The Angry Red Planet
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Movie Reviews of The Angry Red Planet
Movie Review: the angry red planet
Summary: 5 Stars
this is a five star its the first of it's kind with great special effects for its time and the people act the one they did in the best years in america 1950'sMovie Review: "I wonder if some things aren't better left unknown..."
Summary: 4 Stars
If you visited the cinema in the 1950s and into the 1960s, then you were acutely aware outer space was crawling with all kinds of voracious, hideous space creatures and hostile alien types waiting eagerly to decimate and/or devour any intrepid Earthlings foolishly willing to venture out into the great unknown, as illustrated in the film The Angry Red Planet (1960). Given these apparent dangers, it's a wonder we ever found anyone with guts enough to go into space...co-written by Sidney W. Pink (Reptilicus, Journey to the Seventh Planet) and Ib Melchior (The Time Travelers), the latter also directing here, the film features Gerald Mohr (Invasion USA), Naura Hayden ("Bonanza"), Les Tremayne (The Monolith Monsters), and Jack Kruschen, who was nominated for an Academy Award around the same time for his role in the film The Apartment (1960)...kinda hard to believe after seeing him here...
At the outset we find ourselves among some gooberment bigwigs...turns out a manned spaceship sent to Mars, once lost, has since been found (drifting in orbit around Mars), and the decision is made to bring it home by remote control. Since there's been no communication with the ship, the fate of the four-person crew is questionable. Once returned to Earth, there appear two survivors, one Dr. Iris Ryan (Hayden), who's in a severe state of shock, and the other not identified as he's got some nasty space fungus, and is quarantined quickly (perhaps they should have just remote detonated the ship rather than bring it back to Earth...oh well, too late now). The computer tapes are blank, so the only answers have to come from Dr. Ryan as to the fate of the mission, which takes us into a lengthy flashback. Time to meet your Mars crew...there's the navigator/pilot Colonel Thomas O'Bannion (Mohr), a manly sort with the swagger and chest hair to prove it, Dr. Iris Ryan, the definite looker of the bunch, Professor Theodore Gettell (Tremayne), the obvious brainiac sporting the prerequisite goatee and pipe, and finally the odious, idiotic, ethnic comic relief named Sam `Sammy' Jacobs, the electronics expert, hailing from where else? Brooklyn, of course...anyway, after a lengthy bit of space travel, our plucky adventurers finally arrive and discover the `red' planet is really pink (no foolin'). The surface seems devoid of intelligent life, but there are plenty of hungry, carnivorous plants. As the professor ponders his sense of dread regarding the possibility of some sort of community mind in control of the planet, Tom puts the make on Iris, Iris endangers herself needlessly a few times requiring Tom to save her, and Sammy pitches woo to his sonic freeze cannon due to its propensity to get them out of jams (seriously...he names it Cleopatra and kisses numerous times...get a room you weirdo). Things get nasty as various native creatures, including a rather large rat/bat/spider/crab creature and a ginormous, googly-eyed amoeba-like snot monster threatens to eat the crew, and a mysterious force field prevents them from taking off...
Perhaps the worst/best line from this film occurs after the rocket lands on Mars and the crew is deciding on their course of action. Sammy chimes in with this doozy..."Well, should we go out and claim the planet in the name of Brooklyn?" Yeah, go ahead, dude, and don't bother putting on your spacesuit...The Angry Red Planet, released by American International Pictures, is perhaps the epitome of shoddy science fiction films, featuring cardboard characters, lousy dialog, rotten acting, cheapie sets, low rent special effects, and scads of pseudo science...so why should anyone want to see it? Because it's a big, steaming load of fun. I think my favorite character was Colonel Thomas O'Bannion, played by Gerald Mohr, who came off as a low rent Humphrey Bogart type, with a propensity for hiking his leg up on whatever was available, and leaning on his knee. I mean really, this is just a cool way to talk to people, having your goodies splayed out right in everyone's face. For some reason, the buttons on his shirts never seemed to work properly, as often he can be seen running around bare-chested, displaying his fine man chest rug (eat yer heart out David Hasselhoff). His abilities as a commander were questionable, as often his orders would go unheeded by the others. One thing's for sure, he was always on the make, continually hitting on Iris, regardless the situation (hey, when the ratio is three dudes to one woman, you gotta lay your claim early and often). Nowadays that kind of continual attention would probably be labeled harassment, but back then, it was, well, harassment...as far as the special effects, they're pretty substandard, as I already mentioned, but they do have their charms, and no doubt made quite an impression on younger viewers who witnessed this feature around the time of its release. The main effect occurs once the crew ventures onto the surface of Mars, for the purpose of exploring. There's a heavy, pink, Pepto-Bismol polarized tint, one that seems kinda cool for about five minutes, but then wears thin quickly, inducing a gradual ache in the noggin. If you dig on obvious matte painting backgrounds, you'll be in heaven here as there are scads of them, some decent, some not. As far as the creatures, I thought they were pretty decent considering, as I'm sure that large rat/bat/spider/crab monster would have scared the hell out of me if I was all of ten years old. The huge beastie that came out of the lake was a bit more impressive, its menacing qualities offset slightly by its crazy, google eye. I loved the fact it was just some gigantic, unstoppable mass that, with little provocation, charged after the crew, chasing them all the way back to their rocket, to which it then just glommed on to the ship in an effort to feed on the fleshy contents. All in all this is pretty much a thrown together effort, shot in less than ten days for a minimal budget, but one that does entertain. I'd take this over the slew of direct to video CGI laden junk currently littering the home video landscape.
The picture, presented in fullscreen (1.33:1), looks decent, but I did notice a slight graininess throughout. There was a frame or two missing, and the master print did exhibit some slight wear and tear. The Dolby Digital mono audio comes through very well. As far as extras, there isn't much, only an original theatrical trailer.
