This one is reviewed ‘just for the record’ — we have a soft spot for train-wreck science fiction losers. ‘What went wrong?’  ‘Did anybody even care?’  Accomplished director Pietro Francisi has the two classic Hercules movies to his credit, but this artless exercise would demolish anybody’s reputation . . . it must have been a quick payday. Leonora Ruffo and Leontine Snell vamp their way through an interplanetary mishmosh comparable to an old Captain Video episode, with production values not much better. On the other hand, the transfer is excellent. Sword ‘n’ sandal fans might want to see Kirk Morris in action, and Gordon Mitchell has a one-shot cameo. Don’t come looking for camp fun — it’s incompetence al’Italiano, for curious completists — we know you’re out there.

Star Pilot (2+5 Missione Hydra)
Blu-ray
Kino Lorber – Rarovideo
1966 / Color / 1:33 full frame (should be 1:66 widescreen) / 91 + 86 min. / 2+5 Missione Hydra / Street Date July 4, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Leonora Ruffo, Mario Novelli (Anthony Freeman), Roland Lesaffre, Kirk Morris, Leontine Snell (Leontine), Alfio Caltabiano, Nando Angelini, Antonio Ho, John Chen, Gordon Mitchell.
Cinematography: Guido Albonico, Silvano Ippoliti
Production Designer: Gianfranco Ramacci
Costume Design: Gaia Romanini
Film Editor: Pietro Francisi
Original Music: Nino Fidenco
Written by Pietro Francisi Adaptation by story by Fernando Paolo Girolami
Produced by Aldo Calamara, Ermanno Curti
Directed by
Pietro Francisi

Looking up the flaky Italian production 2+5 Missione Hydra, we see that its original 1966 version was never distributed in the United States. Eleven years later, the huge success of Star Wars motivated the wide release of a number of space-themed pictures that otherwise might have been passed over — Starship Invasions,  Starcrash, perhaps even Laserblast. Re-edited and retitled as Star Pilot an abbreviated version of 2+5 Missione Hydra won some bookings in ‘less discriminating venues.’

This Star Pilot Blu-ray does not actually contain Star Pilot.

If you’ve seen the belated American, English-language release Star Pilot, it’s quite a bit different than what’s on Raromedia’s handsome Blu-ray. Released through Kino Lorber, the disc has two versions of the film from 1966, the 91-minute Italo original and an English-language version prepared for export at that time. Both are titled 2+5 Missione Hydra.

The movie is a modest production partly filmed in Sardinia with interiors in Rome. More than one reviewer commented that the generic spaceship sets had been seen before in other movies. The show is so threadbare, it is entirely possible that its futuristic costumes and settings are all off-the-shelf rentals . . . and not chosen with any great care. The director is well-known to fantasy fans — Pietro Francisi of the mega-hit Steve Reeves adventures Hercules and Hercules Unchained.

An earthquake in Morino brings scientists who find a ‘stained’ section of land that is also radioactive. Scientist Bardi (Anthony Freeman, aka Mario Novelli) summons the respected expert Professor Solmi (Roland Lesaffre), whose daughter Luisa (Leontine Snell, aka simply Leontine) tags along as well. Skulking about nearby are a pair of Chinese spies (Antonio Ho & John Chen). When the ground subsides, the mystery is cleared up: an alien spaceship was buried there. Climbing into the caves, the scientists meet strangely-garbed aliens from ‘The Constellation Hydra.’ Their leader is Kaena (Leonora Ruffo), a beauty with bright red hair. She rouses her minions Artie and Belsy (Alfio Caltabiano & star Kirk Morris) out of hibernation. The Earth folk are made to wear remote-control medallions, through which they are forced to help repair the disabled Hydran spacecraft. Although a message gets out, before the army can intervene the spaceship departs with its human prisoners on board.

The flight is interrupted by unplanned stops and resistance from the unhappy human prisoners. They land on an unknown planet, where they are attacked by ape-people. They attempt to return to Earth, but along the way investigate a derelict Soviet space ship, and find a visual recording showing the destruction of Earth in an atomic war: their faster-than-light speed has displaced them in time. They then return to Hydra, only to find that Kaena’s civilization is gone as well. Marooned with some primitive Hydran survivors, they find some compensation is the union of two romantic couples, Kaena + Baldi, and Luisa + Belsy.

In the history of space-oriented Sci-fi the thoughtlessly thrown together 2+5 Missione Hydra is hardly even a curiosity. The agreeable cast reads its mostly technobabble dialogue very clearly, but little that happens holds our attention. Most of the story content is an undigested lift from earlier, better shows with something to say: shipwrecked aliens (It Came from Outer Space), prisoners of an alien spaceship (This Island Earth). The fine space picture Ikarie XB-1 is tapped for the ‘derelict spaceship’ scene, and the ape-men attack seems a repeat from Francisi’s own Hercules of nine years before. The unimpressive English productions The Earth Dies Screaming and even the awful They Came from Beyond Space are more professionally produced.

The characters in 2+5 Missione Hydra are the shallowest of constructions. The aliens stare like zombies and the handsome Italian guys maintain limp smiles even in tense situations, as if satisfied that their hair looks good. Leonora Ruffo is little more than a study in eye make-up and bad Futurama costuming, with a cut-out top that’s nevertheless ‘G’- rated. She was cast in some memorable movies (Fellini’s I vitelloni,  Hercules in the Haunted World), but there’s nothing much for her to work with here. The script’s idea of a character development is to have Keana change into a dark wig for a few scenes.

Familiar peplum name Kirk Morris is actually an Italian actor by the name of Adriano Bellini. Even though his Hydran Belsy is supposed to be ‘unemotional,’ Morris’s one vacant facial expression seems inadequate.

