User Reviews

This film reminded me a little of Mission Stardust in reverse...the aliens land on our planet instead of what happened in that movie. While fairly coherent, the movie doesn't really know where it's going, as a lot of Italian SF movies didn't in that era.

I'm still trying to figure out what the heck the secret agents were doing in the movie (and please remember, they're "Oriental, not Chinese"). Once the spaceship gets off the ground, we're treated to a lot of stock footage from Toho's Gorath, as a number of space stations and satellites try to pretend they are the starforces of Hydra. Then there's the time travel thing, and the female characters' need to wear fishnet bodystockings with leather or feather bikinis (obviously either an aside to the popularity of the fashions of Barbarella or just standard wear in Italian space operas...lord knows I've seen at least four other movies where leather was the material of choice for spacesuits). And then there's the need for spacehelmets when venturing onto a new planet, but two people can cross the cold void of space between two ships in what amounted to a snorkel and leather.

To me, 2:5: Mission Hydra reminded me a lot of They Came From Beyond Space or the Terrornauts or similar British features made in the mid-sixties...not bad, but not necessarily well thought out.

By the way, Gordon Mitchell is in this for about a minute, tops.

This one kind of starts off like They Came From Beyond Space, what with a group of scientists investigating an area in Sardinia where nothing grows due to radiation or something. Along for the ride are the elderly professor, his daughter the broad, and some other guys. The Chinese are in on things too as the bad guys, so everyone is surprised when the patch of lands houses a UFO, everyone is captured and forced to work for the aliens. Wait, the leader is 'a woman?'.

So you've got a serious prof and his acolytes, his ditzy daughter with her nice arse and bad acting, and everyone ends up heading out into space and you'll be glad of that because most of what happens beforehand is really boring. This film is saved by the cast heading out into space, because that's when the rules get thrown out of the window.

Not only is our broad 'forced' to wear the female leader's costumes, but vice versa happens as our aliens learn 'love' while exploring the cosmos while our enemy, the two Chinese guys, are attacked by a bunch of monkeys on some bizarre planet and never mentioned again.

There's other revelations, and a pretty abrupt ending, and so much crap randomness that I can't help but like this film more than I should. I thought I would hate it but things pick up about halfway through.

The plot itself involves the usual alien abduction, and is not very original. When compared to Francisci's other films, this one lags remarkably. However, it has a definite B-movie appeal, and is, when viewed as an interstellar espionage film, quite up to par with the later entries of Alfonso Brescia (although Brescia did more of a slap-dash space opera with little of the espionage element). Maybe, then, this film is a big brother of Primo Zeglio's "Mission Stardust." I'll tell you what it isn't, though. It certainly isn't up to par with Antonio Margheriti's sci-fi films, many of which were directed during the same period. Francisci never made such judicious use of miniature models as did Margheriti, and, on a special effects level, this one must be ranked along with Alfonso Brescia's flicks.

One of the highlights of the film, is the return of actress Leonora Ruffo after a three year hiatus. Never a prolific actress, she was at her peak in films such as Francisci's "Queen of Sheba" and Sergio Grieco's "The Black Devil." Being a consummate movie buff, I also admired her performance in Francisci's 1951 film "Le Meravigliose Avventure di Guerrin Meschino," in which Gino Leurini fights stone giants, colossal dragons, and evil witches, in an attempt to free the then 16-year-old actress Ruffo. She looked so beautiful at that time, but in this film she appears... well... matronly. Nevertheless, Pietro Francisci dresses her up in a mini skirt, with a décolleté top-piece, and lets her play the commander of the alien spaceship.

Gordon Mitchell shows up briefly as a dispatcher from the home planet, who gives his orders to Ruffo. As usual, his murderous glare and menacing attitude squeeze him into the plot as a superfluous bad guy, who has very little to do with the film. Some Asian criminals show up, speak bad English, and attempt to take over the ship, but are subdued by the professor and the others after a fist-fight inside the space-ship. Later, Ruffo falls for Nando Angelini's character, while Leontine May gets cozy with Kirk Morris. The film ends rather mysteriously, with some sort of weak message on the horrors of radioactive waste being dumped into the atmosphere, and the ensuing end of mankind.

