Spaceways

4K UHD, Limited Collector's Edition, Region Free

Howard Duff, known to posterity as the definitive radio Sam Spade, stars as a pioneering space engineer embroiled in murder and espionage in this early '50s Hammer Space Noir. Co-starring Hungarian screen siren Eva Bartok and a very on-form Alan Wheatley as a bullish intelligence operative, Spaceways has been painstakingly restored by Hammer in 4K from the original film negatives.

Stephen Mitchell, chief engineer on the world’s first space station, has the bad luck to be married to a gold-digging shrew. When an unmanned rocket fails re-entry at the same time as his wife and a fellow scientist go missing, Stephen is accused of killing them both and hiding their bodies in the orbiting spacecraft.

This limited collector's edition comprises:

• New commentary with writer, filmmaker and film programmer Heidi Honeycutt and TV and film critic Sarah Morgan.
• New commentary with writer/editor David Flint.
• Two Nations Divided by a Common Genre: writer/publisher Wayne Kinsey and director/producer/actor/writer Ted A. Bohus discuss 1950s sci-fi films and the differences in style between those made in the US and the UK.
• A gallery of stills and publicity material alongside tracks from Ivor Slaney’s score.
• Sidebar: Spaceways: Film critic and writer Tim Lucas discusses Spaceways and sci-fi films of the period with artist and film historian Stephen R. Bissette.

The discs feature:

• New commentary with writer, filmmaker and film programmer Heidi Honeycutt and TV and film critic Sarah Morgan.
• New commentary with writer/editor David Flint.
• Two Nations Divided by a Common Genre: writer/publisher Wayne Kinsey and director/producer/actor/writer Ted A. Bohus discuss 1950s sci-fi films and the differences in style between those made in the US and the UK.
• A gallery of stills and publicity material alongside tracks from Ivor Slaney’s score.
• Sidebar: Spaceways: Film critic and writer Tim Lucas discusses Spaceways and sci-fi films of the period with artist and film historian Stephen R. Bissette.

The booklet features:

• Article by Hammer expert Wayne Kinsey examining the making of Hammer's first sci-fi film.
• New article by Heidi Honeycutt, who takes a look at the social, sexual and political tropes at play in Spaceways.
• New article by Andrew Pixley, who does a deep dive on Hammer's run of radio-to-film adaptations.
• New article by Sarah Morgan, who examines director Terence Fisher's occasional forays into science fiction.
• New article by Neil Sinyard, who compares Spaceways to the original novel and investigates the work of its author, Charles Eric Maine.
• New article by Miriam Balanescu, who looks at the effect of the Cold War on sci-fi and the hybrid genre Sci-fi Noir.
• New article by Robert J.E. Simpson, who investigates the connective tissue that links Howard Duff, Hammer and the Lupino family.

The features, packaging and specification on this page are not final and are subject to change.