Russians in Space

 

 (imdb)

BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN-1959-A narrator tells us about the US's big plans for colonizing the moon and beyond. Toy models are shown. In the year 1997, after the "great atomic war", the Earth is divided into "The North Hemis" and "The South Hemis". In the South Dr. Gordon and his wife Ruth head a project called "Red Planet". It's mission is to land a spaceship on Mars. According to rumors, the North is also working on such a trip. After the Mars team lands on a space station where the rocket ship will be launched, they get a distress call from a Northern Hemis ship asking if they can land and make repairs. Permission is granted. At dinner the south announces their intentions of going to Mars. This upsets the North pilots as this was their mission too. Against orders the North decide to go to Mars first. Taking off they injure one of the cosmonauts, I mean a South astronauts. Later the arrogant, self assured and reckless US astronauts, I mean the North astronauts have their rocket ship destroyed by the sun. The south doesn't quite make it to Mars and they are attacked by monsters. Despite the failure the four man crew return safely as heroes. 

This movie was actually a USSR produced film entitled NEBO ZOVYOT and has two directors. The US version had a third. Roger Corman bought the film and had Francis Ford Coppola (and Jack Hill) re-edit and dub it into English removing all the Anti-American propaganda and the two competing countries into “hemis”. Coppola also added the scenes with the space monsters.

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Mars in Cinemagic

 

THE ANGRY RED PLANET-1959-A manned Mars space probe that was thought to have crashed landed turns up 60 days later floating in space. When it's retrieved only one of the four person crew is conscious, the one female member Iris (Nora Hayden) who begins to relate the story of how she, Prof. Gettell (Les Tremayne), chief officer Sam Jacobs (Jack Kruschen) and Col. Tom O'Bannion (Gerald Mohr) travel to Mars and land on its red surface. When Iris sees an alien at a window she can't remember the rest of her story so the doctor gives her a drug and she continues. The group goes out to explore. It really is red. They have a ray gun that freezes things which comes in handy when Iris is attacked by a giant carnivorous plant! 

On their second outing they encounter a scary creature sometimes referred to as the rat bat spider which almost crushes the professor. Over a ridge they discover huge lake and something is watching them. Sensing danger they decide to return to the ship and go back to Earth but are held there by a force field. With nothing else to do, the decide to cross the lake when they spy a city in the distance. They head for it but turn around when a giant fish blob emerges and chases them. It kills Sam. The blob covers the ship. They use electricity to get rid of it, then get a Martian message but Iris faints. After they take off Gettell dies of a heart attack and Tom's condition worsens (he has a fungus). Poor Iris is on her own. Back in the present Iris concocts a cure to save Tom. They find a warning message on one of tapes. The voice (Ted Cassidy) warns Earth to stay away or be destroyed....

It has been said that THE ANGRY RED PLANET was made in 9 days on a budget of $200,000 by director Ib Melchior who co-wrote the screenplay with co-producer Sid Pink. Co-producer Norman Maurer reluctantly used the quick Cinemagic process to depict the Mars surface and the monsters. It was a very tacky looking but weird effect and he employed it again on THE THREE STOOGES IN ORBIT (co-starring his father in law Moe Howard). 

Melchior and Pink later worked together on REPTILICUS.

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Mars

 

RED PLANET MARS-1952-Prof. Chris Cronyn (Peter Graves) and his wife Lynn (Andrea King; THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS) visit a giant telescope site where scientists there have just taken pictures of Mars which they believe show signs of life. This doesn't surprise Cronyn much as he claims to be getting radio signals from it. Meanwhile somewhere in the Andes a communist scientist Franz Calder (Herbert Berghof), a Nazi war criminal who once experimented on humans, tries to contact Mars for his superiors (led by Marvin Miller). Since he is the person who actually invented the device that Cronyn is using, he's rather bitter. Calder is not successful but can monitor Cronin's progress. Using Pi Cronin gets his Martian response. However this doesn't bode well with the US and it's economy starts to crumble. Everybody wants a piece of Cronyn but a Naval commander (Walter Sande) is sympathetic to him. The secretary of state (Morris Ankrum) wants the lab closed down and he and a General (Tom Keene) want the president (Willis Bouchey) to declare war on Russia. Just when all hope seems lost it's discovered God is on Mars! 

