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Moon ruler Retik assigned one of his people to go on Earth and cripple its defenses to a point when the Moon people could go down and invade it. The defense department gets a hold of the idea, and assigns Commando Cody, with flying rocket suit and all. Cody, along with his assistants, journey to the moon, are nearly killed and go back down upon Earth to stop the sabotage in progress in order to force Retik to come down and strike himself. The only Republic serial that did a good job trying to parody the 50's science craze, is at times ridiculous but still a lot of fun to watch. Sort-of sequel to King of the Rocketman and later inspired a kiddie TV show. Clayton Moore ( the Lone Ranger himself ) plays one of the Moon Men's hired guns. Just a little above average serial at best. I never saw the MST3K version, but they would have had a lot more fun doing Zombies of the Stratosphere or Flying Discman from Mars. Rating based on serials- 6 out of 10.

This first Commando Cody adventure ain't bad, but the rocket suit, and most of the flying footage, was straight from Republic's first rocket suit serial, King of the Rocket Men (1949), usually considered the last of the great classic serials. Everything good in Radar Men (and there's plenty that's good) is better in Rocket Men! Please see it! The hero and villain have more personality, the action is more hard-hitting and extreme, the plot is more focused, and - perhaps most importantly - there is much mystery and subterfuge. In Rocket Men, our hero must keep his identity secret - no one knows it's him in that suit. And the villain too has a secret identity - we see him only in silhouette. Here, in Radar Men, everybody knows who everybody else is. Enjoy Radar Men (I know I did), but first, enjoy Rocket Men!

(Or: 'Republic Recycles Rocket Man') In 1949, in one of their last bursts of inspiration, the thrill engineers at Republic produced 'King of the Rocket Men,' which capitalized on the popularity of the flying hero Superman, from the eponymous 1948 Columbia film serial. Although Rocket Man flew, he was in fact an ordinary human scientist who happened to have a helmet and rocket pack, and who battled the terrorist Dr. Vulcan.

King of the Rocketmen premiered 6-8-1949...3 weeks later, on 6-27-1949, the DuMont TV network premiered Captain Video, another science fiction hero who became one of the 1st bona fide superstars of early TV. After Rocket Man and Capt. Video, a number of science fiction heroes were popular on TV up through about 1955, when other trends began to dominate.

Capt. Video's creators had been inspired by the movie serials. In turn, Columbia Pictures obtained the rights to the Capt. Video character, and produced the super-cheap but super-profitable 'Captain Video Master of the Stratosphere' serial.

During this craze for quasi-military science-fiction heroes, Republic re-purposed the splendid Rocket Man flying footage and mixed in additional stock footage from about a dozen other serials to create Commando Cody. The name Commando Cody, BTW, was surely designed to capitalize on the popular TV character 'Commander Cory', of the hit TV series 'Space Patrol.' Thus it came to be that Republic was in the position of trying, late in the game, to jump aboard a trend that it inadvertently helped create! (But by the end of 1956, both the movie serials and the TV space heroes would be gone forever!)

One of the ways you can identify the re-used footage is when people in 1952 suddenly all hop into 1938 or 1946 automobiles for a car chase. You have to remember, cars from this era were fortunate to last 50,000 miles, so the idea that the streets of downtown Los Angeles of 1952 are suddenly filled with 1938 cars is not plausible. I lost track of how many times the characters all jumped into these automotive anachronisms...

Recylcing old footage is not necessarily a crime...in fact, some of Republic's best serials featured loads of reused material. But this serial shows a seriously uninspired writer, and it all seems kind of forced. Not to mention, Rettik the Moon Man is not a particularly menacing villain, with the other Moon Men and their Earth gangster stooges also lacking in menace and brain power. The Moon Scenes are pretty bad, even when compared with the stuff from Flash Gordon, and there is not a lot of emotional energy.

George Wallace is physically unimpressive as the titular hero, but in the action scenes he does a surprisingly good job of conveying urgency. He is actually OK, as are his companions.

Probably the best performance is by Clayton Moore, as one of the Earth gangsters inexplicably selling out his own planet for chump change. The performance is fun for everyone who saw his Lone Ranger performances and wondered what the guy actually looked like...well, here he is, and a he's a good actor, it turns out.

There are plenty of fight scenes, but nothing as inspired as the stuff from the early 1940's. Worst of all, the final chapter resolves the conflict without Our Hero getting into a suitable physical confrontation with the villain. This is rather unsatisfying.

By 1952, serials were fading fast, in terms of popularity and quality. This one is typical for that era. There are 2 other Rocket Man serials besides this one, the aforementioned 'King of the Rocket Men,' and 'Zombies of the Stratosphere.' Both King and Zombies are superior this serial, although this serial is an amiable waste of time.