Now, the ultimate question. Was this just a paycheck for Pietro Francisci, or did he really have serious pretenses when making this film? After viewing "2+5 Mission Hydra", the answer is fairly obvious. Francisci had already made whatever artistic statements he once had in such earlier films as "Hercules," "The Siege of Syracuse," "Attila," "Queen of Sheba," and "Guerrin Meschino." This was a downslide for him, and he didn't shoot another movie until 1973, when he directed the low-budget and somewhat asinine "Sinbad and the Caliph of Bagdad." Francisci was mainly a director of epic films. And I kept that in mind while watching this one. On the whole, this is a film that one should watch if he or she enjoys cheap thrills, or is a die-hard completist. If you're looking for lots of big-budget effects, a well-written script, and superior acting, stick to Margheriti's sci-fi films.

A muddled, typically bad, campy Italian science fiction film which is nonetheless a must-see for seekers of the weird and delightful. This is a badly-edited, poorly-dubbed mess of a movie, with a non-existent budget and a story which lacks a decent beginning, middle or end. Yet despite all the flaws it may have (including scenes of astronauts floating in space without helmets!), it remains a largely entertaining space vehicle full of strange creatures and bizarre special effects work.

Once the action shifts from Earth to space the film becomes much more interesting as a whole and packs some seriously bizarre situations into the short running time. Okay, so there isn't too much action on view, but we do get scenes of rayguns turning people into flaming skeletons and the 'comedic' effects of anti-gravity on the unwitting human inhabitants of the spacecraft.

The presence of two Italian babes (Leonora Ruffo and Leontine May) also makes things easy on the eye, with the former flame-haired girl in a tight-fitting PVC miniskirt and the latter dressed in a fishnet costume (with appropriate frilly bits; remember the kids) for a substantial part of the running time. For the girls, there are plenty of male models to make up the masculine side of the cast, including the presence of peplum icon Kirk Morris (ATLAS AGAINST THE CZAR) in a tight-fitting full body PVC costume as an alien guard. Eagle-eyed viewers may notice harsh-faced peplum star Gordon Mitchell in a one-scene cameo as the alien 'Murdu', appearing on a monitor, no less! Incidental pleasures include a run-in with a planet full of apes (yet this is no PLANET OF THE APES) who run around waving bones like would-be Ronnie Corbetts; the hilarious heavy breathing that first alerts our scientists to the presence of "something" under the ground; the un-politically correct replacing of the robot slaves with some unwilling Chinese men; plus the hilariously mock-serious "dire warning" of the ending which warns of the consequences of nuclear war. Much like the character of Leontine May in this film, 2 + 5: MISSION HYDRA is a pretty but vacuous Italian gem.

Unusual mid-sixties science fiction story about three crash landed aliens who "recruit" a scientist and his team to make repairs on their ship, and pilot it back to their home planet. Reasonable effort, although slightly drawn out and uninteresting, still has moments of suspense and character drama. The usual Italian glamour is provided by the sexy wanna-be actress, who goes along with the team, and wears increasingly outrageous outfits, and flirts with one of the male aliens. The lead alien, a fire haired female begins to see the error of her emotionless ways, and at one point exhibits romantic inclinations towards Kirk Morris. Acting is fine, effects average, storyline meandering but rarely fatally dull, with a few good bits, such as a rather weird attack by a group of alien gorillas. Slightly lacking in traditional Italian high octane liveliness, but compelling, and not without a few interesting twists.

