Destination Mars

An exploratory expedition to Mars crashlands on the planet and receive aid from an underground Martian civilization(which no the expedition are not at all surprised to discover living on the planet) but can these Martians be trusted?

Despite its flaws and low budget, I can't help loving the 1950s sci-fi style utilized in the film from the model rocketships to the leggy costumes worn by the Martian women to the predictable film climax. Any fan of films from the era should at least see this film. There are times this film tries to reach above its limitations and it succeeds in doing so just a little.

I saw this film years ago, Before Starwars, and may I rise to defend it? This film is the American version of Aelita, from the novel by Count Alexei Tolstoy (the less famous of the writing counts Tolstoy) and the first version of the novel is worth reading (he later did many more versions to try to please Stalin, but that's another story.) A Russian Engineer and a Revolutionary fly to Mars, which was colonized by humans from Earth's Atlantis in the past (who inter-married with the natives -- they have blue skin)-- the planet is dying of lack of resources and a revolution is brewing. Aelita is the local princess. In the end, the Earthmen precipitate a doomed uprising and flee. The Russian movie tells much the same tale, but in the end it turns out to have been a dream. The American version is in many ways a faithful retelling of the novel done under a low budget. There is the engineer with the unhappy love-life, the revolutionary has been replaced by the reporter (who was in the book too), and Aelita becomes Alita, a Martian engineer with a slip stick as long as her arm. The movie came out from Monogram and was written and directed by people who specialized in westerns, produced by someone who specialzied in Westerns (of the B variety) and by Water Mirisch, who was the only one to break from the mold (with, oddly enough, a western, 'The Magnificient Seven,' which was also cannibalized from someone else's work. And it isn't that bad. For Monogram it was a high budget production; the special effects (the meteors hitting the rocket, the rocket crashing in snow covered mountains) were re-used again and again and have been seen in many other movies and TV shows. Of course they had to hide the origins. This was 1951 and Tail Gunner Joe was looking for commies under every bed, and while Tolstoy may have been a nobleman, he went out writing propaganda for Uncle Joe.

Flight to Mars was made in the hey-day of the Cold War, so perhaps it is not unreasonable that Monogram films chose not to advertise that the original story was "Aelita," by the Russian novelist Alexei Tolstoy.

Of course, the main character's name, Alita, does sort of give that away. The basic story line and character line up were retained, with the exception of the professional revolutionary who got dropped. In the book the reporter appears at the beginning and end of the narrative, and does not accompany the characters to Mars. In the book the engineer was married, not afianced. Of course, the Russians also filmed Aelita as a silent. What is interesting is that the American version is more faithful to the original plot.

Cheesy, shlocky and campy as it is, I suppose that 1951's "Flight to Mars" still has a claim to historical relevance. According to one of my film Bibles, "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia," it was "the first space-flight movie in color." But hey, wait a minute...what about "Destination Moon," made the year before? Better make that "one of the first..." Anyway, in this one, newsman Cameron Mitchell tags along with four scientists (one of them the obligatory hotty female scientist) on the first, uh, flight to Mars. The group's members wear bomber jackets and wide-brimmed hats, more suitable for a fishing expedition, and, during liftoff, strap themselves into blanketed cots. After toughing it out through a meteor storm (that looks like a bunch of orange dots), our Earth band finds the remnants of an underground Martian civilization, whose remaining members attempt to steal the Earth ship so as to evacuate their dying planet. Luckily, for the male Terran viewer, some of these Martians are leggy, miniskirted and babelicious; one of them is even named Aelita, in a not-so-subtle homage to the 1924 Russian sci-fi classic "Aelita, Queen of Mars." The sets and FX on display here, it must be said, range from imaginative and impressive to slapdash and laughable. (It's hard to believe that "Forbidden Planet," one of the real sci-fi champs, with its superb FX, was made a scant five years later!) The film's Cinecolor looks just fine on the DVD that I just watched, but the source print itself has been badly damaged, with many words missing. A somewhat tense finale, unfortunately, is also marred by a too abrupt ending. All in all, a mixed bag that should still be of interest to fans of '50s sci-fi. Oh, by the way: Cameron Mitchell reveals, in one of the DVD's extras, that this movie was filmed in just five days! Maybe they should have taken six.

OK. As far as sci-fi flicks go, this is a mildly competent low-budget space movie. But it launches into eye-popping glory when barely- clad Martian women suddenly appear (and thoughtfully lend some clothing to the previously fabric-laden Earth woman). A mini-skirt suggests something that would cover posteriors. These take it one step beyond tennis dress short and into swimsuit country when we are treated to views of matching underwear, which the skirts don't cover. Other than that, the film is pretty awful, including an ending that seems as if filming was halted by the studio precisely at 3:00 pm or whatever so they could start shooting the next film. This film does mark a high point for Monogram studio--the set design rises far and above what they usually do. If you grew up during the Cold War, you will have affection for this film, despite its faults. The haminess of the dialog and acting, along with the matte drawings of the futuristic city will bring anyone back to the charms and fears of fifties America. So despite it's cheesiness, Flight to Mars is a small gem.