The great Lydecker Brothers created some new FX for this serial, some nice shots of a rocket ship taking off and flying...these shots were reused in Zombies, as well as being used in the amazingly strange Republic quasi-TV series 'Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe.'

O.K., let's forget about all the little inaccuracies of the series, from clouds on the moon or the fact that Commando Cody always escapes from the deadly peril in a scene we didn't see in the last episode's cliffhanger.

Let's remember that fabulous flying rocket suit, which spurred the imaginations of both scientists at Bell Labs who tried to recreate it, to the imitators, such as the graphic novel turned movie, "The Rocketeer" or several episodes of "Star Trek:Voyager" spoofing the classic Republic serials.

Add to it the incredible work of brothers Howard and Theodore Lydecker, whose expert flying rigs made all the amazing flights so realistic (I dare you to find the wires attached to the models!). Their work became the industry standard long before computerized digital effects. They were responsible for the smooth flights of fancy by famous fantasy crafts such as the Flying Sub in "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea", the Proteus in "Fantastic Voyage" and the Jupiter II in "Lost In Space" (Look to the third episode of the series, where the Jupiter II crash lands on the first alien world, as the saucer emerges from the fog over a ridge. Irwin Allen knew he had a winning effect, so to save money (He was Mister Cheap), he shot it in color, to be used again two seasons later when the series upgraded from B&W).

I saw most of the episodes of RMFTM as a teenager on "Cliffhanger Theater" running after midnight on a local station some years ago, and then again when Mystery Science Theatre riffed on it in the early 90's. Time has not been kind to it.

I can certainly make allowances for the special effects, which were quite impressive for a low budget 50's serial (IMO Commando Cody's flying scenes were better than George Reeves/Superman's in his TV show). And I can also make allowances for the ahem, "acting", and fight choreography -. except for the guy who plays the ruler of the Moon Men. He is incredibly miscast. He looks and acts like the fellow who comes to fix your plumbing, not the despotic ruler of an alien race. Even the corny dialog works all right - everyone rattles off their lines like strings of firecrackers, with no wasted time or pauses for things like "thought" or "introspection". Since everyone does this, the viewer finds it immersive after awhile, and even to my modern sensibilities, it doesn't bother much.

What really irritates me is the writing and the plotting. I'm not talking about the sunny weather on the moon, or baking soda powered rocket ships, or a flying suit that has controls labeled "up/down" and "fast/slow". I'm not even bothered by the cheesiness of the resolutions to the cliffhangers that end each chapter. I'm talking about the fact that our supposed heroes are dumber than fence posts and have no cumulative memory. And by the fact that although that the dialog clips along like an express train, the plot goes through the same motions again and again.

Dig it: Commando Cody and his pal are the spearhead of a top secret hi tech science lab charged with protecting Earth (or at least the USA) against an insidious alien invasion. But his office has no guards or security checkpoints. They don't even have locks on the front doors. So the bad guys walk RIGHT IN and beat the crap out of the Cody and his staff ...not once (perhaps understandable) but SEVERAL times. They even kidnap his female assistant on the second try. And they never get any smarter. To further prove my point, allow me to point out the way that Cody jumps in his flying suit and flies around getting into trouble and never actually seems to succeed in catching anyone. He does this over and over and over. Cody also flies his ship to the Moon (the woman assistant comes along to cook), stays for about 30 seconds and immediately turns around and comes back. Cody captures one of the Atomic Ray guns...and immediately loses it again to the bad guys because he couldn't be bothered to lock it up. And so on.

And you would think that if Cody's efforts were so vital to saving the USA from the Moon Men, that he might ask for a few soldiers with carbines, a few helicopters and a tank or two to back him up, instead of just working with the local police all the time. This was supposed to be a military operation, but they act like it's another episode of "Gangbusters".

It's all rather hard to stomach. I appreciate that the creators were severely limited in the scope of their story by budget and time constraints...and I appreciate that Cody is actually a reasonably tough hombre (even though he loses half of his fistfights). But I just can't help yelling "DOOR! LOCK THE DOOOOR!!" when the gangsters simply walk into his lab, or try to blow up the ship and there are NO security measures at the landing site in place...not even a fence (!).

Still, it's OK. Of the three Republic serials I've watched, "Phantom Creeps" had a better plot, and "Undersea Kingdom" had more atmosphere (hah!) and a better hero than "Radar Men", but it's an OK time-waster.

BTW...why "Radar" men? They didn't use radar, they used Atomic Ray Guns. Shouldn't the title have been "Atomic Ray Gun Men From The Moon?"

The Radar Men from the Moon is a pretty typical fare of 1950's serials. The special effects are pretty cheap, the lunar rovers are obviously World War II surplus jeeps with painted plywood over them, and the like. The acting is only so-so. It does inspire the imagination of children, to whom I believe this was directed to. By today's standards, it's boring, cheap, and bad. There's also a hefty amount of stock footage in the first 9 episodes of natural disasters.

