AllMovie

The man who aimed at the stars is Werner von Braun, a controversial figure in the U.S. during the post-war period because he had earlier aimed at Allied forces for the Nazis. This routine drama by J. Lee Thompson starts off with a bang in the German V-2 research base, Peenemunde, where von Braun (Curt Jurgens) is shown to be more or less in the control of the German fascists, against his will. Immediately after the close of the war, von Braun (along with many other German rocket scientists) opts for life as a U.S. citizen where he will be ushered into the national missile program with hardly a pause. The only visible opposition to von Braun's ready adoption is a military man who illogically sent his wife and child to London during the war. As might be expected, they were killed in a German air raid and so for that reason, the man opposes von Braun's exalted position in U.S. missile development. Thus skipping over a much wider U.S. protest at the time, the movie goes on to illustrate how von Braun almost single-handedly pushed the U.S. space program forward.