******SPACESHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!*******

As a youngster, I remember being home sick from school once with a mild fever. I flipped through the limited number of broadcast stations on our family’s 25″ Zenith TV before collapsing on the couch. I came across a promising sci-fi movie on a local station called “First Spaceship on Venus,” originally titled “The Silent Star” (1960). The print used for the broadcast was grainy, and the audio was dubbed into English–as were most foreign movies on TV in those days (the telltale mismatching lip movements, aka “Dub’s disease”). I stuck with it, because it was sci-fi, and changing the channel would’ve been too much of a chore at that time.

The movie was very colorful, reminding me of Italian horror/sci-fi movies, like Mario Bava’s “Black Sabbath” (1963) or his “Planet of the Vampires” (1965); the latter might’ve been inspired by this eastern bloc sci-fi movie I was watching. Even through the grainy, poor quality print, I could tell this movie was significant. At the time, I was getting into reruns of the original Star Trek, which used to tout its diverse international (and interplanetary) crew. This movie, which our local TV Guide (Google it, kids) said was made in 1960. Featured in its crew were a Russian scientist, a hotshot German pilot (in the dubbed version he was American), a genius Chinese linguist, a female Japanese surgeon, an American robotics expert, an obsessive Indian mathematician and an African comms officer. And it predated Star Trek by six years. The movie even had room for a smart-ass, roving robot named “Omega.”

Based somewhat faithfully on Polish sci-fi legend Stanislaw Lem’s 1951 book, “The Astronauts,” this East-German/Polish coproduction sees the discovery of a strange crystalline ‘spool’ in the Gobi desert which comes from the planet Venus. The spool contains an audio message in a bizarre alien language. Researchers attempt to translate it, but without success. Wishing to make contact with our Venusian neighbors, a team composed of the world’s top scientists and astronauts board a repurposed Mars spaceship, the Kosmoskrater (Greek for “ruler of the cosmos”), and head off to Venus. After a weeks-long voyage, the crew finds a dark, dead planet filled with abandoned, yet functional technology, which emits high levels of radioactivity. Turns out our not-so-friendly neighbors were planning to sterilize Earth with radioactivity to soften it up for conquest. However, their own weapons technology ran amok and destroyed them, as well. Message received.

Since I’ve previously examined other Soviet-era eastern bloc sci-fi films like “Solaris” (1972) and “Planeta Bur” (1962), it seemed like the time to do another such column on “The Silent Star,” which is the title I’ll use for the rest of this retrospective…

“The Silent Star”/ aka “Der schweigende Stern” (1960)

Because of many minor variations between the original version and the dubbed American version I grew up with, some characters have differing names and nationalities. However, for the purpose of clarity, I’ll refer to the characters by their names and backgrounds from the original German-language film.

Note: German-born actor Kurt Rackelman (1910-1973) was the only member of the movie’s international cast to play a whitewashed ethnic character, as the actor played Professor Sikarna, the obsessive Indian mathematician. 24 years later, actor Bob Balaban (“Midnight Cowboy”) would play HAL-9000 creator “Dr. Chandra” in 1984’s “2010: The Year We Make Contact”; another Indian-born character played by a caucasian actor. And as recently as 2013, we saw English actor Benedict Cumberbatch (“Sherlock”) play North Indian-born character “Khan Noonien Singh” in the even less-forgivable “Star Trek Into Darkness.” And don’t get me started on Mike Myers‘ execrable “The Love Guru” (2008). Clearly there are worse offenders out there than Rackelmann’s casting as Sikarna.

Note: Like Jean-Luc Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: TNG/Picard, Brinkmann was on the same lunar expedition which killed Sumiko’s husband, and now Brinkmann has developed feelings for his late friend’s widow. Sumiko wisely refuses his advances. Actor Günther Simon (1925-1972) died before East Germany’s historic reunification with West Germany in 1990, and this movie remains his best known role. French-born actress Yoko Tani (1928-1999) parlayed her Japanese heritage into a more cosmopolitan career, with small roles in “The Prisoner” (1955, with Alec Guinness), “Marco Polo” (1962) and “Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?” (1963, with Dean Martin).

