Red Planet Mars

5/15/19521h 27m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ SEE! The first contact between Earth and Mars! ~

Overview:

Husband-and-wife scientists pick up a pie-in-the-sky TV message supposedly from Mars.

Director:

Harry Horner

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Key words:

planet mars
martian
planet
scientist

Cast

Peter Graves

~ as ~

Chris Cronyn

Andrea King

~ as ~

Linda Cronyn

Herbert Berghof

~ as ~

Franz Calder

Marvin Miller

~ as ~

Arjenian

Orley Lindgren

~ as ~

Stewart Cronyn

Walter Sande

~ as ~

Admiral Bill Carey

Willis Bouchey

~ as ~

President

Morris Ankrum

~ as ~

Secretary of Defense Sparks

George Blagoi

~ as ~

Russian Official (uncredited)

Bayard Veiller

~ as ~

Roger Cronyn

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

CinemaSerf
Written 3 year(s) ago
5
I actually quite liked the underlying, and quite manipulative, concept of this film. "Cronyn" (Peter Graves) and his wife "Linda" (Andrea King) manage to make contact with Mars and low and behold, there's life there. Not only life, but a fairly benevolent one at that, that promises mankind salvation - quite literally - if they return to the teachings of the Bible and embrace God more fully. When this news reaches the ears of the wider public, mass indoctrination occurs across the world and an infrastructure of zealousness begins to prevail. Thing is, though, is this really a message from Mars at all - or is it a clever ploy by some Earth-bound entity to manoeuvre mankind into a form of pseudo-authoritarian society? The problem here is that the acting and writing are so nondescript that is rather leaves us to use our own imagination all too often. The philosophies offer clear allegory of "Red" = "Soviet" and the worse case scenario for humanity should an "enemy" ever prevail, but the film itself offers us little by way of action or dialogue to engage with or to entertain. Food for thought? Well at the height of the Cold War, then quite possibly - but what potency it had then has long since abandoned ship and we are now left with pace-less example of soundstage verbosity that again makes me wish that if ever aliens do attempt to contact mankind, maybe try those in Switzerland, India or somewhere less dogmatically militaristic.