The Wizard of Mars

This low-budget film from 1965 is set in the distant future of 1975. It tells the story of an American spacecraft with four people on-board that crash lands on Mars. There's a kind of twist at the end that renders this synopsis somewhat incorrect. The story actually has a theme to it, which relates to the passage of time. And there are a couple of references to "The Wizard Of Oz".

But overall, it's a slow moving boring affair that tests the viewer's patience. The character named Charlie, second in command, looks like a high school dropout who joined a circus. Much of the dialogue has each crew member informing another crew member of technical information that all four should have known about long before they ever left Earth. All this talky exposition is for the benefit of the viewer, of course. The woman, named Dorothy, whimpers: "Steve, what are we going to do now?" Responds Steve: "We'll have to run for it" ... a crew of real knowledgeable astronauts there.

On Mars, lots of screen time is spent just wandering around their surroundings, making stupid comments and asking dumb questions. In these sequences, the dialogue occurs while the camera is quite some distance from the characters, giving the impression that the visuals were shot first, with the dialogue superimposed in post edit.

Later, they encounter live beings, sort of. And the wizard finally makes an appearance well into the second half. When he does, he speaks in English, conveniently, and his voice has an echo chamber quality to it. He launches into a laughable, loquacious monologue that goes on for a tortuous four minutes. It's one of the more humorous parts of the film.

Special effects look cheap, though I did find the reddish, pink colors marginally convincing, given this is the red planet. Casting and acting are poor. Dialogue is awful. Scientific credibility is nonexistent. At least the script made an effort to create some thematic heft. And for me that's what saved "The Wizard Of Mars" from being a total cinematic disaster.

Four astronauts crash-land on the surface of Mars, where they encounter strange lifeforms; travel by land and by raft; and arrive at an ancient city. All while a narrator drones on, and "eerie" sound effects intone.

THE WIZARD OF MARS is a silly sci-fi epic, loosely based on THE WIZARD OF OZ. Indeed, the female astronaut's name is Dorothy, and there's even a "golden road" to follow. John Carradine puts in a cameo as the title character (aka: a histrionic, floating head). His ultra-melodramatic speech seems endless!

If ye be fearless amidst atrocious "acting"; unflinching in the face of brain-drilling "dialogue"; and plot is of no real importance to ye, then enter herein...

Hewitt's "Gallery Of Horrors" is one of the great "so bad it's good" funny films, and his really stupid "Monsters Crash the Pajama Party" is inept but a lot less amusing. so the genuine qualities of "Wizard Of Mars" caught me off guard. It's video title "Horrors Of The Red Planet" is actually a lot better and more fitting. I hate to get into a fight here about the obvious merits of MST3K, who did not even do this movie, but it would have in fact been a bad choice for the show, as the film does have a strange, hypnotic effect that goes along with the clumsy flubs one expects from a Hewitt film. The film has a dream like quality, and it's strange story seems, yes, an interesting forerunner to "2001".

Three of Hewitt's "Gallery Of Horrors" stars (Carridine, Roger Gentry, and Vic McGee) are back. McGee does the best work of his career, even toping his

sleazy ganster in Ed Wood's "Sinister Urge." Opps, there I go. Actually, Vic McGee is a terrible actor who appeared in a handful of grade Z films, but his work here is somehow moving. See, this movie just won't let you make fun of it. I don't know if the actress is overdubbing her own voice, but they should have found a better one to use(the whole movie is overdubbed). In any case, see this film. It's right up there with "Creation Of The Humanoids" in the strange department.

Four astronauts (why is it always 'four'?) arrive at Mars to map the surface, but get pulled down by an unseen force.

Upon their exploration of the planet, the space travelers stumble onto a 'golden road' which takes them to a 'lost city' where they meet a 'wizard'. Considering The Wizard of Oz parallel, there really aren't too many similarities --- oh yeah, the chick astronaut's name is 'Dorothy'.

John Carradine is the 'Wizard', but the script may have been more interesting if the film-makers decided to stick with the plot of discovering an ancient civilization on Mars and lose the adaptive 'Wizard of Oz' element.

I remember this movie as being shown a lot on the "Mel Jazz Afternoon Movie" show on an independent Minneapolis TV station in the very early 1970s.

When I was 6 years old and seeing this, it was the stuff of nightmares, especially the frozen Martians in the castle who looked like "Wishnik" trolls in tubes. I also recalled the castle itself, and the way the sun shined with 4 points.

Unfortunately, I was able to see this movie again much more recently, and it did not hold up to childhood impressions.

One of the big continuity flaws not mentioned by others is when the astronauts cross the desert. They are walking in a well-trodden path of hundreds of footsteps in the sand from previous takes of the scenes... and this is supposed to be unexplored territory! There is really no attention paid to matters like this. The presence of a hot dog vender on this popular beach would not have made the scene much worse at all.

The characters are annoying and not very well acted. The only thing I will say for this film now is that some of the music is good, and some of the visual elements (the Wishniks in the tubes and the castle) are decent pieces of production design. The parts I remember from childhood held up, but the rest of it, which I did not recall, is pretty bad.