Pros;

-Interesting basic storyline

-Most of the film's acting is consistently competent and believable

-Good imagery – especially the pair of skeletons at the cockpit of the other spaceship

Cons;

-Ends rather abruptly

-Some of the movie's logic is questionable

-Quite a few characters are simply left as cardboard cut outs

-The alien race appear completely human and aren't especially convincing as such

-Main room of the spaceship set gets claustrophobic after a while

-A very long sequence where the characters are in space, changing an arial, kills the pace for a bit and is un-necessarily tedious

-A child-like robot is killed early on, and after only a minute's screen time, although its' design was not especially interesting

-Plot stretches thin in some places, as it is a fairly basic idea with little deviation to carry the film along

-A terrible voice over at the start

When you are a science-savvy person, watching science fiction films is often a painful experience: whether it is completely unrealistic (but in a way dramatically understandable) gaffes like loud roaring sound effects in the vacuum of outer space, or the unbelievable idiocy of people who think "backup engines" are there to make a rocket go, well, back up ... one just never knows what offenses filmmakers will slap up on screen.

Unfortunately, there is little one can do to prepare for something like _Star Pilot_, or however one wants to reference this particular Italian "science fiction" mess. The creators of this thing not only did not have a scientifically literate person on set, they all seem to have skipped every science class that was offered in their school careers! Other reviewers have pointed out the film's startling revelation that -- contrary to what science tells us -- it is actually quite comfortable beyond the confines of any planetary atmosphere whatever, and you can just twirl around between spaceships without the benefit of a helmet or any other bulky garb. Truly amazing. I was also amazed to note that when "Bellsy" was out in the balmy vacuum repairing the ship's antenna, gravity just seemed to switch on and off without warning - since the damaged antenna he removed visibly fell down and out of sight, no matter how much bouncing around (on a trampoline, apparently) Bellsy did himself!

I could go on forever. I could cite the space chart / screen two characters stared at that appeared to have standard N-E-W-S compass directions on it. Future generations of Cub Scouts will no doubt be relieved to know that there is a North in outer space, and that their compasses will work.

And yet ... this film is so stupid on so many levels (despite pretensions to ... uh, something at the end) that it manages to be quite entertaining at times. It's THAT kind of bad. It would have made a good MST3K target. It's garish, incomprehensible, nonsensical, giddy, idiotic. Furthermore, some of the actors make okay eye candy, if you are into that kind of thing. "Leontine" alone is worth the price of admission, as she is some kind of cross between Angelina Jolie, Barbarella-era Jane Fonda, and something I can't quite name. Her costumes made me believe that Western culture does indeed have a basement, a hard rock floor beyond which nothing can possibly go. And yet ... no matter how often I wanted to turn away, I just ... could not.

This movie was re-released to cash in on the original Star Wars mania. Filmed on a budget of maybe, 15,000 Lira, it is a tour-de-force of nearly every 50's SF cliche' from the greying Scientist father to his luscious, oh-so innocent raven haired daughter in her fishnet bodysuit (with strategically placed bits of fluff) being menaced by Ape creatures to Bruno the Martian "floating" across an expanse of space with the aid of a trampoline (no, I'm not kidding). SEE the mysterious ancient city model filmed resting on a chair! See the twinkling stars! (and try not to notice the wires, swaying in an apparent breeze from an off camera fan). If you love bad films, by all means check it out-it's a scream. I saw this as the bottom half of a double bill with "Spawn of the Slithis" and couldn't stop laughing....

I haven't done this in a while, but for Star Pilot, I'm going to use the plot summary from IMDb: "Aliens from the constellation Hydra crash-land on the island of Sardinia. A prominent scientist, his daughter, several young technicians, and a pair of Oriental spies are taken hostage by the beings so they can use them to repair their spaceship's broken engine. With that done, they take off towards their home planet, taking the earthlings with them. However, the humans attempt to mutiny against their captors, inadvertently sending their tiny spaceship hurtling into the infinite beyond."

