La Conquête de l'espace

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....

This movie recently came out on DVD so I rented it from Netflix. I'm reasonably familiar with the plot and the work of Bonestell, Pal, and Willey Ley, so I don't think I had unreasonable expectations for this movie. Sadly my expectations were still to high, as I didn't enjoy this movie despite the interesting visuals done up by Chesley Bonestell and George Pal.

Compare this movie to the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet, and think about which one gives you a better 'futuristic' portrayal of how mankind has advanced in 'the future'. Even allowing for the un-PC aspects of the 1950's (which I find amusing/enjoyable, not offensive), the plot devices of Conquest of Space are absurd. There's no way that a mission to mars wouldn't catch the mental problems inherent in one of the main characters, which is the primary plot device for causing peril in the mission.

Buy/rent this movie for the visuals of the space vehicles and Mars, and for the place in sci-fi history this movie occupies, not because you expect this to be a 'good' movie. The basic premises of the plot are pretty heavily flawed and therefore annoying.

It is interesting that Pal felt the first astronauts would be like navy crews - I don't think that NASA ever sent NCOs into space, only the best qualified scientists and pilots. The age of the commander would have disqualified him as well, and as it turns out, that would have been better for the expedition. I found the Irish "tag-along" character deeply annoying, and I am not sure how he could have managed to sneak on board.

All that aside, this was Hollywood's first serious attempt to reach Mars, and considering that Viking hadn't been there yet, it's not too bad. Shame about the blue skies...

Most interesting for me was that the futuristic "minimalist" fittings and fixtures on the space wheel look like nothing other than the style of the sets for the really up-to-date Star Trek: Enterprise.

Yes, just like the present, it's going to be a retro future, folks!

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.

Disregard the critics on this one. This unpretentious film has much to offer on many levels. First of all, the acting is very good, especially from first time non-actor Phil Foster, whose primary occupation was that of a 'stand up' comedian.

Also, the performance of the highly under appreciated character actor, Walter Brooke, is a winner. Brooke is believable as the General in charge of the Mars mission, whose mental fabric is rapidly deteriorating under the pressure of evolving religious misgivings about the divine role of humans in space. This challenge to religion, within the framework of a science fiction film, was quite daring for the time.

Although not one of Director George Pal's best, the film, nevertheless, affords an informative and highly entertaining look at how the "future used to be", as viewed by the 50's generation. And incredibly, among all of the things they got wrong, how very much they got right.