First off, it is absolutely dated. There are so many scientific inaccuracies mainly because we had not gotten to the moon as of yet. However, if I were a kid from this era I would much rather see this action short proceeding my film rather than say one of those century 21 shorts or the ones featuring the correct way to do posture. This one features a man who flies through the air with a rocket back pack, and must of been the inspiration for "The Rocketeer". It most certainly was the inspiration for a Mad TV skit featuring a team of guys with jet packs. In this one the hero of the piece, one Commander Cody, must battle a group of people from the moon bent on destroying things with their atomic ray gun! I think that was the plot, it is so hard to say seeing as how the story is broken up and they are always focused on some dangerous cliffhanger that gets quickly resolved in an anticlimactic way at the beginning of the next short. Still, for the time it had to be a lot of fun, I just wish I could see the conclusion to this one. I encountered this serial on MST3K and I do not believe they ever finished it, basically leaving us hanging!

In 1952, 17 years before Armstrong and Aldrin confirmed it, the moon was known as a dead world. Yet in this serial from Republic we see a moon civilization where they've all learned English getting ready for the day they conquer earth.

The moon's atmosphere which is non-existence is just thin there. Still these folks have mastered atomic weaponry and are going to conquer earth for our air polluted as that is at times.

Fortunately earth has Commando Cody played here by George Wallace with his jet pack flying suit who's got his own rocket ship. He can't fly as fast as Superman, but fast enough to get around.

Perennial western villain Roy Barcroft is Retik, CEO of the moon who tells the Commando of their plans for earth. It was a change of pace for Barcroft from westerns. Looks ridiculous though.

In fact ridiculous is just the word for this claptrap of a film.

This is a great example of the B&W serials from the 50's. If your interested in seeing what the old movie serials from the 50's looked like, this is a perfect example, and it is fun to watch.Sure by todays standards the special effects and acting are a little ham-fisted and archaic, but remember this is from 1951 to 52 before TV even took hold.

Radar Men has a good story that keeps you interested episode after episode. The special effects are great for the time period. Cool space gadgets, a full size rocket ship, modeIs galore. You can't ask for more. The acting is passable with some great emoting on the close- ups. I recommend catching it if you can. It is out on dvd now. I picked it up in a box set of hokey sci-fi from Platinum disc corporation.

From my review to The Rocketeer (1991): This serial made an easy transition to television, and was played every Saturday - some years every day - on television throughout the early 1960s. I sat glued whenever it was on. Commando Cody actually did look like he was flying! - But more importantly, being the last of the great serial heroes, his writers had learned from previous mistakes, not to let Cody or his friends - or his enemies - do any much talking. The serial was just one fist-fight, shoot-em-up-explosion after another; but, what made this important is that Cody thus had no time to doubt, to question, even to pose - he had to take decisive action at every minute - and he did! - this was no typical wimp (which by the mid-'60s were cluttering up comics, books, and films), this was a Man Of Action! And the second I recall ever seeing from popular culture (after Eliot Ness in the Untouchables).

Accept no imitations.

In 1936 Republic made a very boring serial called Undersea Kingdom. But it had some fancy aircraft effects. In 1941 Republic made an okay serial called The Adventures of Captain Marvel. But it had amazing flying footage of Marvel. In 1949 Republic made a reasonably good serial called King Of The Rocketmen. More amazing flying effects. This was all a lead up to something. In 1952 Republic would make a true comic book classic.

Republic Studio effects man Mr Howard Lydecker is the most under-rated effects man in Hollywood. His work in Radar Men (and the above mentioned serials) steals the show. We have full scale spaceships, miniature spaceships, rocketman flying in the sky, fancy sci-fi hardware all over the place (including an early model of that female robot from the Lost In Space episode "Ghost Planet"), it is all here!

I also like looking at 1950s cars race around country roads and there is no shortage of that here. All great stuff! The cast? I don't know any of them but who cares? This is just screen comic book entertainment and nothing else. In the 1960s Howard Lydecker would do effects for TV's Lost In Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Strategic targets on Earth are being destroyed by an unknown weapon. Government security head Henderson (Don Walters) suspects it's an "atomic ray" originating from the moon! This serial is heavily padded with rocket-suit effects footage first filmed for the earlier "King of the Rocket Men", to which some believe this was a pseudo-sequel. A repainted Juggernaut vehicle from the much-earlier "Undersea Kingdom" serial is also reused here as Retik's lunar tank. All spaceship footage was filmed new for the serial.

As silly as this serial is, it has successfully been influential on popular culture. I mean, "Commando Cody" is still remembered many decades later. And some say it was an influence on later films like "The Rocketeer" (though that is not confirmed to my knowledge).

