IKARIE XB-1

(vt Voyage to the End of the Universe; vt Icarus XB-1)

   Film (1963). Filmove studio Barrandov. Dir Jindrich Polak, starring Zdenek Stepanek, Radovan Lukavsky, Dana Medricka. Screenplay Pavel Juracek, Polak. 81 mins, cut to 65 mins. Colour.

   This interesting Czech film is set in a giant spaceship (with elaborate interiors designed by Jan Zazvorka) on a long exploratory mission. The shipboard routines, coolly observed, create the impression of a culture alien to ours. The stock situations of comparable US-UK films and tv series (STAR TREK and SPACE 1999, for example) aremostly avoided by the Czech writers, although the build-up of suspense when the spaceship encounters a wreck floating in space adds a touch of SPACE OPERA. The ending - the spaceship reaches a planet that we realizeis contemporary Earth - is a US addition to the otherwise savagely cut print used for US and UK release.

   JB/PN

   See also: CINEMA.