I used the IMDb plot summary because, even after watching Star Pilot, I'm not entirely sure what it was all about. The movie made very little sense to me. But even though I may have been confused during most of the movie, parts of it were still a lot of fun in a campy / cheesy sort of way. Instead of the usual write-up I do, here are a few random thoughts I have regarding Star Pilot:

1. While the cast wasn't much to write home about, it's always cool seeing Kirk Morris and Gordon Mitchell outside a Sword and Sandal film. I just wish Mitchell had been in the film for more than 20 seconds. Other than getting his name in the credits, I'm not really sure why the filmmakers even bothered.

2. There's a decent size chunk of the film "borrowed" from Doomsday Machine. The differences in film quality, acting, and everything else is a little jarring. It's shocking just how good the stuff from Doomsday Machine looks in comparison. The clips include a scene with Casey Kasem - minus Kasem's very recognizable voice.

3. Why bother with the Chinese secret agents? It adds absolutely nothing to the plot. It seems like such an unnecessary plot detail that amounts to nothing in the end.

4. I suppose that if I had to pick a highlight, it would be actress Leontine May's ever-shrinking wardrobe. She begins the film fairly modestly dressed, but by the end, she's wearing a full body fishnet with a few strategically placed feathers.

In some ways, the 5/10 I've given Star Pilot may not be fair. The copy I watched seemed to be horribly cut-up. IMDb lists a runtime of 89 minutes. The version I watched was only 81 minutes. I'm not sure how much difference the extra 8 minutes would make, but I'd certainly be up for giving it another go with a complete copy.

This motion picture is interesting to watch, if for no other reason, then for analysis. It purports to have taken upon itself a complicated history. One fact is known, that of the original release date in Italy of 1966, although a website or two will show 1965. What happened since then is anyones guess. Yes, there was a 1977 release in the United States under the Monarch Releasing Corporation. The titles, "Star Pilot" and "Star Pilots" are given. Yet in the video release by Sinister Cinema the title is shown as "2 + 5: Mission Hydra" although the Monarch Releasing Corporation credit is also listed seemingly indicating this is the same version as the 1977 US dubbed release. The real confusion starts with the footage from other movies spliced in at some points. Another website claims the movies "Kaiju Daisenso(1965)" and "Yusei Gorasu(1962)" are interwoven with the plot. This may very well be, but Casey Kasem is also clearly seen. This would appear to be from "The Doomsday Machine" which had a checkered history of its own, being made in 1967(a year after "2+5"), but released in 1972. So therefore this footage must have been added only in the US release, though "2+5" premiered in West Germany in 1967. Various running times(84, 89, 90 + 92) are given as well depending on what source you refer to. The bottom line on this former late night favorite is, for the male viewers there is Leontine May(who dominates) and for the female viewers, Kirk Morris(pseudonym of Adriano Bellini) and Gordon Mitchell. It should also be mentioned for the classical music crowd, that although the credit is given on the IMDb for "theme from Toccato & Fugue in D Minor by JS Bach", it is not mentioned that it is under the direction of Leopold Stokowsky.

Doesn't anyone remember that the beginning of this movie had the hero scientist being chased around a crater where the space ship crashed on Earth by crazy Chinese (or evidently some other Oriental) spies? And the girl spends the whole second half of the film floating around the space ship in her underwear - a lovely touch. You can't rate this kind of masterpiece on the same scale as other movies. It has all the wacky appeal of a painting of Elvis on black velvet or a recording of William Shatner "singing." I saw this movie fifteen years ago and just had a dream about it last night (which is what made me look it up here) and that's extra disturbing. What do you think that's about? Sorry - ten line minimum.

Star Pilot is a dreadfully inept, extremely dated piece of Spaghetti sci-fi from the late-60s; very kitsch, scientifically inaccurate, often incoherent, and full of risible special effects, it's hard to believe that just two years separate this from Kubricks's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that we would all be enjoying the jaw-dropping spectacle that was Star Wars only slightly over a decade later. That said, the film isn't a complete waste of time if you like your entertainment super schlocky...

