A MARS A DAY .
RED PLANET MARS (1953)
Despite its title, Red Planet Mars takes place on terra firma, sans space ships, cosmic rays or space cadets.
Radio-astronomer Chris Cronyn (PETER MISSION IMPOSSIBLE GRAVES) , sequestered with wife and child in his bucolic rural lab, has managed to receive radio transmissions from the vicinity of...MARS.! The Martians, it appears, have produced a Utopian civilisation, ruled by Divine Law ( - if not the Creator, Himself! - ), prolonged their life-span to 300 years and use Cosmic Power for energy!
When news of ET-Heaven and their peaceful and prosperous way-of-life spreads around the world, all sorts of terrestrial havoc erupts. The Earth-dwellers fear that these secrets will soon be forwarded on and bugger up all the nice, cushy sinecures of our planet's elites. Earth's whole global economic system crashes! The Soviet Union collapses! Is the USA next?!!! Are the Martian emissions the work of Communists ( - get it? *RED* planet? - the film was made at the height of the McCarthy terror - ), or are they in thick with The Big Guy, as the messages claim? A special highlight is the crazed, dipso ex-Nazi (in the pay of Uncle Joe and the Ruskies, who are, of course, hell-bent on crippling global Capitalism), secretly labouring high in the seclusion of the Andes on a similar project! Despite dishing out such a fantastic concoction of hokum, this ludicrous Z'-grade effort, - delving into the realms of science, politics, religion, and Communism - actually partially presages developments in world affairs to be seen decades on ( - not the Mars bits, though!). The actors concerned turn in creditable performances, 'though it's the sort of film from early in Peter Graves' career that qualified him for all those FLYING HIGH flicks!.
Credits: PETER (MISSION IMPOSSIBLE) GRAVES: Chris Cronyn, Andrea King: Linda Cronyn, Herbert Berghof: Franz Calder, WILLIS BOUCHEY: President, MORRIS ANKRUM: Secretary of Defense Sparks, Vince Barnett: Seedy Man Listening to Radio, Grace Leonard: Seedy Woman Listening to Radio. From a play by John L. Balderston and John Hoare. Cinematography by Joseph F. (DONOVAN'S BRAIN, 1953) Biroc. Director: Harry Horner. 86 mins. NFVLS.
WHO’S OUT THERE? (1975)
A number of distinguished scientists conclude that there IS someone out there in Outer Space! ORSON WELLES, host (and star) recounts the details of his (in)famous 1938 radio broadcast, "THE WAR OF THE WORLDS", depicting monstrous Mars life-forms invading Earth. Welles leads us through science fiction - to science fact - to the new view of extra-terrestrial life now emerging from probes to the planets; to interstellar discoveries and findings about the nature of "Life Itself"! 28 mins. NFVLS.
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