The Day the Sky Exploded

The Day the Sky Exploded (1958)

La morte viene dallo spazio

Terror From The Sky! Earth Attacked From Outer Space!

Scientists discover that a group of meteors are hurtling on a collison course with Earth, and if they hit, the planet will be destroyed.

Date of release
1958-09-04
TMDB
4.3 / 10 (24)
Runtime
1h 22m
Genres
Science Fiction, Action
Director
Paolo Heusch, Mario Bava

Casting

Interesting facts

The Day the Sky Exploded, released in the United Kingdom as Death Comes From Outer Space, is a 1958 science fiction film. The film was an international co-production between Italy and France with Royal Film, Lux Film and Lux Compagnie Cinématographique.

Production

Prior to the release of The Day the Sky Exploded, there had been no Italian science fiction films. Some earlier films such as Mario Mattoli's comedy 1,000 chilometri al minuto feature scientists involved in space research, but that aspect had little relevance to the plot. Some earlier American science fiction films such as Invaders From Mars were only released in 1957 in Italy and received considerable financial success.

Development on The Day the Sky Exploded began in early 1958. It is unknown whose idea it was to develop a science fiction film. The credited director of the film is Paolo Heusch, who had made his directorial debut with L'uomo facile, which premiered that same year. Among the cast was Swiss actor Paul Hubschmid, who played the main character in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) under the name Paul Christian.

According to cast member Ivo Garrani, The Day the Sky Exploded was "completely directed by Bava. Really, Paulo Heusch didn't do very much on the set." This was also corroborated by production assistant Armando Govoni who stated Black Sunday was "not Bava's first film, he had already directed a picture for Paolo Heusch."

Bava was not only the cameraman and special effects designer on the film, but was also responsible for manipulating the newsreel footage to tell the film's story. Bava biographer Tim Lucas said that nearly 60% of the film consists of stock footage documenting dozens of unrelated events.

The film score was made by Carlo Rustichelli. Rustichelli reported directly to Bava while developing the score to the fim, with Rustichelli explaining that "Generally it was the director who chose the composer, in agreement with the music publishers and sometimes with the producer or the screenwriter." The film score was created using acoustic and electronic instruments and non-musical devices.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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