The Angry Red Planet
by Ib Melchior
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DVD details
Actor: Gerald Mohr, Jack Kruschen, Les Tremayne, Naura Hayden, Paul HahnDirector: Ib Melchior
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 83 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-11-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of The Angry Red Planet
DVD Review: the angry red planet
Summary: 1 Stars
This the worst movie ever made. plan 9 from outer space is gone with wind compared to this crapDVD Review: The Angry Red Planet is P.O.'d! Red Hot Space Adventure.
Summary: 3 Stars
The Air Force space agency finds and lands "by robotic control" a ship they had earlier sent to Mars but presumed lost.
Good story and a break from the usual space sci-fi formula. They find two survivors including the biology doctor, Iris and the captain, who has a growth on his arm that the medicos can't figure out how to kill.
In a desperate attempt to figure it all out, they have Iris recall what happened. The majority of the movie is her recall of what happened.
We have the goofy radio man, the strong captain, the wise professor and Iris who turns her toe and puts on perfume during the flight. Oh brother. There are some clearly dated and stereotypic characters.
The bright spot for me was the "cinemagic" technique of making super-saturated red color of the matte paintings that were the Martian surface. The bright orange was almost neon in effect and quite striking.
The glimpse of the Martian city with its tall spires was something out of the Jetsons.
No real space suits, a professor smoking a pipe on board the ship, and the funny space monsters made this an unintentionally funny voyage. The Rat-Bat-Spider thing, it is said, was the inspiration for the Cloverfield monster!
The final warning from Mars is basically stay off the planet because of your immature attitude and wanton destructive nature of your species. Gee, warn a guy, will ya?
Not a bad job for an American International film. You should rent it!
DVD Review: Good Representation of 50s Sci-Fi Films
Summary: 4 Stars
Filmed in the never-used-again 'CineMagic' process (which turns everything a solarized pink color), The Angry Red Planet has everything a 50s sci-fi film MUST have. The cowboy, doesn't-play-by-the-rules pilot, the wise and nerdy Professor, the sidekick who loves to shoot first, then ask questions later (often skipping the latter), and the hot female lead.
The plot involves the first mission to Mars, which has lost communication with Earth after landing on the planet (due apparently to some 'force field' which prevents radio signals to reach Earth). The ship returns to Earth with a badly infected pilot, and a comatose crew member.
There is a bit more adherence to the realities of space travel (but not much). For example, the point is made that the lag for radio communications would be significant between Mars and Earth. The lack of weightlessness is explained by the constant one-G acceleration (saving lots of money feigning floating astronauts).
Some of the more amusing moments involve the spacecraft. For example, it features lockers like you'd find in a gym. Everyone sleeps in military-style bunk beds. There is a cute old-fashioned wall clock in analog form. There is a time-of-mission that features numerals slipped into a frame (the trip to Mars is a highly unrealistic 47 days instead of the nine-month trip that it probably would take).
The beautiful babe is actually played with some aplomb by a legitimate beauty, Naura Hayden, who plays Dr. Iris Ryan. She, of course, is hotly pursued by the heavily chest-haired Gerald Mohr, who probably contrary to regulations, frequently has his shirt open to the waist. The professor is played by Les Tremayne, who does play it low-keyed and admits at one point he doesn't know what causes some action. BTW, Tremayne, who passed away in 2003, had a long, successful career as a voice actor, and who also appeared briefly in 'North by Northwest'.
The monsters: Much has been made about the native life on Mars as envisioned in this film. There is plenty of it, and most of it seems inimical to life (at least Earth life). There are carnivorous plants, as described in a believable fashion by Dr. Ryan. There is also a very cool spider with a bat body that appears to be about 20 foot tall. The worst, probably, is an aquatic creature with one eye that revolves 360 degrees at a high rate of speed. This could not evolve because one eye is too easily lost, and how could a nerve connect to an eye revolving completely around an axis?
