1960 - UNIVERSE, space is the place.

Universe is a short documentary film from The National Film Board of Canada.  This is the kind of film that your teacher would run in science class to kill 30 minutes of lecture time.  In other words this is an educational short film.

Universe is known as the film that supposedly influenced Stanley Kubrick during the  making  2001: A Space Odyssey.  Kubrick hired one of the co-directors of this film Colin Low to work on the special effects for 2001.  Douglas Rain, the narrator of Universe was also the voice of the HAL  9000 computer. 

The now low tech observatory and telescope provide most of the entertainment value with the nerdy crew cut scientist consulting star charts and hand positioning the telescope to shoot some pictures of star formations.  Even for 1960 this seems a little antiquated.

Universe ends with the narrator spouting some junk about "man's place in the universe" as the sun rises over the observatory.  We see the scientist drive away,  probably rushing home to watch Our Mr. Sun.

29 minutes, written by Roman Kroitor and Stanley Jackson.