Cookieman108
Movie Review: Good Representation of 50s Sci-Fi Films
Summary: 4 Stars
Filmed in the never-used-again 'CineMagic' process (which turns everything a solarized pink color), The Angry Red Planet has everything a 50s sci-fi film MUST have. The cowboy, doesn't-play-by-the-rules pilot, the wise and nerdy Professor, the sidekick who loves to shoot first, then ask questions later (often skipping the latter), and the hot female lead.
The plot involves the first mission to Mars, which has lost communication with Earth after landing on the planet (due apparently to some 'force field' which prevents radio signals to reach Earth). The ship returns to Earth with a badly infected pilot, and a comatose crew member.
There is a bit more adherence to the realities of space travel (but not much). For example, the point is made that the lag for radio communications would be significant between Mars and Earth. The lack of weightlessness is explained by the constant one-G acceleration (saving lots of money feigning floating astronauts).
Some of the more amusing moments involve the spacecraft. For example, it features lockers like you'd find in a gym. Everyone sleeps in military-style bunk beds. There is a cute old-fashioned wall clock in analog form. There is a time-of-mission that features numerals slipped into a frame (the trip to Mars is a highly unrealistic 47 days instead of the nine-month trip that it probably would take).
The beautiful babe is actually played with some aplomb by a legitimate beauty, Naura Hayden, who plays Dr. Iris Ryan. She, of course, is hotly pursued by the heavily chest-haired Gerald Mohr, who probably contrary to regulations, frequently has his shirt open to the waist. The professor is played by Les Tremayne, who does play it low-keyed and admits at one point he doesn't know what causes some action. BTW, Tremayne, who passed away in 2003, had a long, successful career as a voice actor, and who also appeared briefly in 'North by Northwest'.
The monsters: Much has been made about the native life on Mars as envisioned in this film. There is plenty of it, and most of it seems inimical to life (at least Earth life). There are carnivorous plants, as described in a believable fashion by Dr. Ryan. There is also a very cool spider with a bat body that appears to be about 20 foot tall. The worst, probably, is an aquatic creature with one eye that revolves 360 degrees at a high rate of speed. This could not evolve because one eye is too easily lost, and how could a nerve connect to an eye revolving completely around an axis?
The city that is briefly viewed is stunning for the time, and hints of a highly-evolved life on the planet. Why they didn't get rid of plants and animals that probably could kill them in short order is unknown. It's like having cougars and grizzly bears roaming in modern-day Washington D.C. Might make for some interesting, if bloody, political theater, but one would think there would be some clamor for streets free of deadly wildlife. But what do I know. Maybe the Martians like to play it rough.
Recommended if you like 50s sci-fi. Not campy enough to recommend if you don't enjoy a bit of cheese with your entertainment. It is nice to see a woman space traveler who doesn't scream at every turn, but is portrayed as a serious scientist.
One off-note. As soon as the Earthlings land on the planet, the first thing they do is blast away at the native lifeforms with a freezing raygun, destroying it. Hmmm, not the best example of friendliness to another life-filled planet, is it?
Movie Review: Angry Red Planet
Summary: 4 Stars
Three men and a woman are the first people sent to Mars, but the expedition gets in trouble, so military-men and scientists back on Earth remote-fire the rocket's engines and bring the ship back. After the ship lands the female astronaut stumbles out of the ship, and the military rushes out to help her. They interview her and she recounts what happened on their mission to Mars. The flight there went fine (very boring, filled with techno-babble and rampant sexism), but when they land, weird things begin to happen. The Martians don't want Earthmen mucking about on their world so they terrorize the crew with 3-eyed cucumber-looking peeping Toms, foam-rubber man-eating plants waiting to devour the astronauts, and trees that turn out to be a really goofy spider-monster (it looks like some sort of rat with crab legs glued to it). But the best Martian creature is a giant amoeba thing with eyeballs that twirl (imagine a WHOLE bunch of Jell-O oozing across the Martian landscape) that appears while the explorers are paddling their rubber raft across a Martian lake.This is one of those "aliens warning man that we are too violent" movies, and its not really all that bad. They attempted to make the set with its lakes and jungle look like Mars (yes I said lakes and a jungle) by filming everything as a reverse negative through the brightest red gel filter ever made, that way they could get away with cheap props and crudely sketched backdrops because you couldn't see anything anyways. To get the same effect try watching a movie through a glass of cherry Cool-Aid. It gets really annoying really fast. The acting isn't too bad, but the effects are, especially the creature effects. Still it's a fun `50s sci-fi adventure.
Movie Review: As a kid, this was cool...
Summary: 4 Stars
I love bad sci-fi, and I saw this as a kid originally when it came out. It was really cool. My reminiscences are not entirely incorrect. Gerald Mohr has two looks...bored and bored/horny. How could he be less bored/horny than to deal with Nora Hayden (gorgeous woman!) who stops before she says anything profound...it's a bad-acting tour de force. I love it. Jack Kruschen ws nominated for Best Supporting Actor this year...but NOT for this film (The Apartment). And poor old Les Tremayne tried his best to lend dignity to this absolutely horribly written piece of garbage. Talk about cheap effects; the red screen was certainly a cop=out, but the bad special effects are still noticeable and stupid and fun. Still, the absolutely horrible performances of Mohr and Hayden are reason enough to see this film. Hearty laughs will ensue, and a good time will be had by all. (Bring beer or an appropriate beverage of choice). You will not appreciate this film if you are sober, or over 11 years of age. I love it because, though I'm getting older, I'll never grow up... I love it, because I'm somewhat stuck in the 60's...my favorite time.