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Film (1950; vt Expedition Moon). Lippert. Produced, directed and written by Kurt Neumann. Cast includes Lloyd Bridges, John Emery and Osa Massen. 78 minutes. Black and white.
This cheap movie was hastily made to beat the more illustrious Destination Moon (1950) to the theatres. A Rocket on its way to the Moon is diverted by a storm of meteors and lands on Mars instead. The astronauts find evidence that the planet has suffered an atomic war, and encounter a race of Mutants. In an unexpectedly downbeat ending the returning rocket crashes on Earth and all are killed. Some cinéastes like this Space Opera better than the more technological film on whose advance publicity it was designed to get a free ride – especially the atmospheric Mars sequences, tinted red in the film's original prints and well photographed by Karl Struss in the Mojave Desert.
A German director who came to Hollywood in 1925, Neumann is best known for The Fly (1958); he also made Kronos (1957). [JB/PN]
see also: Cinema.
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Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 16:33 pm on 24 April 2024.
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