"One of Corman's most legendary films. The day after Sputnik went up, Corman had an ad in the paper for his forthcoming War of the Satellites; it took four weeks to write a script, 10 days for the actual filming, and four more weeks to finish the editing. Less than three months after Sputnik went into orbit, Corman's picture was on screens all across the country! It stars Dick Miller - a Corman regular virtually from the beginning, and perhaps the quintessential Corman hero with a warm, intelligent screen presence despite his short stature, New York accent and schlemiel face. Corman appears in the film too, as a missile control room technician - and he carries one of the biggest scenes single-handedly. Apparently, there was no money to build a large console with a screen to show the rocket taking off, so Corman put the camera where the screen would have been and shot back at himself. As the rocket goes up, all we see is Corman - looking up at the screen we never see, going, 'OK, yeah, good, good....' Corman appeared occasionally in his early films, but mainly as an economy measure, so he wouldn't have to hire an actor. Legend has it he was supposed to play Peter Bogdanovich's part in Targets, but he didn't show up."