Star Pilot
1966 Italian film

Star Pilot (Italian: 2+5: Missione Hydra) is a 1966 Italian science fiction film directed by Pietro Francisci. It stars Leonora Ruffo as Keyna.
01Plot
Chaena is the commander of a spaceship from the constellation Hydra, which has crashed on the island of Sardinia. An Earth scientist, some technicians, their companions, and some Asian agents are abducted by the aliens and forced to repair the ship.
With the ship repaired, the aliens decide to take the humans to Hydra for the purpose of genetic research, but while in flight, the humans mutiny.
02Cast
Credits adapted from ANICA.
- Leonora Ruffo as Keyna
- Mario Novelli (credited as Anthony Freeman) as Paolo Bardi
- Roland Lesaffre as Prof. Solmi
- Adriano Bellini (credited as Kirk Morris) as Belsi
- Alfio Caltabiano as Artie
- Leontina Mariotti (credited as Leontine May) as Luisa Solmi
- Nando Angelini as Morelli
- Giovanni De Angelis as Giulio
- Gianni Solaro (credited as John Sun) as Direttore Cento Ricerche
- Antonio Ho as Dott Chang
- John Chen as Assistent to Chang
- Gordon Mitchell as Comandante centro Hydra
03Production
Star Pilot was produced by Golden Motion Pictures.
04Release
The film was released in Italy on October 2, 1966 as 2 + 5 Missione Hydra.
Following the release of Star Wars (1977), the film was re-cut and dubbed in English and released in the United States as Star Pilot in 1977. The film was released on blu-ray by Kino Lorber on July 4, 2023.
05Reception
From contemporary reviews, a reviewer in the Italian newspaper l'Unità found the special effects poor commenting that some of it was just obvious cut outs from postcards.
From retrospective reviews, Michael Barrett of PopMatters said the film sometimes felt deliberately campy like the 1960s Batman television series while others were just boring.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Star Pilot”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- 25-missione-hydra-italian-movie-poster-md.webp by Unknown author, Fair use
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