Rocket Attack U.S.A.

Quick checklist: There's a rocket. There's the USA; well mostly Russia. There is a threat of an attack. Guns are fired. Spies do their thing. Soldiers with bad russian accents ponder the term `credibility'. Oh, there's also a bald russian guy who drinks a lot and paws poor American spy girl. A rather heavy American couple part company and he promises to get a tie. Other than, nothing much happens in this good simulation of purgatory. There are a lot annoying BLEEPS and WOOO sirens. Good stock footage of New York, planes taking off, rockets firing. I also loved the rocket which was so advanced it had no shadow.

This movie was great...till it began.

The only name you will recognize from the cast of Rocket Attack USA is that of Art Metrano who came to be a respected character actor most noted for being Captain Mauser in the Police Academy films. I'm sure he must have shuddered with horror at being associated with this monstrosity of a Cold War era film made to exploit the paranoia surrounding the Sputnik launching.

With a lot of newsreel footage Rocket Attack USA is two different films stitched rather clumsily together both very bad. The first film is a documentary style film about the importance of making rocket research our number one defense priority. With the launch of Sputnik that means the Soviets have a definite lead in missiles if they can put a satellite in orbit. Right around this time we were hearing talk of a 'missile gap' by candidates for president in real life.

The second is maybe the worst espionage story in history as we send in an agent to stop the launch of a missile with an atomic warhead bound for New York. No gimmicks or gadgets and two of the worst players in the history of film get in a little nookie while attempting to stop the Russian rocket.

Definitely right up there with anything that Ed Wood ever created and probably worse. Poor Art Metrano, you'll see him briefly playing a truck driver. He must have cringed at the mention of Rocket Attack USA.

Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1961)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Cold War propaganda has an American agent landing in Russia where his mission is to determine how far their missile technology is and whether or not the United States are in danger.

ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. comes from director Barry Mahon and many reviews will have you thinking that this here is one of the worst films ever made. I'd argue that it's not even one of the worst Cold War propaganda films ever made. Perhaps I've simply been watching too many Mahon films but there's no question that there's a lot of bad stuff in this movie and I'll talk about that later.

No matter how much you hate this bad movie, and it is a bad movie, at the same time it's technically a lot better made than so many other low-budget movies. I mean, the work of Edward D. Wood, Jr., Al Adamson, Francis Coleman and Ted V, Mikels is much worse to say the least. At least Mahon could take a low-budget movie and to make certainly technical errors that so many others have. While the budget and performances don't make for a great picture, I think Mahon could have delivered something better with the right material.

With that said, the budget here is just so low and there are so many other problems. For starters, this film makes it way too easy for the American agent to sneak into Russia and what's worse is that everyone there is speaking with an American accent. Another major problem is that there's no suspense to be found and you really don't care if the missile hits America or not. In fact, I'd argue that most people will be cheering for it to do so!

ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. wasn't meant to be taken serious and there's certainly nothing here that warrants you doing so. If you're expecting FAIL SAFE or DR. STRANGELOVE then you're certainly coming to the wrong film.

I never thought espionage and nuclear war could be so boring. Watching this movie would give you that impression. What was the deal with the blind guy? At least he didn't have to see this. Skip Rocket Attack USA unless you have the MST3K version.

This movie must be the only terrible movie to be too terrible to be panned on MST3K (which it was...). Did any of these "actors" actually paid for this trash? This makes the 1951 Invasion USA look like academy award material. Who was Barry Mahon trying to kid? How about a worst movie of all time festival with this piece of you-know-what, Monster A-Go-Go, and Manos the Hands of Fate as the headliners? The production was the cheapest, the actors the worst, the plot was stupid and contrived, the so-called facts about the Soviet Union and sputnik weren't. How about all those "foreign" accents, eh? Well Mahon may have gotten the miniscule amount of spoken Russian right as they were spoken by two real Russians (noticed them in the credits).