La Conquête de l'espace

Conquest of Space is certainly worth a look for anyone examining the more realistic (at least at the time) cinematic examinations of space exploration. The space "wheel" scenes might be viewed as primitive precursors to the station in 2001. The acting and script are typical of the era--the comic relief in particular is grating at times. But the effects are well-done, especially shots of approaching rockets viewed from space, and meteoric fragments which bombard a hapless spaceman. A minor effort next to Pal's other films of the period, but not a bad way to spend an hour and a half.

I first saw this one Saturday afternoon when I was about 14 and immediately fell in love with it.I realize it is a little corny at times,and Mickey Shaughnessy is pretty hard to take,but otherwise it is a fun movie.Good special effects,and the cast does a nice job(no matter what critics of this movie say),especially Walter Brooke ,one of my favorite unsung character actors.Watch it if you get the chance!

Not George Pal's best,but at least he had us farther along then we are now.His unflagging optimism was all up there on the screen.As a kid who built space ship models I loved this stuff.The film drags a little now,but the dead astronaut's body tagging along for the ride till his "at sea" burial,kept me awake all night at age 8.movie trivia moment:character actor William Redfield who washed out of the mission crew got to pilot the miniaturized sub in "Fantastic Voyage".Talk about perseverance!

Ambitious in scope, undeniably action-packed: George Pal's third 1950s sci-fi film is loaded with glorious, Technicolor special effects that rival `2001: A Space Odyssey' (supervised by John P. Fulton). The basic plot (the first manned mission Mars) can be criticized for being little more than a rehash of `Destination Moon' -- but it's a theme no one really minds repeating.

Unfortunately, the movie suffers mightily from the embarrassing performances of some of its stars. The script contains several ethnic stereo-types which are just short of tasteless ethnic jokes. Perhaps the film's worst flaw is its choice of `villains' -- a mission commander who goes crazy from reading the Bible too much. The message isn't really anti-religious, but it can easily be misinterpreted as such.

However, if you're able to get around this particular flaw, `The Conquest of Space' is a wonderful science fiction adventure. Impressive sets and props by art directors Hal Pereira and Joseph MacMillan Johnson. Excellent music by Van Cleave (`The Space Children', `The Colossus of New York'). The story is based on a book by Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell (who also provided the great space art which the matte shots are based on).

When you watch this film, remember that the plans for the first satellite -- much less the first Mars mission -- were years away. All in all, they did pretty good. And my class of fourth grade students agree.

I just bought the DVD of this film, since this was the first George Pal sci-fi film in cinemascope, and I thought it would look pretty good in the letterbox format. The quality was slightly better than the television versions I'd seen in the past, but not incredibly so. The DVD was pretty cheap, so I'm not that disappointed. This film has always interested me because I've always been able to pinpoint when a film was made just by its look, and this one stumped me as a kid. When I first saw this in the seventies on TV I thought, "gee, this is either a very good scifi film from the fifties , or a cheap, bad scifi film from the sixties"....since the effects were elaborate, but hokey, and virtually all the actors were from, or in the case of this film, about to be, familiar TV faces,,,,,with some actors terribly miscast, such as Phil Foster (Laverne DeFazios dad)as a master electrician, and Mickey O'shawnessey as the general's lapdog.....of course, once I realized this was made in 1955, and was a George Pal production, I knew the science would be relatively accurate for the era , and was. In fact its straight out of Von Braun's blueprints, which were eventually altered quite a bit when we actually went to the moon.

What really hurts the film for me, is the silly script which propels the "plot" such as it is. I mean, can you actually believe that the commander of the space station would assemble an enormous spacecraft and only question its design and "whats it for" after it is finished. Then , be told by the designer that it was made to travel to Mars and not the moon, as everyone had expected......and you leave, tomorrow!.....right, just like that, just hop in and go.... Then, as in George Pal's Destination Moon, you constantly have the dumb astronaut (in this case,Foster) asking stupid questions, so that the "audience" can get some accurate scientific explanation for why they can or cannot do something in space. For example , Foster is afraid to go outside the ship (going 20,000 mph)because he thinks he'll fall off and be left behind, but is assured that hes going as fast as the ship and there's no wind friction to blow him off. I mean, would you let someone that clueless go outside the ship to make repairs? Then there's the scene where the Foster is informed they wont be able to take off for a year, the next time the earth aligns with mars......gee, I kinda would like to know those little things before I volunteered for that mission......I kinda understand that its hard to relate all the scientific facts to the audience without sounding academic, but springing it on them in dialogue where the characters should reasonably already know the score.......reminds me of something Kubrick said when he was making 2001: a Space Odyssey....he never wanted to have a scientist in his space movie have to explain scientific principles to the audience....like Mr . Wizard,,,"well, Jimmy , it works like this",,,,,I paraphrase, of course....