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The early 1950s
brought moviegoers a number of space travel features – Destination Moon (1950),
Rocketship X-M (1950), Project Moonbase (1953), Flight To Mars (1951) and
Conquest of Space (1955), just to name a few. Rocketship X-M was the first to
be released of all these features and has always been a favorite of mine of
these early space travel films. The film was also entitled Expedition Moon and
Rocketship Expedition Moon. Rocketship X-M stars a very young Lloyd Bridges and
Danish beauty - Osa Massen
In a race to
establish a military base on the moon, a group of scientists led by Dr. Karl
Eckstrom (John Emery) blast off on the first space expedition to the moon but
are veered off course during a meteor shower and land on Mars instead. Other
members of the expedition include Colonel Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges), Dr.
Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen), Harry Chamberlain (Hugh O’Brian) and William
Corrigan (Noah Beery Jr.). A romance between Graham and Van Horn eventually
surfaces.
As the entire
crew of Rocketship X-M explore the planet Mars, the group discovers an ancient
civilization that was likely destroyed long ago by atomic war. They encounter
damaged buildings and sculptures left behind by the Mars inhabitants. The
scenes of the explorers on Mars are filmed with an interesting sepia tone of
brown and red. The entire planet appears to be a dry desert climate void of any
life.
The crew of
Rocketship X-M later encounters a group of primitive cavemen who run around
with animal loin cloths and carry bludgeons. One close up shot of the only
cavewoman in the film reveals that she wears lipstick and make-up and has well-groomed
hair. Even Martian cave women want to look beautiful for their cavemen. Three
of the crew members of Rocketship X-M are attacked by the cavemen and later die
from their injuries.
Dr. Lisa Van
Horn and Colonel Floyd Graham race back to the rocketship carrying injured
Harry Chamberlain with them. The Mars cavemen are on their trail. As the
rocketship blasts off the planet Mars, Van Horn discovers that the ship does
not have enough fuel for it to land safely back on earth. Van Horn and Graham
embrace each other, knowing they are going to die on their return trip. They
reveal their attraction and love for each other in their final moments before
the ship crashes back on earth.
The sepia tone
sequences in the film of the surface of Mars may have been an inspiration for
the 1959 Ib Melchior film – Angry Red Planet. In that film, a gimmick known as
“cine-magic” is used, which is a red, pinkish filter used for scenes on the
planet Mars. This seems appropriate for the film, since Sidney Pink was the
writer and producer of the film.
Academy Award
winners Dennis Muren, Bob Skotak Tom Scherman, Mike Minor with film historian
and archivist Bob Burns, produced three minutes of new footage inserted into
Rockship X-M in 1978. This new footage replaced existing stock footage and
special effects. This 1978 footage can be seen in the Wade Williams volume four
Science Fiction Gold – Englewood Entertainment VHS print of the film released
in 1997.
Although
Destination Moon is a color feature space travel film released just a month
after Rocketship X-M, and later won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, I
find Rocketship X-M to be a more entertaining film. Its plot is much simpler
and the entire film had a budget of only about 15 percent of Destination Moon,
but the result is a space adventure feature that manages to entertain the
viewer. Happy viewing.
Steve D. Stones
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