Mission Mars (film)

Mission Mars
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Nick Webster
Produced by Everett Rosenthal
Screenplay by Mike St. Clair
Story by Aubrey Wisberg
Starring Darren McGavin
Nick Adams
George De Vries
Michael DeBeausset
Music by Berge Kalajian, Gus Pardalis, The Forum Quorum
Cinematography Cliff Poland
Edited by Paul Jordon
Production
company
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Red Ram Productions[1][2]
Release date
  • 26 July 1968 (1968-07-26) (United States)
Running time
 90 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Mission Mars is a 1968 American science fiction film. It was produced by Everett Rosenthal, with a screenplay by Mike St. Clair from a story by Aubrey Wisberg, and directed by Nick Webster.[1][2]

Summary

The United States launches three astronauts on a mission to land on Mars at around the same time that the Soviet Union launches its own secret Mars mission. On their way to Mars, the American astronauts encounter the drifting bodies of two Soviet cosmonauts, who they realize must have been buried in space. The American spacecraft lands safely on Mars, albeit farther away than planned from its accompanying supply capsule. The astronauts set out toward the supply capsule, leaving a line of balloons to mark their trail. They discover that there is a hole burned into the supply capsule's hull and that the balloons have been removed. They also discover a third cosmonaut, standing frozen in a state of suspended animation, who revives once brought inside the American spacecraft. The astronauts then encounter a strange creature (called a "Polarite"), which threatens them but which they neutralize by firing beam weapons at its single red eye. Ground controllers advise the astronauts that the Polarites seem to be robots controlled by an external influence. An alien sphere appears on the Martian surface; when Duncan, one of the astronauts, approaches the sphere he is dragged inside by a mysterious force and killed. The sphere is emitting a force field which prevents the American spacecraft from taking off. An attempt to escape by using booster rockets from the supply capsule fails. The cosmonaut tells the Americans that the sphere can be deactivated by destroying a disc inside it. Nick Grant, the American geologist-astronaut, volunteers to do so and succeeds at the cost of his life. Col. Mike Blaiswick, the surviving American astronaut, and the Soviet cosmonaut escape Mars in the American spacecraft and learn that Blaiswick's wife is pregnant.[1][2]

Cast

  • Darren McGavin: Col. Mike Blaiswick
  • Nick Adams: Nick Grant
  • George De Vries: Duncan
  • Michael DeBeausset: Cliff Lawson
  • Heather Hewitt: Edith Blaiswick
  • Shirley Parker: Alice Grant[1][2]

Reception


Science fiction scholar Gary Westfahl stated in his book The Spacesuit Film that Mission Mars "devolves into a conventional monster movie."[3] Writer Thomas Kent Miller commented, "The last 50 minutes of this 90-minute movie about the first trip to Mars would have made a wonderful episode of the original 1960s Outer Limits  ... But as a theatrical movie, it's beyond awful (as bad as the same director's Santa Claus Conquers the Martians)."[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Westfahl, Gary (2012). The Spacesuit Film: A History, 1918–1969. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 214–216, 333. ISBN 978-0-7864-4267-6.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Miller, Thomas Kent (2016). Mars in the Movies: A History. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 96–98. ISBN 978-0-7864-9914-4.
  3. ↑ Westfahl, p. 214.
  4. ↑ Miller, pp. 97–98.
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