Manhunt in Space

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, battles outer space pirates who have been capturing ships and stealing their cargo. It is a compilation of three episodes of the 1953 serial. Like all the others, it features a dictatorial villain aided by mindless henchmen battled by a small handful of heroic rescuers. The script is good for the era and the acting is actually pretty good. The special effects are good for the time and story line is pretty interesting, all considered.

Manhunt in Space is another of several similar TV films that were created by editing together episodes from the 'Rocky Jones, Space Ranger' serial. All of them seem to be broadly similar in content though. This one features space pirates as its villains, who capture one of Rocky's female friends, leading our heroes to go on a mission to save her. Predictably, however, it turns out that the person behind all of these underhand shenanigans is the regular chief evil-doer of the series, Queen Cleolantra.

As I said earlier, this instalment is pretty much the same as all the others in this series of films. From my point of view, this is a very bad thing as I find them consistently very dull viewing. There is a little entertainment value in the old school special effects work, while this one also sports a bit of unintendedly hilarious dialogue when one of the manly and decidedly heterosexual characters declares he really enjoys the 'gay night life'. Okay, I know it's a cheap laugh but when you watch something as bad as this beggars can't be choosers and you have to take any amusement where you can find it.

I saw "Manhunt in Space" on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (ep 413) and even Joel and the Bots could barely cut down on the deep hurting brought on by this clunker. It's really just a few episodes of the 50's kiddie show "Rocky Jones Space Ranger" cut together and there is certainly no shortage of laughable special effects, cheesy sets, even cheesier costumes, not to mention wooden performances and standard bad sci-fi "realism" (oh, apparently the only apparatus you need to walk out into space is an aquarium placed on your head). All this and I'm not even getting into the blatant homoeroticism in the relationship of Rocky and his sidekick Winky, who at one point actually talks about "the gay nightlife". Yikes. When Winky talks about "riding the rocket" you won't be thinking about space travel. It sounds like I'm overselling this thing a little so make no mistake, this is not so much a "so bad it's good" film as much as it is a "so bad it makes you want to claw your own eyes out" film. Don't see "Manhunt in Space" unless you are a rabid sci-fi completeist, or unless of course you are accompanied into the theater by a guy and two puppets. All I learned from it is that in the future people will communicate through Jimmy Dean sausages.

I too saw this movie on the MST3K show along with another Rocky Jones movie, "Clash of the Moons". I give it two stars just for the laughable special effects. The Mystery Science guys really had a ball with this one and probably had more zingers for the movie than they could fit into the alloted time. Really bad performances, terrible dialog, dull characters and a story line that barely fits the definition of a plot make this a prime candidate for the riffing it received. Having grown up in the 50s, I remember many of the serial movies that appeared and at the time were entertaining, if only for the fact that there wasn't much else to watch. That is probably why so many sub-par movies made it to TV back then. With very limited material for TV audiences, the viewers were probably happy to get whatever they could. The other Rocky Jones movie on MST3K was equally as bad and got a thorough riffing from the MST3K cast.

This is not a movie in a true sense. It is basically a few episodes of an old 50's television show called "Rocky Jones: Space Ranger" pasted together to make a short film. Basically, they are episodes that are one story anyways. It is like the film "Yor, Hunter From the Future" or that Japanese movie, "Time of Apes". Though this one clearly did a better job with its editing and you do not feel you have missed anything. With the other two examples there are parts that make you go, "What am I watching?", while you do not get that here. Though you can usually tell when one episode was supposed to end.

This series of episodes has Space Ranger Rocky taking on a group of space pirates, who I have to guess were featured as bad guys in previous installments of the show thanks to the familiarity Rocky and his friends have with them. Also present is the evil Cleolantra, who seems to be a ineffective Ming the Merciless, though she is certainly more attractive. She seems to be pulling the strings, but your super villain should not have temper tantrums or be teased by her subordinates. The pirates capture Rocky's main lady friend and it is up to Rocky to track her down, capture the pirates and attempt to make Bobby and Winky look useful.

The show is not to bad considering when it was made, but let's not kid ourselves, there is a reason nearly everyone has heard of Star Trek and there is barely anyone who remembers this. It is not horrid, but it is not all that exciting. To many things happen that make a person go, "What?" in this one. Rocky has people at gunpoint and he puts away his gun and then gets rushed, people pretend to turn handles and Bobby while annoying is more knowledgeable and useful than Winky (Rocky just cannot seem to push his sidekick over the top). Rocky easily gets the drop on the bad guys, but he does not bring a weapon to protect himself and they missed a golden opportunity to make the bad guys fall to their doom off a launch pad.

This film, or set of episodes, precedes another Rocky film made in a similar fashion called, "Crash of Moons". This one, like that one is not a super terrible experience, it just is not all that exciting. You have two attractive girls in both, the same ones actually, but you also have a plethora of annoying characters in each too. I guess you could not have a Rocky Jones epic film or episode without his annoying sidekick Winky and let's not forget making the audience endure, Bobby. This one at least did not have that Hogan's Heroes person in it speaking his lines in a thick accent. I am not sure if there are any more of these 'movies' out there, but I am not really going to put much effort into finding them or watching them.