Communist Russia is destroyed by a religious uprising! However later when world peace has been established Calder shows up and drops a bombshell on Cronyn. He was the one sending the message replies, not Mars! Calder plans to tell the world of his charade but then a message really does come from Mars. Calder destroys the machine killing himself and The Cronyns but they die heroes. Vince Barnett, Henry Kulky and Gene Roth among others have small roles. 

This wild cold war propaganda movie was the debut film for director Harry Horner, also a production designer who who later made THE WILD PARTY. RED PLANET MARS is based on a play by John Balderston (who co-wrote the screenplay) author of the screenplays for FRANKENSTEIN (1931) and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935).

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Space Vampire

QUEEN OF BLOOD-1966-In 1990 the world prepares for the human exploration of Mars and Venus. The whole project is overseen by Dr. Farraday (Basil Rathbone). Space transmissions say that an ambassador from Mars is going to pay a visit but later it's found out the transmission is actually an SOS. The Space Institute decides to help and they send Laura James (Judi Meridith), Paul Grant (Dennis Hopper)) and Anders Brockman (Robert Boon). They run into trouble with a sunburst on the way. Laura figures they need better equipment to local the aliens, so two Earth bound astronauts Tony Baratta (Don Eithner) and Allan Brenner (John Saxon who passed away on July 25 of this year)) convince Farrady to send another ship that can land a Phobos, a moon of the red planet. It works and the duo hook up with others. They also find a creepy green faced female alien (Florence Marly). The next day Paul is found dead after an encounter with “their guest” who it turns out lives on blood. She kills Brockman next then goes after Allan. Laura stops her and in the process scratches the alien who bleeds to death. On their way back the surviving duo learn that the alien was a “queen bee” who laid eggs on the ship! Laura convinces Allan not to destroy them and instead bring them back to Earth where they can be studied. Forrest J. Ackerman (as a minor lab technician) has the honor of holding them for the final scene. 

This color science fiction outer space adventure from AIP isn't bad but a little shoddy at times due to the extreme low budget. Director Curtis Harrington (who made NIGHT TIDE with Hopper earlier) does a decent job with most of the special effects incorporated from two Soviet Union features. The year before QUEEN Rathbone had done new scenes for AIP's VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET and was in the beach party ghost movie THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI.

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The Boring Red Planet

MISSION MARS-1968-Astronauts Mike (Darren McGavin), Nick (Nick Adams) and Duncan (George De Vries) take a rocket ship to the Red Planet where some cosmonauts disappeared. Two of them leave behind anxious wives. They have a pretty ordinary flight (if flying to Mars is ordinary…) until they hit a meteor shower and see 2 dead cosmonauts floating in space. Once they land they find the third Russian frozen to death. They are attacked by some weird creatures and then ordered by their commanders to leave. But a giant orb seems to be holding them there. Later while examining the orb Duncan is killed. Back on Earth the wives worry but don't seem very proud of their heroic husbands. The dead cosmonaut comes back to life (he was in a coma) and Nick destroys the orb but at the cost of his own life. Mike returns home. 

This outer space adventure isn't very good but what can your expect from director Nicholas Webster, the guy who made SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS?

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Unsold!

THE SOLARNAUTS-1967-Unsold British TV pilot about  two astronauts Power (David Garfield) and Tempo (Derek Fowlds) who prowl around Mars for their grouchy boss. A green faced alien named Logik (Alex Scott) causes problems by threatening to destroy the capital of Mars if he doesn't get the planet’s mineral rights. A woman named Kanda (Martine Beswick) shows up to help them. They thwart his plan in the end but he gets away. They have guns that freeze people. 

The very toy like sfx seem like this could have been filmed by Gerry Anderson for a puppet cast but they decided to substitute humans at the last minute. Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey who later made many films and TV episodes both in England and the US including the classic vampire TV movie THE NIGHT STALKER.