Note: An impressive creation for 1960, the “Omega” robot foreshadows the very real robotic rovers that would eventually fly to the moon (the Russian Lunakhods) and Mars (Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance; along with China’s Zhurong rover, which went inactive soon after landing in 2021). The robot’s voice is so electronically modulated on the American dubbed version, that it’s sometimes difficult to understand what the robot is saying, even in English. Thankfully, the original German version (which I also own on DVD) has English subtitles. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of this movie (1990), which is absolutely hilarious, makes numerous “Twiki” the robot references from “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” nearly every time Omega makes an appearance (Biddy-biddy-bid!). Hungarian actor Oldřich Lukeš (1909-1980) plays American roboticist Professor Hawling, who is curiously renamed “Orloff” in the American version. This is an odd choice, since ‘Orloff’ sounds much more Russian than Hawling.

Note: Many of the miniature effects of this film are first-rate for their time, and often exceed the quality of work done in their contemporary American counterparts. When I recently saw “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (2025), I was struck by the almost one-for-one similarity between the F4’s “Excelsior” spaceship and the Kosmokrator. Given the 2025 film’s retro-1960s production design, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a deliberate choice on F4 production designer Kasra Farahani’s part.

Note: With a gaggle of professors aboard the Kosmokrator, a few characters manage to stand out; such as Dr. Tschen Yü (Tang Hua-Ta), who is introduced earlier in the movie as something of a Renaissance man; a linguist, astronaut and biochemist who also ended global hunger by transforming inorganic matter into food stuffs in his spare time (!). Unlike his well-rounded character, actor Tang Hua-Ta has no other credits to his name listed before or after this movie. I’m guessing that Tang, like his costar Julius Ongewe, was not from an acting background. Also, the wire work in the movie’s zero gravity sequence after launch is surprisingly competent; with the actors wearing strategic headgear to hide non-floating hair follicles. “The Silent Star” addressed issues of zero gravity a year before the first manned spaceflight of Yuri Gagarin, and 35 years before director Ron Howard used actual free fall to shoot portions of his Oscar-winning “Apollo 13” (1995).

Note: The rounded lines, dome ceiling and oval-shaped main viewer of the Kosmokrator command center are similar to those of the USS Enterprise-D bridge in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” albeit much more compacted. I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie had some influence on that series, 27 years later. Their vibe is so similar that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) riffs on it as well, with ‘Crow T. Robot’ (Trace Beaulieu) quipping “Take us out of warp, Mr. Crusher” in his best Patrick Stewart impression during a fleeting shot of the Kosmokrator command deck. I highly recommend checking out the MST3K version of this film (link at bottom).

Note: When the ship is bombarded with meteorites, the camera is under-cranked to make the crew look as if they’re being tossed hard-and-fast across the deck during evasive maneuvers. Unfortunately, the fast playback effect looks rather comical; like something out of a silent-era Buster Keaton farce. We’re also told earlier that the ship has its own artificial gravity, so why would the crew get thrown across the deck? It’s in scenes like this where some leeway has to be given. “The Silent Star” was released a year before the first humans flew into space, yet it still has a far better grasp of microgravity physics than 1998’s “Armageddon.”

Note: The idea of the extinct Venusians being hostile is also from Stanislaw Lem’s original 1951 source novel, “The Astronauts” (“Astronauci”), apart from the characters, the movie adaptation retains many of the same basic story beats as Lem’s novel (which, for full disclosure, I’ve only skimmed online). Also, actor Julius Ongewe, who plays African comms officer ‘Talua,’ was a medical student at the time, and (like costar Tang Hua-Ta) was not an actor. “The Silent Star” is Ongewe’s only onscreen credit, too. For a relatively small role, Ongewe’s character is significant, and predates fellow sci-fi trailblazer Nichelle Nichols by six years.

Note: While the dangling ‘insect‘ wire puppets that Brinkmann finds in the underground archive aren’t terribly convincing, they were made in a much more limited era of practical effects. These days, it’d be a cinch to show swarms of CGI robotic bugs showering Brinkmann as he falls into the Venusian archive. However, the window for remaking this obscure yet groundbreaking film has long since closed, as we currently know too much about Venus for any suspension of disbelief. For a better look at a more realistic crewed landing on Venus, I suggest readers check out the excellent 2004 BBC TV movie, “Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets,” which depicts a smart, beautifully-realized crewed voyage of the solar system, with stopovers on Venus, Mars, Io, and Pluto.

Note: Despite the hints of Brinkmann’s awkward attraction to widow Sumiko, we see the two of them working alongside each other throughout most of the film with no further romantic complications. While I get the movie’s need to create some drama for dramatics’ sake, it doesn’t really make much sense if there is no payoff, or firm resolution. Then again, Brinkmann dies, so there’s that (?). Personally, I would’ve preferred if they never brought it up in the first place. Brinkmann should’ve been professional enough to keep his awkward widow-coveting to himself.

