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 passing of sixty-plus years has not been kind to the film.
The essentially unknown male cast will become familiar faces a decade later on television, including Walter Brooke, Eric Fleming, Ross Martin, William Redfield, and Vito Scottti. Phil Foster, not surprisingly cast as the “in your face” Brooklyn electrician, is the one most hope will not make it back to Earth. He is repeatedly complaining or questioning their mission in a desperate attempt at levity in the script. How this dimwit passed the space program no one knows. So unknown were these actors at the time, the cast is not listed until the very end. Perhaps guilt pushed the producers to add them during their final editing session. 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 passing of sixty-plus years has not been kind to the film.
The essentially unknown male cast will become familiar faces a decade later on television, including Walter Brooke, Eric Fleming, Ross Martin, William Redfield, and Vito Scottti. Phil Foster, not surprisingly cast as the “in your face” Brooklyn electrician, is the one most hope will not make it back to Earth. He is repeatedly complaining or questioning their mission in a desperate attempt at levity in the script. How this dimwit passed the space program no one knows. So unknown were these actors at the time, the cast is not listed until the very end. Perhaps guilt pushed the producers to add them during their final editing session. 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 space station, he now questions its purpose. In Hollywood’s subtle jab at those “odd Protestant 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 a brilliant white against a dark solar universe. These colorful scenes probably provided a bit of awe for young baby boomers and their 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 that appear to be built by Fisher-Price.
Note: This is a colorful film about idyllic space travel in a manner that children could fantasize on. Certainly not the worst science fiction movie of the era, it simply should have been a Saturday morning television offering among a myriad of cartoons.
Note: This is a colorful film about idyllic space travel in a manner that children could fantasize on. Certainly not the worst science fiction movie of the era, it simply should have been a Saturday morning television offering among a myriad of cartoons.
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