More animated is sixth-billed Leontine Snell. She has a credit or two as a choreographer and is obviously a dancer & model — she continually strikes poses, even when in motion. Her Luisa has a frisky attitude but is scripted to be as brainless as the rest of them.

Given special guest status is muscleman star Gordon Mitchell. Unfortunately, he’s seen in just one shot, a B&W view-screen image of Kaena’s superior ‘Murdu’ back on Hydra.

Francisi’s direction is static. He had a serious career for over twenty years, so our guess is that he was just coasting through on show, collecting on whatever money deal he had. There are no signs of anybody trying to make much of the show — evidently a futuristic movie with mod costumes could play on Italians screens regardless of the quality. Francisi shows up in the opening playing a director for a TV commercial, a self-referential bit of padding. Luisa is the main dancer. Her costumes throughout lean toward bright red boas, over tights.

The storyline and direction mark time, and often waste time. Rounding up the Professor means a drive through Rome, which consists of shot after shot of their car passing major civic monuments — the Coliseum, etc.. After all that travelogue business we’re in a mainly featureless green countryside that could have been shot ten miles from Rome. The finale uses an interesting seacoast cove to represent an alien planet. If we for moment felt we were ANYWHERE, things might be different. But the film never establishes a ‘cinematic space.’

People stand rooted in place to speak to each other, and often talk without looking at each other. The static direction is interrupted 3 or 4 times by fistfights, in which the Italians and the Chinese and the Hydran males do exaggerated punches and tackles and leg kicks, It’s all filmed in wide masters, with cuts devoid of any continuity. The excitement level continues to flat-line when the ship takes off for a jaunt around the universe. Our Earthmen help ‘fly’ the ship with just a few instructions, twisting knobs and pushing buttons.

Suddenly I’ve developed an appreciation of Margheriti’s Gamma I Movies.

We’ve done our best to avoid being special visual effect snobs. The measure of good science fiction movies should not be tied to realistic visuals, even if we’ve always been impressed by outstanding work ‘back in the day.’ The silver spaceship in 2+5 Missione Hydra has little fireworks rockets, and is not photographed in any creative way. There are also some full-scale mockups to show astronauts moving from one ship to another, opening hatches and leaping across the gulf in slow motion. To land on a planet the Hydrans don space helmets, but for space walks they simply put a breathing stick in their mouths, like the mini-aqualung Sean Connery uses briefly in Thunderball. So put it in your notes kids, space suits are optional in the cosmic void.

Weightlessness is ‘represented’ via slow motion filming, in one case using a trampoline. Clothing still drapes normally, indicating which way is Down. One scene of a ‘jump’ from one spaceship to another has a lo-on-g gap in its action, allowing us to surmise that the jump is not only in slow motion, but backwards.

Yes, after this show Antonio Margheriti’s space pictures improve in our memory. The uneven The Wild, Wild Planet amuses with its sheer volume of crazy ideas — its able, athletic cast does their best to keep it lively. 2+5 Missione Hydra just plods along, its dramatics inert even when the space kidnappees learn that a whole planet has been destroyed.

So what is there to 2+5 Missione Hydra that compels collectors?  I confess that I’m a completist when it comes to Sci-fi. Even though we have now seen most of the classics in one form or another, researchers like Janne Wass (Scifist 2.0) often uncover new obscurities worth tracking down. Information in the evaluation section just below might be meaningful to viewers that remember seeing the 1977 ‘Star Pilot’ revision.

The Kino Lorber – Rarovideo Blu-ray of Star Pilot (2+5 Missione Hydra) has been given a quality encoding — we wish all of our favorites looked this good on disc. The perfunctory  camerawork may be flat throughout, but the image is sharp and the colors solid. The encoding is flat 1:33, when the film likely should be cropped to 1:66 widescreen. Expect more than a little empty foot- and head-room.

The show contains two cuts of 2+5 Missione Hydra. The second is an English-language export version from 1966, which bears the original title. It is not the Star Pilot version shown in the U.S. in 1977 — terrible quality cuts of which can be found on the web. For U.S. release after the debut of Star Wars, a new dub job was performed and new footage was cut in from the woeful half-a-movie Doomsday Machine (1972). It includes part of a ‘mission control’ clip — with actors Bobby Van and Grant Williams.

Some sources say that mismatched shots of spaceships and views of a city being flooded by giant waves are from Doomsday Machine as well, which lifted them from Toho’s epic Gorath (1962).  More coverage about these editorial changes can be read at B&S About Movies. That essay wonders ‘if we’ll ever see the original version.’  I guess Rarovideo has fulfilled their dreams.

David Del Valle contributes a conversational ramble of a commentary, aided by author-actor Matteo Molinari, who offers his own opinions as well. Del Valle bases his thoughts on the notion that the movie is an intentional satire, as evidenced by the opening scene on a film set, with director Francisi playing himself. We hear explanations that relate Missione Hydra to camp trends of the time. The commentators note the film’s aggressive females and neutered males, plus Leontine Snell’s many costume changes when we know she’s left her luggage behind. Molinari reports that he asked his Italian friends if they remembered the picture, and none did.

Del Valle does peg the disc’s appeal: thanks to Blu-ray, collectors desiring the original uncut version can now see it in prime HD quality. Rarovideo has also obtained an original German trailer, which does its best to make the show seem exciting.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Star Pilot (2+5 Missione Hydra)
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Fair (if that)
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: English language cut; Audio Commentary by David Del Valle, Trailer (German).
Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: June 27, 2023
(6951star)

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