| Spaceflight IC-1 | |
| Director: | Bernard Knowles |
| Producer: | Robert Lippert Jack Parsons |
| Starring: | Bill Williams Norma West John Cairney |
| Music: | Elisabeth Lutyens Philip Martell |
| Cinematography: | Geoffrey Faithfull |
| Editing: | Robert Winter Colin Miller |
| Studio: | Lippert Films |
| Distributor: | 20th Century Fox |
| Runtime: | 65 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
Spaceflight IC-1, also known as Space Spaceflight IC-1: An Adventure in Space, is a 1965 British science-fiction movie directed by Bernard Knowles and starring Bill Williams and Norma West.[1] It was written by Harry Spalding (as Henry Cross). The civilized world is controlled by an all-powerful computerised government which sends colonists into space.
In 2015, spaceship IC-1 (Interstellar Colony #1) travels toward a planet similar to Earth to explore the possibility it could solve the Earth's population problems. The crew comprises Captain Mead Ralston, his wife Jan, Drs. Steven and Helen Thomas, two other married couples, and four people – "animates" – in suspended animation. One year into the voyage, Helen is found to have a fatal pancreatic infection that can only be cured if the ship returns to Earth, but Ralston refuses to turn back. When he denies her permission to have another child, she commits suicide.
Steven Thomas and some of the other crew members mutiny and imprison Ralston. He escapes and forces the crew to obey him by threatening to destroy the ship. Ignoring the crew's warnings he releases one of the "animates" who kills him before dying of complications from the thawing-out process. The ship goes on under Thomas's leadership.
The film was shot in England at Shepperton Studios. It was one of several films that Robert L. Lippert made with Jack Parsons in England. Writer Harry Spalding said the film was inspired by space exploration at the time. "There was a lot of talk back then that if people were ever having to go to fly to Mars they'd have to be frozen for the trip and revived when they got there."[2]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Bold enough to eschew the joys of planet exploration, dinosaurs and cat-women (its entire story unfolds within the cramped confines of a spaceship), Spaceflight IC-1 unfortunately has no alternative to offer except dreary dialogue and indifferent acting. As usual in this sort of affair, much is made of the fact that there have been exhaustive tests to select personnel capable of withstanding the strain of interstellar travel; and as usual, a more unbalanced, hysteria-prone lot would be hard to imagine."[3]