| Welcome to In The Balcony. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Plus, you'll be eligible for the monthly $1 million prize. (Not really.) Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Flight to Mars (1951); Strange Science Cinema #09 | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 1 2015, 09:22 AM (228 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Mar 1 2015, 09:22 AM Post #1 |
|
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
![]() Flight to Mars (1951) Dir. Lesley Selander Strange Science Cinema #009 Watching (or in some cases re-watching) these early sci-fi pictures has been SUCH a treat for me, taking me back to the days when my big brudder and I used to sit in the dark and watch then 10- and 15-year-old films in a theatre at cheap triple features. Although sometimes technically ridiculous or lacking in other areas, all of the films I've seen so far in this series have been grand nostalgic fun, whether a classic like The Thing or, um, a not-so-classic like The Flying Saucer. Which is why, watching this week's movie, I felt as if my In The Balcony spaceship had unexpectedly crashed head-on into a piece of space flotsam and exploded. What we have HERE, my friend, is what I like to politely call "a stinker." Oh, Monogram, what you did... As you may have guessed, this film concerns itself with a flight to Mars. A bunch of guys, including John LItel, Arthur Franz, and Cameron Mitchell, plus lovely Virginia Huston, go to Mars, although more time is spent arguing over the dame on board than on the scientific marvels around us. On Mars, they discover huge smokestacks leading to an underground world populated by Martians who look like us only wearing much nicer clothes. The Martian Ruler is Morris Ankrum, and he seems to have been democratically elected, leaving me to ponder who would vote for HIM. I guess he must've been running against Mitt Romney. Anyway, the Martian guys wear black leather costumes with spiffy insignias (President Ankrum's looks like the Flash) and the Martian women, including helpful Alita, played by Marguerite Chapman, wear high heels, silk miniskirts, and enormous pointy shoulders (to keep Martian birds from landing, I guess). Anyway, on Mars there are more dames to fight over. We spend WAY too much time learning that the food is prepared and served by machines and that there are automatic dishwashers; that's pretty much all the women talk about, in fact, while the guys argue over 'em. The Martians (who, surprisingly, include a Black guy, and not a scared, eye-poppy token comic, neither) help us American types repair the ship, but they really want it for themselves because they fear we're a vanguard to attack them and they want to attack us first. Can Alita help her friends escape? I scarcely know where to start with this thing, which brings all the shortcomings of Monogram murder mysteries of 1941 ahead to the future scientific world of the 1950s, to the detriment of the studio, the audience, and the art of the motion picture. First off, while our astronauts wear regular leather jackets with fur collars and gas masks, the Martians wear really nice space suits, very colorful ones. They should be, they're the same ones we just saw in Destination Moon. And if you're saying, "Well, it could be worse, at least they didn't use the same rocket cockpit set as Rocketship XM," I have news for YOU, pally. Which is not to say I didn't like SOME things about the picture.
Million-dollar Dialog: Astronaut to Mission Control: "We got the magnetic field stabilizer to equalize the gravitational pull. And how do you like THOSE for big words?" Miss Chapman is delightful in this, and of course Mr. Franz and Mr. Ankrum would make careers out of horror and sci-fi pictures. Cameron Mitchell... Y'know, while I assume he also made good pictures, I associate him with only very terrible horror and sci-fi films, stuff even *I* don't like (like this one). Saving the best/worst for last... Cinecolor! The print we have here (from Wade Williams, on an Image DVD) seems to be an original print, and the Cinecolor is gorgeous, all rosy and weird, perfect for a Mars-based film. A lovely dreamlike quality that is absolutely stunning. But... It's a lousy print! Lots of scratches, film damage, and missing frames (and dialog) at reel changes. So be prepared for that. But of course, that's how we saw these things on TV back in the day, right? This week's shorts An unusual (even for UPA) UPA film, Willie the Kid, a spoof of old B-Westerns with kids playing in the yard, and not Cowboys and Indians, oh no, they're playing "Town's Banker is Secretly Evil and Kidnaps Poor Nell", that sort of thing. It's not exactly a good cartoon but B-Western fans would find it enjoyable enough. "Superman Crashes Through" in episode 9 of Atom Man vs. Superman; dum-dum Luthor sends one of his men into the Phantom Zone to check on the Man of Steel, allowing Superman (in an hilarious sequence in which they bounce in slow motion in front of a backdrop of planets) to chase him down and use him as his ticket back to our dimension. The last two chapters have been fun, I wish they'd have left Supes in there. Our trailer indicates next week's feature will be When Worlds Collide, which for a long time was my very favorite science fiction film. I'm looking forward to revisiting it. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
![]() |
|
| mort bakaprevski | Mar 1 2015, 10:18 AM Post #2 |
|
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Walter Mirisch warms up. |
| "Nov Shmoz Ka Pop." | |
![]() |
|
| panzer the great & terrible | Mar 1 2015, 08:31 PM Post #3 |
|
Mouth Breather
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Excactly so, Mort! The killer in the bullpen. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
![]() |
|
|
|
| « Previous Topic · Monogram Week · Next Topic » |





![]](http://z2.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)





6:30 AM Jul 11