First Spaceship on Venus (Blu-ray)

Blast off into the great unknown in this classic sci-fi adventure! When an extraterrestrial artifact is discovered in the Gobi Desert, the international community comes together to launch a manned expedition to Venus, where the object originated. But the explorers find only the uninhabited remnants of a once-great civilization, and this ruined landscape holds a terrifying secret, one that may doom the expedition to be stranded forever on the lonely surface of Venus. A collaboration between East Germany and Poland, "First Spaceship on Venus" is a triumph of Eastern bloc science fiction. Presented here is the film's original English language export version as seen by American audiences in the early 1960's, remastered in glorious high definition and restoring the film's original Totalvision widescreen framing. Viewable for decades mostly in cropped, washed out television prints, this sparkling new edition will be a revelation to audiences and will cement the place of "First Spaceship on Venus" in the annals of classic science fiction filmmaking.

• science fiction