During the Fifties, when you saw the colorful Paramount title screen with its ring of stars surrounding a mountain peak you expected a spectacle. So it is a bit surprising to find this B-movie on their project list. This eighty-one-minute imaginative adventure was directed by Byron Haskin from a screenplay by James O'Hanlon. The music is by Nathan Van Cleave.
Predicting what thirty years in the future will be like, this George Pal Production also predicted that his phone would not ring much after this disappointment.
The essentially unknown male cast will become familiar faces a decade later on television, like Eric Fleming and Ross Martin. So unknown were these actors, the cast is not listed until the very end. Perhaps guilt pushed the producers to add them during their final editing session. Phil Foster, not surprisingly cast as the “in your face” Brooklyn electrician, is the one actor most hope will not make it back to Earth. He is repeatedly complaining or questioning their mission in a desperate attempt at levity. How this dimwit passed the space program no one knows. In an amazing turn of events, their moon mission changes overnight by an order from command headquarters. They are to go straight for Mars. That is at least an extra two-day drive, buddy! The beauty of science fiction is you can propose anything dreamed up.
Predicting what thirty years in the future will be like, this George Pal Production also predicted that his phone would not ring much after this disappointment.
The essentially unknown male cast will become familiar faces a decade later on television, like Eric Fleming and Ross Martin. So unknown were these actors, the cast is not listed until the very end. Perhaps guilt pushed the producers to add them during their final editing session. Phil Foster, not surprisingly cast as the “in your face” Brooklyn electrician, is the one actor most hope will not make it back to Earth. He is repeatedly complaining or questioning their mission in a desperate attempt at levity. How this dimwit passed the space program no one knows. In an amazing turn of events, their moon mission changes overnight by an order from command headquarters. They are to go straight for Mars. That is at least an extra two-day drive, buddy! The beauty of science fiction is you can propose anything dreamed up.
Walter Brooke (above center) plays the general of the space station and its designer. Now there is an envious resumé. After spending untold millions on the circular station, he now questions their purpose. In Hollywood’s subtle jab at those “odd religious people,” he eventually goes a bit psychotic, thinking man has no right to invade God’s creation and attempts to destroy their spacecraft. His judgment was actually impaired due to an illness called, “space fatigue.” I know the feeling halfway through this film.
George Pal’s spaceships may have been created from a Revell modeler’s kit. They gleam white against a dark solar universe. These colorful scenes probably provided a bit of awe for baby boomers' parents. Some of the weightless effects do work well and the facial distortions speeding through space are effective if a bit disturbing. But the Mars landing and landscape are very childlike. The dials on the space station are as big as automobile steering wheels with levers and toggle switches appearing to be built by Fisher-Price.
This is an intelligent, colorful film that addresses space travel in a manner that only a few brilliant minds could only speculate about. There is little fantasy in this film. If there had been such it may have helped all the dreamers become believers. Certainly not the worst science fiction movie of the era, it simply went where no movie should have gone. Theaters.
This is an intelligent, colorful film that addresses space travel in a manner that only a few brilliant minds could only speculate about. There is little fantasy in this film. If there had been such it may have helped all the dreamers become believers. Certainly not the worst science fiction movie of the era, it simply went where no movie should have gone. Theaters.
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