The main reason to watch Star Pilot is (from a red-blooded male's perspective at least) the quality Euro-totty, which comes in the shapely form of stunning brunette Leontine May, who plays scientist Prof. Solmi's sexy daughter Luisa, and Leonora Ruffo as red-headed space-siren Kaena. Both women look great throughout, wearing a variety of outfits so skimpy they could even bring a Vulcan out in a sweat (May looks particularly fetching in her fish-net body-stocking and fur trim ensemble).

The film is also worth a gander for its comedy value, the whole shambolic affair being rife with unintentional laughs. Whether it be Luisa's perpetual posturing, prancing and posing (the girl wants to be an actress and that's obviously what aspiring starlets do), the aliens' pathetic robot servants, Luisa experiencing sudden weightlessness (giving a glimpse of her stockings and sussies in the process), the daring space-walks sans safety cable or helmet, the space-ape attack, or the silly time-twisting final revelation that incorporates Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Star Pilot is a gas.

In the 1960s, the Italians were the best in comedies, dramas, western spaghetti. Trying sci-fi, they did not succeed at all. This movie is not the worst, on the contrary, it's a good try which has some merits. The best thing is the beautiful Leonora Ruffo. And then, the presence of the very sexy Leontine May, who was also in a few euro-spy films. The story is banal and with deja-vu taste. But the actors strive, their effort is visible. I'm sure the film's budget was limited, so it did not benefit from the effects type Star Wars or 2001 Space Odyssey. Even so, it's not bad, it's worth seeing.

Perfectly awful, low-brow sci-fi - which, incredibly, has been released on R1 DVD by Retromedia as a double-feature with the Russian-made BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN (1960) - with the anonymous cast and ultra low-budget making involvement in an already unoriginal plot (THIS ISLAND EARTH [1955]) virtually impossible. Besides, the action scenes are restricted to some silly karate fights (the plot incorporates a couple of Chinese spies) and a very brief outer-space attack by a horde of (men dressed up as) apes! Likewise, the contribution of Euro-Cult favorite Gordon Mitchell barely registers and what's more he speaks in gibberish (standing in for the alien lingo)!

For some reason, the comic relief was given to one of the female leads (Leontine May) but her antics are not only unfunny but obnoxious! The other female member of the cast - the alien leader - is played by Leonora Ruffo; she had earlier appeared in Fellini's I VITELLONI (1953) but, by this time, had been relegated to starring in peplums (even if by the likes of Vittorio Cottafavi and Mario Bava) and, here, is even featured in an in-joke when May, an aspiring actress, goes to an audition directed by Pietro Francisci himself and he's introduced as the man who discovered a good many stars of Italian cinema, among them Ruffo herself! Curiously enough, the ending is similar to that of PLANET OF THE APES (1968) but, needless to say, it has none of the impact of that unforgettable scene from the sci-fi classic!

I haven't sampled that many Italian science-fiction movies (obviously, I would most like to catch up with Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES [1965]) but did catch Antonio Margheriti's WAR OF THE PLANETS (1965) on TCM - which was better than Francisci's film, but not by much - while in Hollywood late last year.

Italian cult/exploitation cinema never ceases to amaze me! Here I always was believing the Italians were merely copycats of major Hollywood landmarks. Like, that for every massively profitable American film, the Italians immediately produced 50 cheap (but amusing) rip-offs. This theory, however, does not apply to Sci-Fi from the sixties. "2 + 5 Mission Hydra" actually came two years before the big Sci-Fi boom, which only got kick-started by "2001: A Space Odyssey" in 1968. Of course, another ten years later, they re-released this bizarre flick again, hoping to cash-in on the success of "Star Wars" by giving it the similar - and more commercial sounding - title "Star Pilots".

