Destination Mars

Poster tagline: FIFTY YEARS INTO THE FUTURE!!! THE MOST FANTASTIC EXPEDITION CONCEIVED BY MAN!! Filmmakers have been fascinated with space since the beginnings of cinema. The focus of interest was always the moon, but it started to change in the 1950s, and this one is the second film (after Rocketship X-M) that deals with a trip to Mars. Awareness of cosmic laws was not yet high, so the astronauts encounter a swarm of dangerously aggressive small stars (here named "shooting stars"), resembling meteoroids, and land on Mars in an avalanche of snow, so there’s no chance to wonder at the advanced Martian civilization. The fact that the film was shot in color (which was not yet standard at the time) is a testament to the austere production design depicting Martian architecture with slanted corridors, windows of all possible shapes, and two effects shots: a brief macro view of an underground city with flying objects and a hangar with a crashed rocket. While Earthlings walk around in the Martian air in flight suits with oxygen muzzles, Martians wear brightly coloured jumpsuits with helmets that resemble today's astronaut helmets in shape and size. The first dialogue when both civilisations meet is funny. The Martians speak English , they learnt it from radio broadcasts from Earth, and when asked why we never caught their radio broadcasts, they explain that they know how to receive them, but not how to transmit them. The script smacks a bit of chauvinism, with the roles of the women (all of them in miniskirts without exception, and some with dangerously deep cleavages) being reduced to rivals in love, or a traitorous element. The quick ending is a bummer, it looks as if they had run out of budget. All in all, though, a pretty entertaining sci-fi B-movie with quite nice visuals. (01/03/2013)