If you have a sense of humor and enjoy looking for hokey outfits and implausible outcomes this movie series is for you. If Commando Cody had a lick of common sense (but he doesn't), he probably could have foiled the bad guys in the first episode. Lots of fights and classic endings where it looks like the good guy is done for, only to see an expanded clip in the next episode to show how he miraculously survived. A hoot!

Really, truly, abysmally, garishly, awful. But actor Clayton Moore (the movie Lone Ranger) acquits himself competently as an actor. He's the only one.

A rare treat, for five minutes, if you want to plumb the depths of grotesquely transparent special effects, southern California as "the moon" (again and again and again), and acting so woodenly inept that it may be a spoof . . . except that it's clear that it isn't--no humor here, except unintentionally.

The dialogue may be worse than any of these other aspects, and the costumes . . . well, enough said. Plot? What plot? Bad guy (well, head bad guy) and his henchmen, including his earthly agent called Krog (listen carefully or you'll suspect it's a spoof on the name of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc)and his unbelievably inept gunsels (who, however, have handguns that never need reloading; as does Commando Cody, so there are numerous firefight standoffs).

Enjoy.

Just a quick note for people of a certain age. When you hear the character "Graber" speak you will immediately recognize that voice, but not the face. It's Clayton Moore, TV's Lone Ranger. Now you know what he looks like without a mask,

George Wallace stars as Commando Cody, a scientist and inventor who uses a jet-pack and special helmet to fly around and fight bad guys. He must thwart the efforts of Retik (Roy Barcroft), Ruler of the Moon to spearhead an invasion of the Earth so that the dwindling population of the moon can move here. Retik tasks his lackey Krog (Peter Brocco) with using the advanced weaponry of the moon to weaken the Earth's defenses. Cody and his team of helpers fight Krog at every step, so Krog enlists Earth criminals Graber (Clayton Moore) and Daly (Robert Stevenson) to help out.

This serial introduces the recurring character of Commando Cody, but it doesn't give much background, and we jump right into the middle of the action. The movie reuses a lot of footage from earlier serials, most prominently King of the Rocketmen and The Undersea Kingdom. Chief villain Retik is wearing the same moldy costume previously used in The Purple Monster Strikes and Flying Disc Man from Mars. The action is typical serial stuff, with lots of fist fights, and shoot-outs where no one is actually shot. I enjoy how the villains often continue to punch Cody in his metal helmet. One would think that it would quickly become apparent that that was a bad idea. Future Lone Ranger Clayton Moore was said to have been very exuberant in his fight scenes, and even broke leading man Wallace's nose. Commando Cody shall return!

I believe that for any viewer to get any real entertainment value out of watching "Radar Men From The Moon" they are first, and foremost, going to have to be willing to cut this vintage presentation a helluva lot of slack.

And, if you can forgive this 12-chapter serial for all of its low-budget inadequacies, then, you are certain to find yourself quite amused by all of the straight-faced, unintentionally hilarious visuals, corny dialogue, and preposterous situations that prevail.

And, with that said - I have to admit that I certainly got quite an amused kick out of watching Commando Cody's flying sequences, as well as the ridiculously laughable look of his primitive jet-pack and comical headgear, too.

A mysterious set of explosions leaves Commander Cody to the conclusion that we are under attack from an unknown force. As we guessed from the title of the series it must be the "Radar Men from the Moon".

They have left nothing out and get to read the credits and even get to see the last chapter and find out what happened. Unfortunately, if you only bought volume one you will not find out what happened in the last chapter. Volume two may not be available.

The series should not be too violent for today's youngsters as most of the time everybody is just slugging each other and when they use guns, they cannot seem to hit anything other than other guns. If you are young enough, this series is very suspenseful. Otherwise, you spend most of your time thinking how dumb why did they not do this or why did not they do that. Anyway, there is a lot of staying in the car scenes or stay in the Rocketship scenes or do not fly to close scenes. The good guys consistently insist on being outnumbered in fisticuffs and get the snot beat out of them every time; when will they ever learn? And we know why; if you listen closely, you will recognize Clayton Moore (alias The Lone Ranger) without his mask. Still, they are persistent. Will it pay off and can Commando Cody save the day, or will the bad moon leader Retik rule the Earth?

There are more holes in the plot of this film than in a chunk of Swiss cheese. For example: how do you explain a trip from the earth to the moon done all in daytime? No space, just daytime. Pretty funny. There are two gunfights and two fistfights in just the first episode. It felt more like a bad Western than a sci-fi film. The antagonist, Commander Cody, is a pugilist, a gun enthusiast, and a brilliant scientist, who occasionally likes to play Superman, but without Superman's strength or other powers. He does jump very well before he takes off, however. Does one have to jump before taking off in a personalized rocket suit? I guess so. Watching one or two chapters of this cheese is more than enough for you to figure out completely what will take place. It is a less imaginative version of Flash Gordon, but without the intensity.