Under whatever title, this is a really strange puppy. A handful of scientists, and a wannabe actress with skimpy outfits, investigate strange radiation readings in Sicily. Well, actually, they call themselves scientists, but they don't even recognize an alien spaceship when they are standing in the middle of its control room. As it was mandatory in 60s Sci-Fi, the alien wear tight suits and walk as if they are robots. Their leader is a feisty redhead whom I kept confusing with the wannabe actress. To be entirely honest, "2 + 5 Mission Hydra" is a very muddled movie, and I wasn't paying too much attention. The aliens want the scientists to repair their ship, but they secretly also intend to kidnap them. There are secret agents from the East (Oriental, not Chinese) for some reason, female weightlessness footage that probably looked very erotic in 1966, and also an utterly bizarre sequence that looks like a prelude to "Planet of the Apes". Oh, and Gordon Mitchell appears in black-and-white on a TV-monitor for about 30 seconds.

One thing's for sure; I'm never watching this again without getting really drunk first!

I don't know what bothered me worse: the men walking around stiff as if they were afraid to move OR the dark haired girl that severely over acted and was trying to either do a dance move or model pose every time she stopped walking. Almost all of the men and the one woman irritated me severely - so much so I ended up fast-forwarding though the film.

Not one of them that played a human in the film could act. And I love some really bad B films with awful acting but I could not get past the actors in this film. The actors that played the aliens are fine, not actors playing humans to me - just something about the group I hated.

The story? I couldn't tell ya if I liked it or not because I just couldn't get past the some of the actors in this one. Being honest.

1/10

While one of the most generically titled movies I've seen, STAR PILOT is also one of the most delightfully stupid. The plot is nonsensical, the effects are wonderfully low budget, and most of the characters are indistinguishable from each other. I was excited to revisit the world of '60s era Italian space adventure, and it was an added bonus when the opening credits listed Gordon Mitchell (the hilariously over-theatrical star of THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS) as a cast member. Unfortunately, Mitchell's role in the film turned out to be nothing more than a short cameo but at least the space adventure was a wicked fun time. It starts with an alien spacecraft landing in Sardinia (an island in the Mediterranean off the eastern coast of Italy) and the world immediately forgetting about it. Three months later, Professor Solmi (Roland Lesaffre) is informed of a plot of land in Sardinia that shows signs of radioactivity and he, along with his daughter Luisa (Leontine May) and associate Paolo (Mario Novelli), fly out to investigate. Upon arrival, they're plagued with strange occurrences, including an earthquake that opens a cavern into the ground. The group descend into the cavern and discover the alien spacecraft but, before they can report their findings, they're attacked by a trio of Asian men who insist the professor show them the underground rocket, believing it to be a secretly developed weapon. Violence erupts and soon they're all taken captive by the aliens within the vessel who demand the humans repair their engines and assist in piloting the craft into space. Under the command of Kaena (Leonora Ruffo), the aliens promise to leave the humans on Earth once the craft is functional…but can they be trusted?

I could spend an hour chatting someone's ear off about everything I found hilarious about this movie. I did my best to give a succinct understanding of the basic premise but I know I haven't done it justice. The plot is both way more and way less complicated than that. It wants to come across as epic in scope with an environmental message behind it; the aliens explain at one point that the whole reason they were on Earth in the first place was to observe and determine whether all the nuclear experimentation our race was performing would have any dangerous effects on the rest of the galaxy. That's right, an advanced race of space-faring aliens are concerned that the nuclear effects on a single small world will put the entire rest of the galaxy at risk. Science! These advanced aliens are also in such a bind that they need the relatively primitive humans to repair their engines for them. And fly the ship. All without any sort of preexisting knowledge and instruction. And they do it! The humans are so much smarter than the aliens that they master use of the alien spacecraft and stage a mutiny to gain control of the craft. So the aliens from the constellation Hydra aren't all they're cracked up to be; how do the humans fare?

Worse. Aside from the professor and maybe Paolo, the human characters are either faceless (the Asian men as well as two of the professor's own crew) or annoying and unnecessary (Luisa). Let's start with the Asian men who are, to be honest, completely pointless to the plot. They're some sort of agents for yet another vague operation and, whatever you do, don't mistake them for Chinese agents.

"Make no mistake. We are Oriental, not Chinese. We do not represent the People's Republic."

