The Heck with the Moon! Let's go to Mars!

 

In 1950, producer George Pal was making the film Destination Moon and was generating a lot of publicity in anticipation of its release. So, when the production of that film was delayed, the low-budget Lippert Productions spent $94,000 and took just 18 days to churn out Rocketship X-M. This was released before Pal's movie, capitalizing on its publicity. (Though they miss the Moon and end up on Mars to avoid any possible legal action.)

I have always been a defender of the B-movies from the 1930s, '40s and '50s. I believe that creative directors, clever scripts and good acting often gave us 65 to 90 minutes of great storytelling. After all, the term "B-movie" at that time did not mean Bad Movie. It simply referred to the second half of a double-feature without commenting on the quality.

So it should be no surprise when I say I enjoyed Rocketship X-M. Like the higher-budget film it was piggy-backing off of, it's about the first manned trip to the Moon. In this case, though, things go awry and the rocket ends up heading for Mars.

Once there, they discover that there was once an advanced civilization on Mars, but it had destroyed itself in nuclear war. Soon, caveman survivors of that war are making things dangerous for the visiting humans.

The cast includes Lloyd Bridges, Noah Berry, Jr. and Hugh O'Brian--talented actors who are able to give personality to their characters despite the sometimes awkward dialogue. And the characters they are playing are the kind I like in most stories--intelligent people who try to logically think their way through problems. 

For instance, when their trip to the moon is interrupted by engine failure, the two scientists in the crew spend quite a bit of time calculating new fuel mixtures, then leave it to the pilot and engineer to re-jigger the engines to make this work. That the new fuel mixture didn't work as planned (it sends them on a high-speed trip to Mars) doesn't make the scientists look stupid. The movie plans out in a way that lets us know these are smart people--they just took a gamble with something new that they weren't able to test experimentally first.  

The film isn't without its flaws. For instance, those fuel mixture calculations are all done with paper and pencils. Apparently, computers don't exist in this particular universe.  Though, to be fair, this helped emphasize that the scientists are constructing brand new ideas from scratch.

Also, the movie tries a little too hard for a strict realism that wasn't really needed to tell the story. We see some small pieces of equipment floating around when the ship reaches space, telling us that they are now in a zero-g environment. But the crew moves around normally, without any effort to themselves simulate zero-gravity. With such a low budget, there probably wasn't much they could have done in this regard, so it probably would have been better to just have ignored it completely. 

And, for heaven's sake, Lloyd Bridges--when you are in space, they are called "meteoroids," not "meteorites!"

But these are minor flaws. The cramped interior of the rocket looks good and the scenes on Mars, filmed in sepia-tones in Death Valley, do give an alienesque aura. 

The movie has an effective bittersweet ending, containing a strong anti-war message (inserted by Dalton Trumbo when he was brought in as a script doctor) and reminding us that exploration and discovery comes with a cost in human lives.

You know, this is at least the second time I have praised a movie that was once skewered on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  And I understand the recent re-boot of that show made fun of 1974's The Land That Time Forgot. I think MST3K is an hilarious show, but perhaps they should start checking with me about what movies are actually bad.