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Re-titled Bullshit

HORRORS OF THE RED PLANET-(aka THE WIZARD OF MARS)-1965-A US spaceship is forced to land on Mars. Its occupants (4 men and a woman): Steve (Roger Gentry), Doc (Vic McGee), Charlie (Jerry Rannow) and Dorothy (Eve Bernhardt) decide to explore the surface. While sleeping in a raft they are attacked by what looks like used lobster tails with appendages (puppets). In a dense fog, they drift into a multicolored cavern, get lost, wander around and have to avoid boiling lava. “Isn't there anyplace on this planet that isn't a death trap?”. They keep walking, almost run out of oxygen but find some in an old probe. They eventually come upon a deserted city and meet an alien who's in a kind of suspended animation (it’s the same weird looking creature from the equally low budget sci-fi movie SPACE MONSTER!). They meet the manifestation of the Martian race (John Carradine’s head) who explains how they were beings who messed with time, became immortal and now want to die. The Astronauts fix time and almost die but wind up back on their ship and only two minutes has past. Too bad they couldn't make the story move that fast! 

This movie marked the directorial debut of David L. Hewitt who later made the abysmal but entertaining Z-budget horror anthology GALLERY OF HORROR. That's all you need to know. Some call it a rip-off of The Wizard of Oz but I'd just call it boring. Star Gentry was later in the aforementioned GOH. McGee had a role in Ed Wood's THE SINISTER URGE a few years before. Rannow became a TV show writer. Former showgirl Bernhardt didn't make many movies. In the same year Carradine worked with Jerry Warren on CURSE OF THE STONE HAND and the strange pasted together HOUSE OF THE BLACK DEATH.

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'50's Science Fiction

WAR OF THE WORLDS-1953-In this classic science fiction film based on the HG Wells novel Earth is invaded by the inhabitants of the planet Mars. An off screen narrator (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) tells us why the Martians chose our planet. When one of their ships lands on Earth residents (who think it's a meteor) of a small town investigate. Vacationing scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) investigates. He meets up with Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson) and her uncle Dr. Collins (Lewis Martin), the pastor of the local church. After Forrester decides to stay for a while they all go to a square dance. Meanwhile three locals (Paul Burich, Jack Kruschen (as a Mexican) and William Phipps) check out the object when it opens it's hatch. Armed with a white flag they decide to approach the ship and be friends. They are promptly obliterated and the whole town is thrown into a blackout.

 The army is called in along with General Mann (Les Tremayne). Martian ships eventually show themselves and for some reason Collins sacrifices himself in a last ditch attempt to reason with them. He's killed and the army throws everything they have at the invaders to no avail. Forrester and Sylvia escape in a plane and spend some time evading the invaders but the doc manages to get one of the tri-color laser “eyes”. The Martians themselves are revealed to be little guys with long arms the same tri-color “eyes”. (The martians in the original novel are much more frightening) Meanwhile the Martians devastate the world and despite the US's best efforts including dropping an A-bomb they learn: “guns,tanks, bombs! They're like toys against them!”. After looters steal his truckload of scientific equipment Forrester searches the the devastated city for Sylvia who he finds in a church. Just when it looks like all hope is lost the Martian ships crash and burn and the aliens die (“We were all praying for a miracle”) due to germs in our atmosphere. 

This Sc-Fi/cold war classic was produced by George Pal, who originally planned it to be in 3-D and directed by Byron Haskin, who also worked as a special effects technician on many films which may have helped since WAR OF THE WORLDS 's SFX won an Academy Awa

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Assignment: Miss This Movie!

ASSIGNMENT:OUTER SPACE-1960-This is kind of a strange film. It was made in Italy and is obviously dubbed but it seems to me the cast is actually speaking English anyway! The SFX are very cheesy and laughable (they look like outtakes from a Gerry Anderson project). It was directed by Antonio Margheriti (soon to be familiar to US horror fans under his "Americanized" moniker Antony Dawson).

