Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

dougdoepke Lippert Pictures struck paydirt with 1950's Rocketship XM, and was hoping for a similar result with this feature. As early sci-fi, the movie's okay, but lacks the grit of its predecessor. The premise is a real stretch with an underground Martian civilization that speaks flawless English, while the women parade around like Las Vegas show girls. (Not that I'm complaining.) Then too, the rocketship crew treats their pioneering flight like a trip to the mall.But if you can get past some of this nonsense, parts of the movie are eye-catching. I really like the standing rocket in the dome with the people beneath. It's a well-done effect, especially in color. Also, the script deals fairly thoughtfully with the predicament the Martians find themselves in. In short, that aspect is not settled in a typical Hollywood wrap-up. Then there's the great Morris Ankrum as Ikrom, the sneaky plotter. Would any sci-fi of the period be complete without his lordly presence. Anyway, despite the pacing that sometimes drags, the movie ends up somewhere in the middle of all those goofy 50's space operas.

MartinHafer Note--While this is a color film, the DVD is very scratched and the colors are pretty faded.This is one of a bazillion films made during the 1950s about space flight to either the Moon or Mars. And, like so many of them, once they get there, they find people who look and talk much like us. And, like so many of these films there is a "hot babe" scientist among the crew (do they come any other way?!) and once there she is forced to wear REALLY hot babe-style clothes! And, like so many of these films, the natives turn out to be jerks who want to take over the Earth--just like in CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON--though at least the aliens ACT nicely for a while. So already at the onset, this film isn't exactly new or different--there are a lot of similar films.Despite all these similarities, I still enjoyed the movie. Seeing the Martians running about in their silly costumes as well as the humans landing on Mars dressed only in WWII-style bomber crew outfits both made me laugh and gave the film a kitschy-sort of style. You certainly don't watch films like this for their realism!! Believe it or not, while this movie is pretty high on the cheese-factor, considering it was made by a poverty-row studio (Monogram) it actually is amazingly good. Plus, the studio was able to scrape up the money for a couple minor stars who were good actors (Cameron Mitchell and Robert Barrat--a man who was a very prolific actor in the 1930s).For lovers of this sort of film, this is a must-see. Others might just find it all too old fashioned and silly to watch.

Robert J. Maxwell It is said that there are some people out there who actually ADMIRE Monogram's movies. Well -- and why not? Monogram Studios lived on a kind of Cost Plus basis; cost, plus enough to pay the rent and buy a pizza and a bottle of robust muscatel every once in a while. Sure, they're cheap. But let's face it: they're coarse, fast, Philistine, vulgar, but exhilarating. They have no pretensions at all. They're designed to divert the audience for an hour or so at the bottom of a double bill. So what if John Wayne gallops through the Wild West along a road lined with telephone poles? This isn't art, it's entertainment.Take this movie, "Flight to Mars." At the beginning, when we're first meeting the characters, a man might introduce his female companion abruptly, avoiding any tedious subtlety: "Professor, this is my fiancée and assistant, who is a rocket scientist and a beautiful woman. She loves me but is growing impatient with me because I'm always wrapped up in my scientific work. Perhaps you could steal her from me, marry her, give her the babies and the picket-fenced home she yearns for. If necessary I will die on this journey to see her dreams realized. Also, she likes it a little rough." It saves a lot of writing and shooting time, doesn't it? That's what people mean when they say a narrative is "fast". (This one was shot in five days.) Why should we have to hint about these things? I mean, what the hell is this, a cheap sci fi movie or Henry James? Actually this is a particularly well-funded example of a Monogram movie. It's in color, for one thing. "Cinecolor" to be exact. (You can tell it's not any other "color" you'd recognize.) And look at the cast. The female lead is dismissible, as is usual with Monogram, but the male leads are definitely up there on the B List. Cameron Mitchell as the reporter, yet to hit his stride as a male lead, which, come to think of it, he never really did. And Arthur Franz as the pipe-smoking head scientist, the pride of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. And -- for science fiction fans -- how about THIS pair of aces: both Morris Ankrum AND John Litel! There's not really much point in describing the plot in detail. The five crew members crash land on Mars where they find an underground civilization inhabited by organisms whose evolution was isomorphic with ours, right down to their having five digits and willowy babes in short skirts. And they picked up English from listening to our broadcasts. American broadcasts, that is, judging from their speech. They're led by a sinister cabal who try to hijack the space ship, build many imitations of it, and colonize earth. They do not succeed.The special effects aren't very special. The men walk around a couple of spare sets, wearing black costumes with stylized lightning bolts emblazoned on their chests and scarlet capes billowing behind them. Their names consist exclusively of English phonemes -- Alzar, Terris, Ikron. The lissome Martian who falls for Arthur Franz is named Alita, with an Indo-European diminutive appendage, and she already knows what kissing is.Overall, I found it as snappy as it was intended to be, but dull too. The story is that of any Buck Rogers 1930s serial. Once the earthlings and the Martians meet and it's established that they have a common language, and that the Martians have a sinister agenda, that's it. In two hours, even an indifferent screenwriter could turn this into a story of Nazi spies in World War II. The plot is done by the numbers, the dialog has no sparkle, the acting is pedestrian.However, dedicated aficionados of Monogram productions should enjoy it. After all, Jean-Luc Goddard, the contrarian French egghead, dedicated "A Bout de Soufflé" to Monogram, so they can't have been all that bad.

ptb-8 Monogram Pictures fizz off into outer space using gym locker room sets as spaceship interiors, military disposal store props and 2 color color and then reveal Mars is populated with man hungry showgirls wearing miniskirts sporting hairdoos by the Bettie Page salon de crater. What's not to like? this theme was recycled into at least three films I embrace equally: Cat Women Of The Moon, The Queen Of Outer Space (yippee!) and Mesa Of Lost Women. Showgirls, hairy spiders with goggly eyes, fellers with tin ray guns and possibly the same sweat stained space suits in each film. Very good. This one skipped the spider though and is a remake of Rocketship XM. I love the idea we can get into a flying pencil-case with a cracker up the exhaust pipe, settle into a bunk yanked from a submarine, crash-land in a quarry and meet scantily clad ex-LasVegas assistant cashiers who each look like Aunty Lorraine and her gal-pal Lois. You know you are really living when this is exciting.