Note: Some unusual, if obvious reverse photography is employed during the attack and withdrawal of the sentient oil slicks, or angry mud baths, or whatever the hell they were. It’s in the final act of the movie–its weakest–where we get a confusing jumble of information dumps and bizarre set pieces that blunt the more critical story point of the extinct Venusians’ plot to invade Earth, and how that malevolent plan ultimately led to their self-destruction.

Note: Even watching this movie as a kid, I immediately understood the Hiroshima/Nagasaki metaphor with this unexpectedly powerful visual that recalls those vaporized Japanese civilians whose profiles were literally burned onto walls after the atomic bombings of Japan in World War 2. At the time I first saw the film in childhood, those bombings were relatively recent history. What scares me now is that we seem to be increasingly forgetful of the horrors from that era, as the last survivors of World War 2 die out, and authoritarianism regains popularity in today’s world.

Note: This is where “The Silent Star” began to leave me a bit cross-eyed, as a ton of event is crammed into the final few minutes of the movie. Tschen and Talua are trapped underground. Brinkmann rushes to rescue them. Tschen spacesuit develops a fatal puncture. Commander Arsenjew is gravely injured and taken aboard and Sumiko performs life-saving emergency surgery. Meanwhile, Brinkmann deactivates the weapon, which somehow causes local gravity to reverse itself (??) and forces the Kosmokrator and her remaining crew back into space–leaving Brinkmann, Talua and Tschen stranded. It barely makes sense to watch, let alone relate.

Note: In the final scene, the somber surviving crew are met at the landing pad by the young, blonde Diane Sawyer-lookalike reporter (Lucynna Wynnicka) from the first act of the movie, who rushes to stick her microphone in the exhausted survivors’ faces for post-mission comments. Give ’em a few seconds, will ya?

The End.

Summing It Up

Given that “The Silent Star” is 65 years old, some slack must be given. Clearly its predictions about Venus aren’t going to jibe with the highly pressurized, toxic furnace of a planet we know of today, but the movie still works as an enjoyable space adventure; old-fashioned exploration for exploration’s sake, and little more. Its special effects, particularly the Kosmokrater launch and landings, are very well done. This East German-Polish coproduction, directed by Kurt Maetzig (“The Rabbit is Me”) features some extraordinary production values for a largely soundstage-bound movie (save for outdoor scenes on Earth in the movie’s first and final acts).

Even more impressive is that the movie was released a year before the launch of first human in space Yuri Gagarin, and two years before the launch of NASA’s successful Mariner 2 flyby of Venus. The movie’s diverse international cast (Japanese, Indian, Russian, German, African, Chinese) beat Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” to the diverse casting punch by six years. More importantly, the Kosmokrater cosmonauts each have critical bits of business to do as characters, unlike the often under-utilized secondary crew members aboard the USS Enterprise. Granted, “The Silent Star” cast are often forced into melodrama (the Sumiko-Brinkmann attraction subplot) or cardboard characterizations, but at least they’re busy. Unfortunately, none of the cast are helped by the movie’s confusing final act, which drowns in so much technobabble that it’s difficult to keep tabs on exactly what is going on. However, points for trying and (partly) succeeding.

With colorful widescreen cinematography (somewhat dulled by low-quality prints), some wildly-imaginative sets, a diverse international cast of characters and a literary pedigree from Stanislaw Lem, there are many elements for patient sci-fi fans to admire about “The Silent Star,” even if its overstuffed final act loses the plot a bit.

“Star Trek” may have boldly gone where no one had gone before, but “The Silent Star” quietly got there first.

Where to Watch

“The Silent Star” is all over YouTube, with various channels offering different quality prints. However, the version in the link below is the “First Spaceship on Venus” English-dub version, which also offered the best color quality and 2.35:1 widescreen framing. However, if it’s not to your satisfaction, there are other versions of the film to choose from.

As an added bonus, here’s a link to the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” version as well. Enjoy!

“First Spaceship on Venus” (the American dubbed version) is also available to own on physical media, in widescreen Blu-Ray or letterboxed DVD (Gemini/Image). There’s also the letterboxed, subtitled, original-language “The Silent Star” on DVD from DEFA/FRF. With a little searching, these can likely be found on Amazon.