In the 21st century a space ship prowls around near Mars. The crew (who have names but usually address each other as numbers) comes out of suspended animation and we learn that one of its members is a reporter named Ray Peterson (Rik Van Nutter; later Felix Leiter in THUNDERBALL). George, the commander doesn't like him. He believes he's just getting in the way. He does seem like an accident waiting to happen as almost off the bat he disobeys orders, goes outside the ship and causes an incident (even though he saves a life). 

Most of the crew feel the same way (they call him "leech")  except for the kind, philosophical Al (African-American dancer Archie Savage; untypical role for a black actor in 1960)) who offers Ray lots of advice. Later another spaceship crashes on Mars and George and his girlfriend Lucy (Gabriella Farinon; she was in Roger Vadim's BLOOD AND ROSES the same year) go to investigate. Ray joins them too (he went over George's head to get permission). They rescue the one survivor of the Mars crash then head for Venus to help save the Earth from destruction. There's a lot of gobbledygook scientific talk and everyone acts very strange (most of them look kinda weird too). The print I saw had washed out color and terrible editing and looked like something made ten years earlier!

But if you really want a laugh go to the IMDB and read all the great reviews this thing gets. References to 2001 abound and one genius even says the SFX are good! Maybe they are just looking for attention!

Originally called SPACE MEN.

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Three For The Price of One!

BEFORE I HANG-Columbia-1940- Boris Karloff portrays John Garth, an old but benevolent scientist working on a “youth serum”, who’s found guilty of a mercy killing and condemned to die. Before his execution he gets help from a prison doctor (FRANKENSTEIN co-star Edward Van Sloan) and is injected with a new formula. They want to study the effects after his death. At the last minute his sentence is commuted to life. The new formula causes Garth to become about 20 years younger. Unfortunately, they used blood from an executed killer when they mixed the serum. After he kills Van Sloan (and another inmate is blamed) he’s paroled. He wants three of his old friends to be inoculated with the new serum but strangles them instead. His daughter (Evelyn Keyes, who’d been in GONE WITH THE WIND the previous year) might be his next victim!

Her boyfriend is another doctor played by Bruce Bennett who started his acting life as Herman Brix. A former Olympian, Brix starred in the Edgar Rice Borroughs backed THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN (1935). He changed his name in the late thirties and makes an appearance in another Karloff “mad scientist” vehicle THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES. He was later in MILDRED PIERCE (1945) and TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948). He died February 2007 at the age of 100!

BIH is not really a horror film. In fact it’s more like a standard melodrama except for the presence of Karloff which allowed it to be advertised as a horror film. It’s long on theory but moves along fairly well thanks to the workman like direction of veteran Nick Grinde who’d already directed Karloff (as a good scientist gone wrong) in THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES (1940) and THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG (1939) which BIH co-scripter Karl Brown also worked on.



THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH-20th Century Fox-1962-This minimilistic, small cast movie was probably made because the director had access to the giant, spooky mansion this talk-fest was shot on. Kent Taylor (soon to be a regular for Al Adamson) plays a brilliant scientist and head of a project to land a probe on Mars. He spends a belated Christmas with his wife (Marie Windsor) and their two children at the mansion. They start to see doubles of themselves and that about explains the SFX. Doubles of every family member appearing mysteriously and confounding the family. Taylor’s double talks to him though and we learn that Martians made of “pure intellect” are invading Earth! The invaders kill the daughter’s boyfriend and Taylor’s scientist colleague (William Mims) and in the end burn up the entire family and replace them. Except for a cheap scene of the probe on Mars during the credits the whole movie takes place at the mansion.

Director Maury Dexter who later on directed the marijuana “classic” MARYJANE and the biker film HELLES BELLES and many episodes of TV’s “Little House On The Prairie”, makes little use of the eerie sets and the “fright” scenes never really come off. Screenwriter Harry Spalding who wrote many other low budget features like WITCHCRAFT (1964) and CURSE OF THE FLY (1965) and the bigger budgeted Disney flop WATCHER IN THE WOODS (1980), provides great scientific dialogue but unfortunately that’s all there is. Dialogue! Taylor made the seldom seen HARBOR LIGHTS for Dexter & Spalding the next year. Then THE CRAWLING HAND!