One of them throws out that little disclaimer first and foremost when confronting the professor and his people. It felt more like a message from the filmmakers than the characters, wanting to ensure they didn't upset an entire viewing demographic. Regardless, they have no use here. I guess they add a slight element of intrigue, with the whole (laughable) spy operation element in the beginning of the film. Once we're with the aliens, the Asian men serve no purpose other than to provide a little tension before unceremoniously hauled off and presumably eaten by killer space gorillas. I'm so happy to say that's not an exaggeration. Killer. Space. Gorillas.

But hold on, let's shift over to Luisa. Why is Luisa here? She's a young woman who still acts like a teenager and tags along with her father on his work outing to Sardinia. She's disruptive, ignorant, and I'm pretty sure at one point she was tripping on acid (during the initial cavern investigation). She has no sense of self-preservation and seems to have no concerns when taken as a hostage by aliens. In fact, her first response to captivity is to lust over one of the alien men. From the perspective of the filmmakers, I'm assuming Luisa's role in the movie was to move through a progressively skimpier wardrobe. But the funniest part of Luisa's character is how the men treat her. I know that sounds horrible, but let me explain. Every man in this movie is incredibly dismissive of Luisa, but not for the reasons I've already mentioned. They don't tease her because she's an idiot. They tease her because she's a woman. Come on, guys. If you want to hate on Luisa, don't do it because she's a woman. Do it because she thought it'd be fun to wrestle the helicopter pilot on the flight to the worksite, nearly killing you all.

STAR PILOT is a must for fans of crazy old school space adventures. Zero-G is simulated with trampolines. No one uses space helmets (not even the humans). The alien's robots look like giant yellow Oompa Loompas in ribbed condom jumpsuits. That Shyamalan-ian twist ending. And did I mention the killer space gorillas?

1966's "Star Pilot" (2+5: Missione Hydra) was among the final examples of Italian science fiction, director/writer/editor Pietro Francisci's one shot attempt to emulate Antonio Margheriti's outer space sagas "Battle of the Worlds" or "Planet on the Prowl," done on a noticeably lower budget. Fransisci had kick started the muscleman peplum epics with Steve Reeves' Hercules entries, and here uses veterans Kirk Morris and Gordon Mitchell (seen for only a few seconds), but the only thing that viewers will recall from this item are the female leads, top billed Leonora Ruffo previously working opposite Gordon Scott in "Goliath and the Vampires" and Christopher Lee in Mario Bava's "Hercules in the Haunted World," Leontine Snell displaying as much skin as possible in her see through costumes. Unleashed in the US only after the phenomenal success of Peter Cushing's "Star Wars," it faced competition from the likes of Al Adamson's "Space Mission to the Lost Planet," merely another new title for John Carradine's "Horror of the Blood Monsters." Losing an entire reel before crossing the Atlantic, the plot vaguely resembles "The Terrornauts" and is essentially split in half, the first on earth where a downed spacecraft is found in Sardinia by a group of mostly young scientists, captured by Leonora's alien leader Kaena to help her return to her home constellation of Hydra. They encounter some Chinese spies who continue to plot after takeoff, endless talking head scenes only occasionally broken up by some action. A lost Bulgarian ship is found adrift in space, its two occupants now skeletons inside their suits, transcribing the terrible fate on earth that foreshadows what Kaena finds on Hydra, Leontine's theatrical performance and modeling of several eye catching outfits perfectly in keeping with her portrayal of a wannabe actress. Only a brief amount of time is spent on an uncharted planet that might have been left over from STAR TREK, where apelike cavemen cause a minor disturbance (they earned it a few playdates as a ripoff of "Planet of the Apes," right down to the nuclear climax). There's little amusement to be found despite the odd comic tone, and apart from "Mission Stardust" rang down the curtain on Spaghetti sci fi.

Although the special effects are nice and the music by Nico Fidenco is excellent this sci-fi doesn't really move on. More monsters and a bigger performance by Gordon Mitchell maybe could have saved "Star Pilot" but now it is only an overlong talkie technical adventure.