Manhunt in Space

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.

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.

Long before Gene Roddenberry had his Romulans invent the cloaking device of invisibility on Star Trek, the creators of Rocky Jones - Space Ranger had Rocky's ship the Orbit Jet outfitted with something called cold light which accomplished the same thing. In Manhunt In Space Rocky needs the cold light in order to ferret out some space pirates who are robbing the earth supply ships to Cassa-7 blind and leaving them in permanent orbit around the planet.

The pirates are led by a couple of earth traitors Henry Brandon and Gibor Curtiz. And of course perennial villain and diva Patsy Parsons as the evil Queen Cleolanta of Ophesius is behind the dirty business.

Sally Mansfield as Vena Ray, Rocky's trusty navigator we find out has a brother in Tom Brown who's in charge of the settlement on Cassa-7. He's also got a traitor in his operation as well.

Some bad editing let a few key scenes go by without proper foundation. Still for those of us who were kids in the Fifties and loved this show back then, Manhunt In Space is your thing.

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.

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.