THE SLIME PEOPLE-Acme Video-1962- I guess actor Robert Hutton got tired of being directed in low budget features like THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY and INVISIBLE INVADERS so he decided to direct one of his own.

He plays a TV sportscaster who helps an old scientist and his two daughters fight off the title creatures. They come from ‘the subterranean depths” and look like cartoonish, walking ears of corn who gurgle a lot. And they throw spears too! Hutton’s group (they are joined by a young hero type played by William Boyce, who resembles Conan O’Brien!) are trapped in the ruins of LA because of a “wall” designed by the monsters. The whole plot is established by the cast viewing some (staged, but often funny) news reel footage. Like in HORROR OF PARTY BEACH, salt plays a role in destroying the monsters! Some scenes take place on cheap sets but the outdoors parts are shrouded in fog (supposedly created by The Slime People), sometimes obscuring the action! A shot of the young guy running up a hill is shown twice. Les Treymayne plays an eccentric author who’s killed in a meat locker. The final scene featuring an army jeep may have doubled the budget!


How about a kiss?

Producer Joseph Robertson (who appears as a drunk ) also made THE THING THAT WOULDN’T DIE. Wife Blair was a co-writer (she also wrote AGENT FOR H.A.R.M. in 1966) and appears as Mrs. Anderson. Co-writer Vince Skarstedt later wrote the screenplay for John Derek’s war drama ONCE BEFORE I DIE (1965).

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Angry & Red For A Good Reason!

MARS NEEDS WOMEN-Azalea Pictures (AIP-TV)-1967 - In the early ‘60’s, AIP decided to remake some of their classic low budget sci-fi/horror films of the ‘50’s and release them directly to TV! Who knows why?



They hired Larry Buchanan to direct them all. Besides the remakes he made two “original” productions. Both starred ex-Disney star Tommy Kirk. One was IT’S ALIVE (not the Larry Cohen film) about a prehistoric monster (with a visible zipper) in a cave, although I’ve read that it bares more than a passing resemblance to a short story by Richard Matheson!



And then there’s this..... thing. Really nothing much happens to justify such a cool title. Visitors from the Red Planet (led by Kirk as Dop) are having trouble with their Y (or X I forget) genetic code. Consequently, there have been few female births. The team needs healthy, unmarried Earth women of childbearing years to accompany them back to their home-world and reproduce! Naturally, The US (and the rest of the world) will have none of it and call the invaders “the world’s first common enemy”.



Kirk/Dop and cohorts shed their doofy space suits, dress like humans and hunt for fertile females. They target a stripper, stewardess and College Bowl beauty queen. Future Batgirl Yvonne Craig co-stars as Dr. Bolen, a brainy scientist in horn rimmed glasses who falls for Dop. The Martian would be kidnappers have funny suits with weird headgear and the hotheaded Colonel Page (Byron Lord) is hilarious, but it’s basically just talk, stock footage and walking.



The punk band Sloppy Seconds on their first album “Destroyed” use dialogue excerpts from MNW on the song “Running From The CIA”.



Some dialogue is funny (Buchanan also wrote the screenplay) :

Newscaster: There is no panic, just paralysis.



Dop: Remember sizes must be exact. From shoes to ties. Follow carefully the conversion charts between Mars and the Earth planet.



Martian: These ties serve no functional purpose. Red planet abandoned the use of ties fifty years ago as useless male vanity. It simply reveals the environmental naiveté of the earthmen.



Dr. Bolan: When was the last time you took a pretty girl for a walk? I mean, a pretty girl with a PHD.



Dop: What I have to say is for your ears only. The word love went out of our vocabulary 100 years ago.



Sure, Mars Needs Women but MARS NEEDS WOMEN needs more action!


"Got any women you can spare?"
                                               

"The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."-Martin Luther King Jr.


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