The city that is briefly viewed is stunning for the time, and hints of a highly-evolved life on the planet. Why they didn't get rid of plants and animals that probably could kill them in short order is unknown. It's like having cougars and grizzly bears roaming in modern-day Washington D.C. Might make for some interesting, if bloody, political theater, but one would think there would be some clamor for streets free of deadly wildlife. But what do I know. Maybe the Martians like to play it rough.
Recommended if you like 50s sci-fi. Not campy enough to recommend if you don't enjoy a bit of cheese with your entertainment. It is nice to see a woman space traveler who doesn't scream at every turn, but is portrayed as a serious scientist.
One off-note. As soon as the Earthlings land on the planet, the first thing they do is blast away at the native lifeforms with a freezing raygun, destroying it. Hmmm, not the best example of friendliness to another life-filled planet, is it?
DVD Review: Getchyaasstomarsgetchyaasstomarsgetchyaasstomars
Summary: 3 Stars
Mars is a lousy vacation spot when it's in a good mood(just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger), but when it's pissed, it's downright mean.
When a rocket is retrieved from a troubled Mars expedition, it's only coherent survivor(Naura Hayden) tells a tale of how upon landing, the crew is menaced by man(and woman)eating plants, a giant amoeba, a triclops, and that spider-bat monster from the Misfits' Walk Among Us album cover. Basically it's a subtle hint to Earth to leave Mars the hell alone!
Fairly typical 50s sci-fi silliness, so you know what your pretty much in for. The irritating thing about this film is the annoying red filter used for the scenes taking place on Mars' surface. I know this supposed to be snazzy looking, but....it's not! I think it was probably also used to mask the fakeness of the creatures to some degree, but fake is fake. Besides, we goofballs who like this stuff love the fake creatures!
Only fans of(bad) 50's sci-fi need apply.
DVD Review: Awful in the right ways
Summary: 3 Stars
A clear B- in the land of B movies. Slopped together on the cheap and mostly featuring a redheaded female with pretty eyes - and some of the worst special effects ever foisted on a defenseless audience. SEE the garish and yet strangely fascinating red-orange special effects! HEAR the wooden and generally forced dialogue! BE AMAZED by hand drawn cardboard monsters and flora! EXPERIENCE the even-worse-than-average attempts at Science! If you want to know what you're getting into, just watch the trailer; it really sets the tone. There's a reason they harp on the CineMagic special effects -- it's the star of the show.
All that said, if you're going to watch it with the understand that it's clumsy and unintentionally campy even by the low standards of the day, and you like laughing at such things, the movie won't disappoint.
Description of The Angry Red Planet
Although widely admired among longtime science fiction fans, The Angry Red Planet is merely a substandard entry from the genre's 1950s heyday. With wooden performances, atrocious dialogue, and some monsters that would scare only very young kids, it's perfect fodder for a rainy- day marathon of cheesy movies, as long as you keep your expectations low. Following the standard plot of its day, the movie tells (in flashback) the story of four astronauts who land Rocket M-1 on Mars, only to find the "angry red planet" lives up to its nickname. The plants are carnivorous, there's a gigantic "bat-rat-spider-crab" that can snap humans in half with its pincers, and a slithering Jello-beast with a rotating eyeball that threatens to dissolve the rocket ship into a pile of digested goo.Naturally, there's an onboard flirtation between shapely space-gal Nora Hayden and astro-hunk Gerald Mohr (who inexplicably spends the last half-hour with his hairy chest exposed), while Les Tremayne and Jack Kruschen play the stock characters (respectively) of elder scientist and blue-collar engineer--the latter toting an "ultrasonic freezer gun" that forces attacking monsters to chill out. If that's not enough to whet your schlock-movie appetite, the scenes on Mars were filmed in a gimmicky pink-hued process called "Cinemagic," which resembles a negative image covered in Pepto-Bismol. Is this any way to spend 83?precious minutes? Look at it this way: When an angry Martian warns humans to stay away ("you are technological adults, but spiritual and emotional infants"), you may be laughing enough to make it all worthwhile. --Jeff Shannon
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