician but can't act on it. When a rocket goes haywire, he is accused of putting his wife and her lover, once a friend of his, in the final capsule. There is no way to check for the bodies and Duff is going to be brought up on murder charges by an obsessed spy chaser. This leads to a pretty ridiculous conclusion which pushes the limits of juris prudence. Duff also acts in a silly, irrational way, risking his life to prove his innocence. It has good moments along the way but fizzles in the final analysis.

Weird amalgam of too many genres ends up being an okay time killer but not much beyond that. The plot has an American working in England on the British rocket program getting involved in infidelity, murder and espionage. "Loosely" based on a radio program, which I'm guessing had more than 75 minutes to get its tale across this is a film that simply has too much going on. The thing that everyone seem to remember is that this film speculates that the first people launched into space will be not for scientific discovery, but to determine if two missing people were launched into space as means of disposing of their bodies.Its a clever idea and probably the only thing that sticks with you about the film. The cast, headed by Howard Duff is quite good and they make the most over full script. Worth a look if you run a cross it or are a fan of director Terrence Fisher, but not really worth searching out.

Dedicated, but henpecked American engineer Dr. Stephen Mitchell (a solid performance by Howard Duff) works at a secret rocket base in England. When his faithless bitchy wife Vanessa (a perfectly snarky Cecile Chevreau) and her biologist lover Dr. Philip Crenshaw (Andrew Osborn) both disappearance, the shrewd and determined Dr. Smith (a marvelously smug turn by Alan Wheatley) suspects that Stephen killed them and launched their bodies into space. Stephen plans on going into space to retrieve the satellite in order to prove his innocence. Director Terence Fisher, working from a clever script by Paul Tabor and Richard Landau, offers an adroit and interesting multi-genre mix of murder mystery thriller, foreign espionage, and space exploration. The sound acting from a sturdy cast helps a lot: Duff makes for a sympathetic protagonist, the lovely Eva Bartok impresses as fetching mathematician Lisa Frank, and Wheatley is in peak smarmy form as the arrogant Dr. Smith. Plus there's fine support from Philip Leaver as kindly, jolly project supervisor Professor Koepler and Michael Medwin as eager fuel expert Dr. Toby Andrews. Reginald H. Wyer's crisp black and white cinematography and Ivor Slaney's rousing, spirited score are both up to speed. While a bit slow and talky in spots, this movie still rates as a most enjoyable picture all the same.

Spaceways exemplifies the characteristic weakness of early British SF movies. It has a potentially interesting premise but doesn't develop it.It is basically a 'first man into space' movie but by the time of its release there had already been three such movies, so it needed a twist. In this case, the twist is the reason for going into space at all. A scientist's wife and her lover have gone missing and he is accused of murdering them and hiding the bodies in a satellite. He goes into space to retrieve the satellite and prove his innocence.That is a satisfactory idea for a movie, but Spaceways just doesn't know how to run with it. It takes an hour to set up the situation so that the actual space flight is shoe-horned into the final ten minutes. Even then, the premise is completely undermined, because an investigator has already found the missing couple and solved the mystery before take off, making the space flight unnecessary.The movie was crying out for the actual murderer to be on the spaceship, trying to kill the hero to prevent his own discovery - or something of the kind. It wouldn't have been hard to plot. This would have given the space flight some purpose and would have allowed for some real tension in what should have been the climactic scenes.When you call a movie 'Spaceways' you are setting up certain expectations. If all you deliver is just a tepid mystery, with a desultory spaceflight tacked on at the end, it is a breach of faith with the audience.Although this movie is thoroughly competent for its budget level, it is hard to recommend it to any but the most determined SF completist.