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‘This is a first! Fantastic! Unforgettable!’
First Spaceship on Venus is a 1960 East German/Polish science fiction film about an international team of astronauts sent to the planet.

Directed by Kurt Maetzig from a screenplay co-written with Jan Fethke, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Günter Reisch, Günther Rücker, Alexander Stenbock-Fermor and J. Barkhauer (uncredited), based on the novel The Astronauts by Polish author Stanislaw Lem.

The movie stars Yôko Tani, Oldrich Lukes, Ignacy Machowski, Julius Ongewe and Mikhail N. Postnikov.

Plot:
After finding an ancient, long-buried flight recorder that originally came from a spaceship, apparently from Venus, a human spaceship is dispatched to Venus.

The crew discovers a long-dead Venusian civilization that had constructed a device intended to destroy all life on Earth prior to an invasion. Before they could execute their plan, they perished in a global nuclear war…

Cast and characters:
Yôko Tani … Die japanische Ärztin / Sumiko Ogimura MD
Oldrich Lukes … Amerikanischer Atomphysiker / Prof. Harringway Hawling
Ignacy Machowski … Polnischer Chefingenieur / Prof. Saltyk / Prof. Durand
Julius Ongewe … Afrikanischer Fernsehtechniker / Talua
Mikhail N. Postnikov … Sowjetischer Astronaut / Prof. Arsenew / Prof. Orloff (as Michail N. Postnikow)
Kurt Rackelmann … Indischer Mathematiker / Prof. Sikarna
Günther Simon … Deutscher Pilot / Robert / Raimund Brinkmann
Hua-Ta Tang … Chinesischer Linguist / Doctor Tchen Yu / Lao Tsu (as Tang Hua-Ta)
Lucyna Winnicka … Fernsehreporterin / Joan Moran (as Lucina Winnicka)

Filming locations:
Berlin-Johannisthal airfield, East Germany
DEFA-Studio für Spielfilme, Babelsberg, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany (studio)
WFF Film Studio, Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland (studio)
Zakopane, Poland (outdoor scenes)

Technical details:
95 minutes
Agfacolor | “Technicolor” (US release)
Aspect ratio: 2.35: 1 | “Totalvision” (US release)
Audio: 4-track stereo

Original title:
Der schweigende Stern “The Silent Star”

US release:
This film was released in the United States by Crown International Pictures in 1962 as First Spaceship on Venus on a double-bill with Varan the Unbelievable. It was edited down to 80 minutes, dubbed into English, and Andrzej Markowski’s score was replaced by a stock score prepared by Gordon Zahler of the General Music Corporation.

Two differently cut and dubbed versions of the film were also shown on the American market at the time,Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply and Planet of the Dead.

Fun facts:
Stanislaw Lem, whose novel the film was based upon, was extremely critical of the adaptation and wanted his name removed from the credits in protest: “It practically delivered speeches about the struggle for peace. Trashy screenplay was painted; tar was bubbling, which would not scare even a child.”

A short sequence from First Spaceship on Venus was used as a “film-within-a-film” in the low-budget American feature Galaxina (1980).

The original, uncut version of the film was finally re-released in the USA. in 2004 under its original title The Silent Starby the DEFA Film Library of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Trailer:

Full film free to watch online [1080p HD]:

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